Chesterley

The Cost of Wisdom

2011-05-29T20:24:00.002-04:00

I recently received my first paycheck after my 40th birthday. I am thankful a) to have a full-time job and b) to have little perks like supplemental life insurance and long-term disability coverage, each for which I pay a nominal monthly fee.

What surprised me was that my monthly rates for these things both increased by $5 and $12 respectively in this last paycheck. When I checked LMUU's human resources website for any changes to the coverage starting May 1, I soon realized that the only change to my coverage was my advancement to age 40 in the middle of said month. It is now officially more expensive to insure me.

Wisdom comes with a price, I guess.

Dissertation Compression

2011-05-22T17:01:00.003-04:00

I am applying for a Dissertation of the Year award through a professional association of which I am a member. It was DC's idea, which in itself was pretty flattering.

It's due June 1, and DC technically needs to submit it on my behalf. That means I need to get it to her this week. "It" is a 15-page abstract of my over-200-page dissertation. Yes folks, that means that over 185 pages of my dissertation was just a bunch of hogwash. It will only take 15 to apply for a prestigious award I probably won't win. Isn't that funny?

I'm not in the least bit stressed about it. OK, let me rephrase that. I'm not in the least bit stressed about whether or not I win the award (I'm just a tad bit stressed about getting the application done on time). If I do, it will be a wonderful, and completely unexpected occurrence. If I don't, no big whoop. I will come out of this process with a condensed version of the dissertation out of which I can hopefully spin off a couple of articles or at least a decent conference presentation. I'll spend the next few days working on it, but no more, and out of it should come something usable.

I'm glad to be back into that academic side of my brain again. This semester at work has pretty much kicked my ass, but it's not been academic ass. It's been administrative ass. Administrative ass is not nearly as fun.

OK, back to getting my academic ass in gear.

Full Moon on my 40th B-day

2011-05-01T20:27:00.006-04:00

I am not into astrology, but I did just flip over my wall calendar to the new month and realized that there will be a full moon on my 40th birthday. Is there any significance to this?

A few years ago, Wife and I attended a conference on autism disorder. It was not long after Moose's diagnosis. We were in a session on biomedical interventions, some of which seemed spot-on and some of which seemed a bit mystical. While I do think there are other forces "out there" that influence our lives, our bodies, and the rest of the world, I don't tend to believe in those forces to the extent that I let them guide our lives. I guess it's a balance. Anyhow, back to my point: this was a session run by three nurse practitioners who seemed very well-versed in handling a wide variety of autism symptoms and behaviors. It was a good session, and they clearly knew their stuff. However, toward the end of the session one of the presenters threw in a curve ball when discussing a certain symptom by saying something like, "...but of course all of this can change when there's something else going on, like when there's a full moon." I started laughing, thinking it was a good joke. I think I was the only one laughing in this very full meeting room. So I asked, "Can you please describe the significance of the full moon in this conversation?" All heads turned my way and started talking at once about just how many things go haywire for autistic kiddos when there's a full moon...as if I should have known this. Wow, sorry I asked!

Otherwise, I think it's pretty swell to have a 40th birthday on a full moon. We shall see.

Overwhelmed, so staying in the present

2011-04-28T10:18:00.003-04:00

I appear to have missed the entire month of March. And now we're almost all the way done with April. Guess my dissertation must be finished? Oh yeah. :-)

However, it's not quite finished...I mean, the research behind it isn't finished, and I do want to get my brain back into the piece again so that I can spin off an article or two. That would be pretty cool.

But the notion of carving out a bit of writing time during the work week has been put on hold since that last post. Work has really taken off during a time of transition between leaders. It's not a bad thing, but I won't say it's all that great either. I don't think I've ever been stretched more thinly in this job in the last almost-four years. I may have lost a bit of my edge in the process...for example I have a ton of e-mail to get through today. A ton. I should probably just delete everything and then send a note out to everyone I work with asking them to get in line and ask me for my assistance one at a time. Hahahaha. I'll keep dreaming about that type of organization.

I'm thankful to have a job, and also to have a career. Those two things have not necessarily been in sync for me in the past. I have been trying to determine my future career moves now that I'm finished with the doctorate, but I think that process has proven fruitless and useless. I'm not a mind reader; I cannot predict the future. No use in spinning my wheels on it anymore. Guess I should just focus on the present for a while. That's not an easy thing for this big-picture thinker, but it'll probably keep me sane the next few months during this work transition.

