sjo4, I am teaching at the moment but I am at the maximum hours that they will let me do per week(6). I would have to take on another job, yet the preparation for my teaching as it is eats into my time and concentration let alone doing something else alongside. This may be easier next year as I will have already done the prep this year and will be used to the course content.
An option I considered was to drop down to part time on the PhD and allow myself to get more work - if this was the case I could probably afford the part time fees. I just don't know if that sort of thing would be frowned upon, or if there would be a hassle with registration/completion time.
Sorry, I just felt like a moan today!

Thanks for all your replies - I posted this because I am going through a particularly bad time with work. Some of your posts have been really positive.
I got to a situation at the end of last week where I am thinking of quitting (I know everyone says this at some point). I am having so much trouble writing (and reading) after having a gap from academia, everything I once knew seems to have totally dissapeared from my head!!
I know this sounds rather silly, but also worrying me is that my funding for next year is uncertain and if I have to rely completely on self funding then I will be in serious trouble as I currently stand. Part of me thinks that there is no point doing all this work if I can't carry it on and am forced to drop out.
I just don't know what to do!

No I haven't because when I've used them in the past I've always had problems getting them to stay in my ears (same with earphones, I must have weird shaped ears) - anyway, that was a while ago so I should have another go with them! I never thought to use them in the library, thanks Olivia

My usual fix is to go and tell a librarian to come and tell them off (probably worse and more obvious than me telling them to shut up!! hehe) but there is only us and one other guy here... so it would be obvious it was me I wish I wasn't such a wuss.

Olivia, I envy anyone able to work with music on!
I am stuck in the library 'silent area' with the obligatory idiots who comes here to have a loudly whispered conversation... I don't really have the guts to tell them to shut up, so instead they get "the look" needless to say it doesn't work.

I'm settling in for a night of work, I've given up trying to be sociable and working daytime hours. So I'm trying to adjust my sleeping patterns to when I work best (i.e. very late at night/early morning), got to finish this work somehow! Anyone else out there or is it just me and the red bull? It's lonely work.... :(

Possibly not as sad as using cheats to make them have affairs and hate each other?

This is really sad too, but I've always wanted to work in a pen shop - simply for the love of stationery

I must admit I do feel an almost evil buzz being able to dazzle people into confusion by telling them what I am doing my PhD on! Err...even if I don't understand it myself

drwhoknows, ok so only another 3+ years of misery?

For those who have been doing theirs for a few more years than me, what exactly are the good bits to the PhD? Does the bad always outweigh the good? This morning I am feeling considerably downbeat about it and lots of posts on this forum highlight the bad side but there must be some reason we put ourselves through this even when we know the job prospects at the end of it are just as tough (for those who want to go into academia) :(

H, yes it does actually taste alcoholic. Not sure you can distinguish that the alcohol is champagne but there's something there.
I don't think there's anything wrong with liking champagne marmite AND a nice new pen, since you can use both at the same time??

I agree, I found Sims for the DS a bit too limiting. I have Sims Life Stories for the PC and also playing Sims Castaway on the PSP but I'm stuck on the mountain and it says I don't have enough strength, even when the meters are all green.. so I have kind of given up on that for a while. I see my Sims as having a better social life than I do (even the ones stranded on a desert island), therefore they allay most of my anxieties of having become a hermit over the past 6 months ;)

May I ask why trout in particular?

Studentken - I think you have made a very good point... I don't understand what I am reading, therefore I am finding it nearly impossible to put together a literature review where I 'review' things I don't get!!

I have decided today to abandon the mess I was in previously and start afresh, go through all my notes again and just write about 500 words on each book without trying to see where it fits in to everything else. Before I was just picking at bits which seemed to make the task impossible... thanks for your suggestions everyone