Ro's PhD
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I'm Ro Smith, and for the past 8 years I have been working on my PhD in philosophy at the University of York. I am now in spitting distance of finishing, but due to a (long) series of unfortunate events, I have now completely run out of money.
My deadline to submit is 30th May 2015, and I need your help to get me there.
I'll tell you about my unfortunate events below, but I want to give you the facts of my immediate situation now:
My bank called this morning (8th January) and I am over the agreed overdraft limit (£1200) by £47.24. I need to tell them how I'm going to get under that agreed limit by this time next week (15 January 2015). If I don't, they will reduce my overdraft to £500. I do not have this money. Even if I did, I still would still need to pay the rent for February (£525). I'm paying my bills on my credit card right now, but I can't pay my rent that way, and I have less than £500 left on my card anyway.
I need £600 by the end of the month.
How did I get here?
Well, doing a PhD part-time is a long, stressful, expensive enterprise, and I started it before the economic crash. For seven years I had a part-time administrator job, which I suplemented by teaching and proofreading. At one time I was working 4 jobs at once and doing my PhD, and eventually that takes a toll on one's health.
I also lived in a series of really terrible flats, because that was all I could afford. I couldn't afford to heat them properly, there was damp and mould and a lot of my things were destroyed.
I had a series of terrible neighbours. The kind who come home at midnight and start a loud parties that go on until 4am, and then respond with aggressive harassment if you attempt to talk to them about it. I moved from one awful flat to another to escape one of these neighbours, and soon found that the neighbours in the new place were just as bad. I was working four jobs and I couldn't get to sleep at night. I became very sensitive to noise, but had nowhere safe and quiet to work. I was also trying to live off my allotment because I had no money left after rent.
I had a brief repreive when a friend agreed to share a new flat with me. The flat was lovely and for 3 months everything was fine. But then he moved out to live with his girlfriend. I couldn't remotely afford the place on my own and struggled to find a replacement. My health had been uncertain before then, but took a nose dive at this point.
I was tired all the time, and I didn't know why. I'd been the kind of person who was never sick before, and I didn't know what to make of an illness that amounted simply to tiredness - crushing, all-encompassing tiredness. I would come home from work and sleep for hours. My doctor dismissed it as a part of my depression (I've been severely depressed for about 9 years), he told me to exercise. I was already exercising. It wasn't about exercise. Six months later he finally agreed to blood tests and it turned out I was anaemic.
In the meantime I had had to take a break from my degree because of the illness and stress and a need to focus on finding a flatmate. I found one, and returned to work on my PhD, but then my flatmate found a house and bought it. I couldn't afford the flat on my own and was terrified of ending up back in the kind of place I had been before. At the same time, I was in danger of losing my admin job due to budget cuts at work.
Eventually I found my current place, which is a maisonette - basically a bedsit with the bedroom on a platform over the kitchen. At £525 it was a lot of money, but with rents going up I couldn't find anywhere for less, and with me going into my write-up year (hence, no tuition fees) I could just about afford it. I was still struggling with my health, but my doctor was so focused on exercise (which I was now physically incapable of doing) that he wouldn't consider anything else. He was sure it couldn't be anemia again.
Unfortunately, shortly after I moved into my new place stress at work became intolerable, and between that and my illness and depression, I simply wasn't able to work on my PhD. I started seeing a counsellor and changed doctors. The new doctor tested me for everything under the sun and found I was anaemic again. I took another leave of absence from my PhD, but a crisis point was reached at work and I decided that for my health I had to leave. The company has since halved its workforce and I am sure that if I hadn't left when I did they would have found a way to fire me without the severance package due to someone who had worked there for 7 years.
Fortunately, my proofreading and copy editing business was taking off, and with help from my parents I thought I could make it to my new submission date of 31st May 2014. I became a freelancer and for a while everything looked well, except that I was still tired all the time, and my doctor was sure it couldn't still be anaemia. I had to request an extension until the end of August.
I changed antidepressants. My previous doctor had always insisted that the ones I was on were stimulants, so couldn't have to do with my tiredness. My new doctor told me that they actually had a sedative effect. The new drugs seemed to help and for a while I improved.
Unfortunately, my main client ran into financial difficulty in June, and I lost a large portion of my income. I thought this was a temporary difficulty, but it turned out to be a rather more permanent one. I started to run out of money and my health started to fail again. I asked my mum for a loan to get me to the end of July, but work I was expecting to have in August didn't turn up. My health reached a critical point again and I was, again, diagnosed with anaemia. I initially asked for an extension until the end of November, but I was simply unable to work. I was given a final extension until 30th May 2015.
In the meantime my financial situation became dire. My parents agreed to pay my rent for the next four months. I applied for my first ever credit card, and have been using this to pay for daily items and bills.
My health finally started to improve in December. I need to get back to work on my PhD, but I'm not currently making enough from my proofreading and copy editing to live off. I'm applying for jobs, but I'm not getting work. My parents can't give me any more money.
I have enough work coming in in February to pay for March's rent, but I don't have enough to pay for February's (going out at the end of January). I'm hoping for more work to come my way in the spring, but I have no guarrantees, and at this point I simply don't know where funds will come from for March, April, and May.
I need £600 by the end of this month, and if you could help me to that you would be a life saver. If you could help me beyond that, that would be incredible.
I've been working on my PhD for 8 years, I don't want to fail at this final hurdle. I have given so much of my life and my health to this. I know I can finish by the end of May, but I can't work on that when I don't know where my rent is going to come from.
I believe in the value of philosophy and when I finish my PhD I want to do a bunch of projects opening philosophy to people for free on the Internet. Projects like Existentialism and the Terminator - which is a short video I made exploring the existentialist themes of the Terminator movies, and which was recently featured on Io9 .