Email time. Wow. Lots and lots of email.

I miss writing

2011-02-27T14:53:00.002-05:00

I guess it's no surprise to me that I miss having an excuse to write. After all, when spending a long while as a student, and when successfully completing Mission Dissertation, there was a whole lot of satisfaction out of the writing process. As I recall from the few years after I finished my master's degree where I hardly did any decent writing at all, I grew to miss that side of my brain. So at this point when I've not yet lost it (at least I don't think I've lost it just yet!), I probably should do something to continue onward with my writing.

In my present job as a researcher, I'm required to conduct small studies and write up the results, but honestly the writing is minimal and hardly read by anyone. In fact, I am in a position working with busy administrators that if my writing is too verbose or too, um, "good", then I risk that my colleagues won't even read the work I've done. They need results of research mined down to very small, easy-to-digest, bites so they can make decisions. I'm happy to provide them with this, but honestly it doesn't do much for me as a writer or a scholar.

Finally, the only way for a researcher really to gain credit for the work she or he does is to share up formally-written results and get them published. The only problem is that in my present job there isn't a whole lot of room in my schedule to close my door and do some good solid writing without some sort of interruption. Since I am not a faculty member, I'm technically not supposed to go away to a coffee shop and work on my own during the day. That would be nice and all, but it's not really been an option.

So I'm going to try and carve out small bits of time during the work week, perhaps Friday mornings, to be better about writing formal summaries of research I've conducted for my administrative colleagues and see if I can get things published. It won't be an easy balance, but then again neither was the balance of working full-time and completing a dissertation on the side. We'll see how this goes. Earlier I mentioned I may explore a faculty position, but as things seem to be falling out right now, I think I'll continue to cultivate my career for another year or so doing what I do as an administrative researcher. I will teach a class or two on the side, and I'll try to write and publish what I can. The nice thing is, if I don't get something written or published then it really only affects my sanity and not my actual job. That's probably going to be a better fit for the way I see my future career merging with my very busy home life.

Who knows, perhaps I'll keep exercising my writing chops a bit more by writing more in this blog?

Diploma

2011-01-28T23:32:00.004-05:00

My diploma arrived last week! So today I bought a fancy frame, and I have to admit that I can't stop looking at it. I crack me up.

But it's ironic that the external symbol of the completed degree and "commencement" arrived last week because I also had a few serious discussions with others about the future of my career. While I like the job I have currently, I've always known it won't be the job in which I retire. This clearly brings up the question: "NOW WHAT?" I envisioned staying here about five years and then moving to a different administrative position in higher education. However, at this point that feels like a waste of my research skills. While it took me a long while to finish the degree since it was rarely my top priority, I did enjoy the work a great deal. I think I'm a decent writer, too, and I do enjoy living in Theory World for good amounts of time. Fortunately given the administrative career I've had and the theoretical dissertation I wrote, I am starting to build a couple of different research agendas that could allow me to balance a faculty career in between Theory World and Reality World, and I think I might like that balance. If I could build that into a faculty career, well that could be a decent future career.

There's a bit of a risk with the process of earning tenure. And, if that doesn't happen, then there I'll be in my mid-40s without a job. That's kept me from seriously considering this route in the past. But then again, several years ago the thought of writing a dissertation was daunting enough that I suppressed the thought of getting a Ph.D., and here I am. So what's so say pursuing the faculty route would be a bad risk to take? After all, most times we take well-informed risks, it leads to something pretty swell.

We'll see. For now I'm still pondering the possibilities, and I'm fortunate that Wife is encouraging me to continue the thought process as well.

Office Abyss

2010-12-22T22:53:00.002-05:00

Since 2005 I have written in this blog about my need to clean my home office. This was true in both the old house and the current one. In both cases it's never been dirty. It's simply cluttered. On the surface it doesn't look too bad. I know how to shove a pile into a spot that's not very obvious to the viewer.

While this current office is the smallest of the four bedrooms in Chesterley, it actually has a large closet. This is BAD. Each time I have a visitor staying overnight in this room, I shove piles of paper into said closet. There's plenty of room left.

So I'm just shoving more stuff in there tonight in preparation for Christmas visits from relatives and needing to flip this office into a temporary bedroom. I should go through it all, but I'm not sure I will. And next Christmas the same thing will happen...Am I turning into a hoarder?

Seriously, I do plan to tackle The Office this winter. There is basically a whole bunch of stuff that can simply be shoved in the recycle bin. It's funny to find drafts and drafts of my dissertation, all of which I will either recycle or BURN.

