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GOGSoc MkII

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Reply 60

apotoftea

Milady de Winter

I would if I could, but I can't :frown:

Trying to stay positive with the idea of a year out being interesting and relevant... but still have this nagging feeling of being an unfunded academic 2nd class citizen :woo:

You're definately not a second class citizen so go wash your mouth out with soap! The AHRC are a bunch of tucking fosspots :mad:

AHRC ftl!

ftl? Que?

for the loss = opposite of for the win

Ohhhhhhh *lightbulb*

I've met Philip esker a couple of times actually and I've not been impressed. He spouts the same capitalistic rhetoric that has infected the science research councils so I guess the treasury must be cracking the whip hard. Odd to here a man who has made a career out of critcising the bible tell a bunch of scientist about the need to engage in 'more relevant research'.

Reply 66

musicbloke

Zaf, have you actually got a place at Oxford now?

MB

Reply 67

Socrates

Applications open in September, Jacob.

Oh, and thanks for that *******ing in the Camwhore Thread. Its getting ridiculous now.

Reply 68

musicbloke

Yeah, it was. No doubt I'll get berated for it, but I don't care.

MB

Reply 69

Briar_Rose65

Aaaargh! Going to be really grumpy now. I chased up UCB about the date for my 2nd interview for Ma/GTA post and the bloke was sooooo brusque with me!!! He just said they'll probably be next week :mad:

I gently reminded him that I was flying out to Spain on Saturday, so he then thawed a bit and said that he would make sure that I would be seen on my return!!!

I really, really , really don't want to fly to Spain now either!!!! I may have to hunt through my medicine cabinet and see if I can find the one emergency valium I have hidden in there for trips to the dentist.

I'm not going straight through to PhD either - I'm going to wait for my youngest to get to secondary first so it doesn't matter too much if I have to commute too far - at least they can get home on their own then and I don't have to worry about trains being delayed past 6pm.

Reply 70

The Boosh

musicbloke

Yeah, it was. No doubt I'll get berated for it, but I don't care.

MB

hey mb,

just a quick question about your former stomping ground. am i right in thinking that staff members don't have to be fellows of or affiliated to a college? there can be faculty-only staff, whilst still retaining the title of lecturer? i've seen a fair few postdoc positions going at various colleges, but none of them have the people i know of listed as working for them and i'm getting myself in a bit of a tangle about it.

argh!?

Reply 71

Milady de Winter

apotoftea

You're definately not a second class citizen so go wash your mouth out with soap! The AHRC are a bunch of tucking fosspots :mad:

*scrubs self*

*spits out soap*

*wonders why she allowed APOT to talk her into putting soap in mouth*

I'm going to go clothes shopping tomorrow, as a means of distraction. I just had a massive purge of all the Primark crap I own, and am going to buy 'proper, grown-up' clothes. Because I can :biggrin:

Reply 72

musicbloke

The Boosh

Staff are almost universally college fellows. In fact I can only think of one example of someone who's not, and I expect that's just a strange ordinance that goes with his chair. So, what does it mean? It means the college give you money, you can sit at high table at formal, and various other perks. They may even offer you accom, and should sort you out an office/room. So yeah, you just end up at a college, but your work will be related to a faculty, which are central university things, so just don't worry about what college it is, unless it's homerton, girton, or hughes hall.

MB

Reply 73

The Boosh

musicbloke

do you mind if i send you a quick pm?

Reply 74

musicbloke

The Boosh

do you mind if i send you a quick pm?

No, of course, go ahead.

MB

Reply 75

Bismarck

Socrates

Applications open in September, Jacob.

Oh, and thanks for that *******ing in the Camwhore Thread. Its getting ridiculous now.

Any luck with the PS and research proposal or are you being a good grad student and procrastinating until the last possible moment? :wink:

Reply 76

Kitty Pimms

For those of you who were following the Saga of the Kettle in the previous GOGsoc, you'll be pleased to know that my other half bought me this little beauty: http://www.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10001_18339_330192_-1 :love:

I'm happy to report it has a lovely fluid action and a satisfying whistling sound. I think I might get a bit obsessed with polishing it though.

Today I am going shopping in town for my new desk, so I am happy. :biggrin:

Reply 77

the_alba

IlexAquifolium

Still, proper jobs are worse. :biggrin:

This is the hard place between which, + one rock, I'm wedged. PhD is awful but proper jobs are worse. Sounds like a Dorothy Parker poem.

Argh. I used to be so excited about doing a PhD, so in thrall to academia, so passionate about my subject. Unless I get this Mojo back, I will be giving up the PhD. I can't see myself plugged in to an endless circuit of pointlessness, ego-massaging and bureaucracy, which is how I've come to view academia. If I still loved writing about James Joyce, those things wouldn't matter so much, but I can't even do / don't even want to do that anymore. It sucks.

*pities self shamelessly*

Boyfriend has said that if I'm really that unhappy with it I and give it up, reliquish my lovely AHRC money (no!), and try to write a novel for two years, and he would pay for it. It's very kind and he can't really afford it - but it's too risky. Plus we've been looking forward for so long to the day when I get an academic job so we can finally not be so poor.

*cries into a bucket tragically*

And then, whose to say that if I do give up, I don't rediscover my passion for it two years later? I can't afford to go without funding, and I'd be too far behind everyone by then anyway probably.

*weeps*

I'd better go and try to scrape through my upgrade to stall for time.

Reply 78

the_alba

oriel historian

I think my cynicism as regards the PhD stems from what I see as the ivory tower nature of much of academia and the failure of academics to fully integrate themselves into the social and cultural realm of all rather than just a few.

Yes. I've come to despise the company of a good 98% of academics, another factor which leads me to think perhaps academia isn't my ideal career. So many are just self-enthralled, pompous, intellectually vacant snobs.

Reply 79

the_alba

Another reason I hate academics: narkiness, pushiness, egotism, their sense that what they're doing is of supreme importance and urgency to the rest of the world, etc. This email from one of our professors to another, replying to a message asking her if she'd done one of the tasks she was supposed to do (some details have been changed):

It might help to take a few minutes to check the website. ... I didn't check up as I am busy writing a keynote lecture for a conference on Thursday, which will be followed by a paper for my own conference on [gives date], final conference preparations, an external thesis assessment, externalling for a chair appointment, 14 MA dissertation assessments, advising a Visiting Fellow, setting up a new book series for [insert publisher], ensuring that two of my MA students complete their MA dissertations, finalising a handbook for one of my MA modules, and inducting my new MA students, before I depart on my well-earned research leave to write my next book. With the best will in the world I can't be expected to spend my time checking up on websites and would expect my colleagues to have enough initiative to check the relevant web pages themselves.