Please help me to finish what I have spent the last 8 years of my life on, and to know that I'll have a roof over my head next month.
My deadline to submit is 30th May 2015, and I need your help to get me there.
I'll tell you about my unfortunate events below, but I want to give you the facts of my immediate situation now:
My bank called this morning (8th January) and I am over the agreed overdraft limit (£1200) by £47.24. I need to tell them how I'm going to get under that agreed limit by this time next week (15 January 2015). If I don't, they will reduce my overdraft to £500. I do not have this money. Even if I did, I still would still need to pay the rent for February (£525). I'm paying my bills on my credit card right now, but I can't pay my rent that way, and I have less than £500 left on my card anyway.
I need £600 by the end of the month.
How did I get here?
Well, doing a PhD part-time is a long, stressful, expensive enterprise, and I started it before the economic crash. For seven years I had a part-time administrator job, which I suplemented by teaching and proofreading. At one time I was working 4 jobs at once and doing my PhD, and eventually that takes a toll on one's health.
I also lived in a series of really terrible flats, because that was all I could afford. I couldn't afford to heat them properly, there was damp and mould and a lot of my things were destroyed.
I had a series of terrible neighbours. The kind who come home at midnight and start a loud parties that go on until 4am, and then respond with aggressive harassment if you attempt to talk to them about it. I moved from one awful flat to another to escape one of these neighbours, and soon found that the neighbours in the new place were just as bad. I was working four jobs and I couldn't get to sleep at night. I became very sensitive to noise, but had nowhere safe and quiet to work. I was also trying to live off my allotment because I had no money left after rent.
I had a brief repreive when a friend agreed to share a new flat with me. The flat was lovely and for 3 months everything was fine. But then he moved out to live with his girlfriend. I couldn't remotely afford the place on my own and struggled to find a replacement. My health had been uncertain before then, but took a nose dive at this point.
I was tired all the time, and I didn't know why. I'd been the kind of person who was never sick before, and I didn't know what to make of an illness that amounted simply to tiredness - crushing, all-encompassing tiredness. I would come home from work and sleep for hours. My doctor dismissed it as a part of my depression (I've been severely depressed for about 9 years), he told me to exercise. I was already exercising. It wasn't about exercise. Six months later he finally agreed to blood tests and it turned out I was anaemic.
In the meantime I had had to take a break from my degree because of the illness and stress and a need to focus on finding a flatmate. I found one, and returned to work on my PhD, but then my flatmate found a house and bought it. I couldn't afford the flat on my own and was terrified of ending up back in the kind of place I had been before. At the same time, I was in danger of losing my admin job due to budget cuts at work.
Eventually I found my current place, which is a maisonette - basically a bedsit with the bedroom on a platform over the kitchen. At £525 it was a lot of money, but with rents going up I couldn't find anywhere for less, and with me going into my write-up year (hence, no tuition fees) I could just about afford it. I was still struggling with my health, but my doctor was so focused on exercise (which I was now physically incapable of doing) that he wouldn't consider anything else. He was sure it couldn't be anemia again.
Unfortunately, shortly after I moved into my new place stress at work became intolerable, and between that and my illness and depression, I simply wasn't able to work on my PhD. I started seeing a counsellor and changed doctors. The new doctor tested me for everything under the sun and found I was anaemic again. I took another leave of absence from my PhD, but a crisis point was reached at work and I decided that for my health I had to leave. The company has since halved its workforce and I am sure that if I hadn't left when I did they would have found a way to fire me without the severance package due to someone who had worked there for 7 years.
Fortunately, my proofreading and copy editing business was taking off, and with help from my parents I thought I could make it to my new submission date of 31st May 2014. I became a freelancer and for a while everything looked well, except that I was still tired all the time, and my doctor was sure it couldn't still be anaemia. I had to request an extension until the end of August.
I changed antidepressants. My previous doctor had always insisted that the ones I was on were stimulants, so couldn't have to do with my tiredness. My new doctor told me that they actually had a sedative effect. The new drugs seemed to help and for a while I improved.
Unfortunately, my main client ran into financial difficulty in June, and I lost a large portion of my income. I thought this was a temporary difficulty, but it turned out to be a rather more permanent one. I started to run out of money and my health started to fail again. I asked my mum for a loan to get me to the end of July, but work I was expecting to have in August didn't turn up. My health reached a critical point again and I was, again, diagnosed with anaemia. I initially asked for an extension until the end of November, but I was simply unable to work. I was given a final extension until 30th May 2015.
In the meantime my financial situation became dire. My parents agreed to pay my rent for the next four months. I applied for my first ever credit card, and have been using this to pay for daily items and bills.
My health finally started to improve in December. I need to get back to work on my PhD, but I'm not currently making enough from my proofreading and copy editing to live off. I'm applying for jobs, but I'm not getting work. My parents can't give me any more money.
I have enough work coming in in February to pay for March's rent, but I don't have enough to pay for February's (going out at the end of January). I'm hoping for more work to come my way in the spring, but I have no guarrantees, and at this point I simply don't know where funds will come from for March, April, and May.
I need £600 by the end of this month, and if you could help me to that you would be a life saver. If you could help me beyond that, that would be incredible.
I've been working on my PhD for 8 years, I don't want to fail at this final hurdle. I have given so much of my life and my health to this. I know I can finish by the end of May, but I can't work on that when I don't know where my rent is going to come from.
I believe in the value of philosophy and when I finish my PhD I want to do a bunch of projects opening philosophy to people for free on the Internet. Projects like Existentialism and the Terminator - which is a short video I made exploring the existentialist themes of the Terminator movies, and which was recently featured on Io9 .
Please help me to finish what I have spent the last 8 years of my life on, and to know that I'll have a roof over my head next month.
Organizer
Rosemary Jane Smith
Organizer