Overwhelmingly Good

2010-11-30T14:25:00.003-05:00

My Doctor of Philosophy degree was officially conferred today. That didn't bring about any great changes to my day or anything. I've neither grown an inch taller nor have I gained back any of my hair. In fact, even my knowledge of this day was based solely on my communication with the Doctoral Recorder as quoted in my previous post. It shouldn't be a big deal.

For fun, I went into the student system to double-check the status, and sure enough it's noted there on my transcript:

DEGREE AWARDED
Large Midwest University Degree
Large Midwest University, Small College Town
University Graduate School
Doctor of Philosophy
Major: Higher Education
Minor: Instructional Systems Technology
Minor: Educational Psychology
11-30-2010

And then it hit me. Bam! Imagine standing in front of a high-powered fan trying to inhale at an even rate of speed, only to be overwhelmed by the extremely-quick flow of air being shoved into your lungs. That's sort of how I feel right now. Or, perhaps I simply have pneumonia? Either way, that's pretty swell to see it in writing, in the transcript. Wow.

Alright. Back to work.

Final Confirmation

2010-11-22T20:49:00.003-05:00

It's been a funny week or so. After submitting the document online on Saturday the 13th, I needed to get the paperwork signed by my chair. We had a great exchange: She said she's giving me till January, and then we're going to discuss how to get this study published. I don't think I could ask for a better compliment than that. We both agreed that this is more of a beginning of a research career than an end to graduate school. That's sort of neat, though holy SHIT I'm glad the graduate school part is ending!

Then I delivered the signed paperwork to The Graduate School in person, that same day. In the past, there would have been a grumpy person sitting in that office with a ruler in hand to make sure all of my margins lined up appropriately. Since I submitted it online, I thought I circumvented that process. Au contraire mon frere! I received an e-mail from The Graduate School the following day indicating I needed to do things like: "1) remove the word 'Dedication' from your dedication page [seriously?], 2) remove the word "Abstract" from the abstract page [what the FUCK?], and 3) the margins of your CV [attached to the end of the dissertation] are too small...please readjust." THOSE were the barriers between me and finishing? Um...OK. Whatever.

It took me just a few minutes to make the changes and resubmit. Then I gently prodded The Main Office of my Department to ensure the details of my transcript were in line (we receive temporary grades for "dissertation research" credits till the dissertation is done, and those need to be cleared out before our degree is conferred). That was completed last Friday.

So today I finally received the following note from The Graduate School:

Dear Robert of Chesterley,

All requirements are now completed for the awarding of your Ph.D. degree. Your official graduation date is November 30, 2010.

The Office of the Registrar will mail your diploma to your Student Home Address approximately three months after your official graduation date. Please verify that this address in [The Student System] current and correct for the mailing of your diploma. If your Student Home Address is incorrect, please contact the Registrar's Office.

Also, please check your Primary Name in [The Student System] for your diploma. If your name is incorrect, please contact the Registrar's Office.

I will submit the final approved version of your dissertation to ProQuest/UMI for publishing after your official graduation date.

Congratulations on this wonderful accomplishment!

Best Regards,

"Jane Q. Smith"
Doctoral Recorder
University Graduate School
Large Midwestern University

So, I guess that's it. It's all done. The curtain is down. The orchestra cadenced. There's nothing more to do but be a doctor from here onward.

I am of two minds. I'm so glad this crap is finally finished. Holy smokes. At the same time, this journey has been one of the best things for my career. Even after having a shitty day at work, I still come out of the experience actually liking my job. If it weren't for the doctorate I would not have joined this research field. So I'm thankful for that experience. And I'm also thankful this journey has finally ended.

Yay.

Study #07- 11947 Complete

2010-11-13T16:34:00.003-05:00

I heard back from DC yesterday. She had a few minor changes for me to make. And then she wrote:

I think once you make these changes it is ready to go. I don't need to see it again.

After saying out loud, "Are you fucking kidding me?", after the hooping and hollering at my on-campus desk stopped, and after getting dinner and a drink with a friend (planned weeks before), I finished the edits late last night. Today I did the final formatting edits and conversion into a PDF....

Just minutes ago I deposited the completed dissertation via the online system we use at LMU. It's DONE!!!

Time to head out for dinner and a movie with Wife. Life is back to normal again for the first time in over 8 years.

What a great day.

