Blogademia
Thursday, September 16, 2004
 
Some Things
So, hey. How are you? Here's a few things I thought I'd share.

  • Work on the analysis is going well. I'm getting some good numbers, as well as learning how to get the number by teaching myself statistics 101.
  • The report, in which I, well, report and discuss the aforementioned numbers is going well. My supervisors are liking what they are seeing, and there's a great deal of positive encouragement.
  • For the time being I've had to take on some annotation work as a means of funding. Time spent on that means time not spent on the PhD, but I'm streamlining my day to fit it in without to much loss of progress. And the money is needed so until other sources get through the pipeline, so be it.
  • I've been thinking about personality. No one agrees on which model is best; the big 5, Eysenck's 3, Myers-Briggs types. I can see their point, each has it's merits. It would be interesting to have data on all possible classifications of people.
  • Post titles. I wonder if there is anything in the titles people give their posts? Are they factual and to the point, do they just refer to the contents, do they mean anything, are they pop-culture literary references? Might be interesting.
So I just thought I'd quickly update you and bring to your attention some of my recent thinkings. I'm sure there are more...I'll get back to you.


Monday, September 06, 2004
 
Money, Money, Money
It's a problem that all academics are aware of, and most are familiar with...that of funding. Basically, most PhD funding in the UK is for three years. This is not to say you can't take more...in fact it's very common to take four years to completely finish and submit. The problem is, the money runs out after three.

And guess which year I am coming to the end of? That's right, my third. So the money will soon run out, and it is proving trickier than I had been led to believe to get money to keep me fed for the next year.

The obvious solution is work, but the more you work, the less time you have to work on your thesis, and so the more time it will take so the longer you will need to work for...and so on. There are a number of small internal things one can do, such as tutoring, or marking, but though this pays well, it is fairly casual.

I don't want to talk about current specifics, in case things don't pan out, the idea of having to be part time, of having to slow down progress of my PhD, which is finally coming along nicely, is utterly horrifying.



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