"To Be or Not To Be" Schedule

I am now officially on a tight time schedule, but I think this is doable as long as I don’t lose focus. It’s pretty simple: if I don’t finish this on time, then the dissertation gets delayed for at least a semester, if not a year, since I need to interview seniors in their last semester of college for my study. Yep, either it’s gonna happen, or it’s gonna not. I’m shooting for the former.

Revised versions of chapters 1 and 2 went to DC at our meeting yesterday morning, and she seemed pleased. There is still a small hole in chapter 2, but I know exactly what I need to do, and I have the literature sources to do as such. Now I just need to “do.”

I need to turn a draft of chapter 3 into DC by tomorrow. I thought I had said draft in my hand at yesterday’s meeting. However, I must have dreamed making edits to that. I’m not kidding. I was surprised that the draft I had in my hand during our meeting still related to the old mixed-method study. I couldn’t believe it: rather embarrassing. Fortunately DC just had a good laugh about it stating that she’s been there before. It’s good to not be alone! So I’m madly making revisions to that this morning and cutting out anything related to the old study. It’s rather freeing, I must admit. Hopefully in the next couple of hours I’ll have a decent draft which I can edit later today after I work this afternoon.

DC will read everything over the weekend and give me feedback Monday. I will incorporate her feedback early next week, and I’ll fill in the hole in chapter 2 then as well. By the end of next week, March 9, I must deliver the completed proposal to my committee. This gives them two weeks to read it. I'm supposed to defend the proposal sometime after spring break and before DC leaves for big conference she’s running at the end of the month. This should leave me just enough time to do the interviews I need to do before the end of classes this semester.

The Mozart CD is on repeat and I’ve been cranking away since 8AM here at the home office-prison. It’s either going to be late nights or early mornings from here on out. But at least it’s the home stretch for the proposal, at long last. Nothing like the end-of-the-line push to get the work done (I hope!).