I should look into whether there might be possibly be any local volunteers available, if I can't sort out the government agency stuff. Good idea - thanks.

My thought was perhaps you could offer some kind of incentive to students in the class to entice and reward them. Depending on how much assistance you need it might be as little as a candy bar, or as big as a meal that isn't school food (home cooked or otherwise, and depending on how many students are stuck living at the Uni as well as how good the school food is there) - and have them take turns.

I don't suppose it would be possible to persuade the uni to give extra course credit to a single student from the class who might be persuaded to assist on a regular basis? If I were in charge of the world, that would be totally practical. But many forms of bureaucracy would be utterly unable to handle it, and your uni has shown itself to be less helpful than we'd like.

The department doesn't have student assistants they could assign to you for a couple of hours a week? Are there graduate students you could pay a lot less to? (It is probably wrong that I think of grad students as cheap labor, but when I worked at a university, there were always grad students scrounging for money.)

I can't see the university (the one that has taken four months to get me academic support workers and caused all manner of hassle over it) agreeing to give me grad student time for this, especially as there are very few grad students in my department. I could use your idea of sorting out volunteers myself in exchange for meals or similar, Andi, but it would probably be frowned upon by the university as it wouldn't be officially-sanctioned volunteering (but maybe I could organise it very informally with friends of friends). And yes, Ginger, you have a good point that I could possibly pay students less, much as I'd hate doing that. That's another option I can think about if the government agency turns me down. I'm focusing on trying to get them to agree, for now.

Right now I am utterly losing the plot over this. The Girl is downstairs writing out my detailed list of reasons why I need this support worker, in the hope of persuading the government agency. I have to go back to church to sing Evensong tonight, and I just want to sleep. I should go to the doctor's tomorrow, but I am a) afraid of being forced to see a psychiatrist (never goes well for me) and b) worried about all the PhD work I'm missing at the moment. Oh and c) doctors make me cry.

{{{Seska}}}

Sorry I don't know the British university system well enough to have any actual advice for you. (It seems like it's really different from the system at American universities.)

{{{{{Seska}}}}} I'm so sorry you have to deal with this. I hope you can find a solution that works for you.

Thanks for the support, all. You are truly wonderful.

Seska, I hope that wasn't an overload of helpfulness, and now you are having to say "thanks" when what you really want to say is, "shut the hell up".

roomie says he smudged with sage. Bleh. One more reason for me not to be a hippie.

Suggest he go with chamomile next time - it has a much more pleasant burning smell - like a really nice wood fire, only with a sweet, flowery note to it. Or, maybe he should do it when you are out of town so there is plenty of time for it to dissipate before you get back.

I once watched four of my aunts friends get into all but a shouting match over which sage was best to smudge with.

Hippies. What are ya gonna do?

Hippies. What are ya gonna do?

Tell 'em to use salt water, because smudging with sage isn't needed?

(Trust me, I hear these arguments with the Wiccans I hang out with.)