Back in DC's Court

2010-11-09T07:20:00.002-05:00

Boing! I served the ball back over to my chair. I got through the dissertation revisions over the weekend. Am pretty excited about this. I sent it back to her overnight on Sunday, and I received a response yesterday saying she's away for a couple of days but will get to it when she returns. It's all in her court now. Hopefully she'll respond in a timely manner and we can get TFD turned into The Graduate School forever! My goal is this month, but if that's not going to happen then so be it. December 2010 will be just as fine...as long as the year is 2010. My goal all along was the walk in graduation during the same year I submitted the dissertation!!!

I've been reading up on all the little procedures I'll need to do before turning it in. It's fascinating. It's almost like one needs an additional doctorate in certain technology in order to get the submission correct, and to follow all of the rules. One of the directions actually says, "Don't forget to embed your fonts." Excuse me? Isn't that a bit personal? Hahahahaha. I crack up myself. Fortunately the powers that be go on to explain what the hell that means in the directions. It's all good.

So, I wait. But I relax, probably for the first time in about 8 1/2 years.

Reflections

2010-11-06T00:47:00.000-04:00

The dissertation defense was a deeper experience for me than I anticipated it would be. I have been so focused on finishing the paper while balancing other aspects of life that I think I’ve lost a bit of myself along the way. Or, at least I’ve lost a bit of my ability to feel. Here I stand at the end of the journey as I complete these final ten revisions (did I mention there are ten?), and I find myself trying to pick up various pieces of my brain that I may have dropped behind me by mistake, much like one would drop breadcrumbs in a forest in order to find one’s way home.

The funny thing is that tonight I find myself remembering the end of high school. I didn’t know it when I was there, but that was one of the times in my life when I felt powerful. I was a badass pianist. I honestly don’t know if I was ever a better pianist than senior year of high school. I got into college on my piano skills and, I guess, the fact that I could write my way out of a box. I was at the top of my game as a pianist, I was in decent physical shape, I had a full head of hair... things were going well.

I went to college and the comparison bug started. I was constantly comparing myself with others and immediately making bad judgments against myself. Not sure where that came from. Instead of the constant comparison being a motivating force to compete and perform better, it got to be pretty damaging. And I lost myself in the process. I couldn’t be good enough to satisfy me. There were times I didn’t even try. I had to spend a long while picking up the pieces after college. Don’t get me wrong: I was a decent musician upon graduation, but what was I doing with music then? Could I really identify as a musician? Not really. And I never ended up working in music full-time afterward, so it was easy to feel a bit lost after having gained admission to college as a musician, for crying out loud.

Then I started my master’s degree. It wasn’t as bad. I was finding myself in a new career, and in general I liked it. It took me a few years to pick up the pieces again, but I was able to do alright. And ultimately I had picked them up enough to hold a good job, do well, marry the Wife, have a kid, and start the doctorate appropriately. Life was pretty good.

So, at least I’ve been through the piece-picking-up process a few times in the past, and I’ve been successful with it. In fact, I think the process has already started. Colors appear brighter. Music sounds clearer. In general I feel more powerful. I’m more centered. I feel more capable. And apparently, people are interested in what I think. That’s pretty neat. Maybe I have badass thoughts? The good kind of badass, though, not the “I’m a bad person,” badass.

Finally. Self-confidence is a good thing. And it’s been on holiday a long, long time.

Passed!!! ...with some editing required

2010-11-04T13:40:00.001-04:00

I tried to tweet about this yesterday, but for some reason my Twitter ap on my phone refused to accept my userID and password. Oh well.

I passed the defense! I have a few edits to do, and but they are minor, according to my chair. Phew! Am going to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to plow through as many of those as possible before I start forgetting details. If I can finish them up in the next couple of weeks, then I will go into Thanksgiving with a LOT for which to be thankful!!!

Final Preparation

2010-11-02T13:27:00.003-04:00

I met with DC last Friday afternoon, and she told me I will have five minutes to provide an overview of my study to the committee and any visitors who will be in the room.

Five minutes? I'd have an easier time with 60 minutes. Five??

Well, early this morning I completed a draft of a five-minute presentation (FIVE??), and I ran it by two colleagues over lunch today. Remarkably they didn't fall asleep. At least not entirely. They also provided very helpful feedback that I will incorporate in this evening.

I'll practice just a few more times, and then I'll go to bed. Early. Zzzz

I'm not that stressed about it, honestly. Sure, I'm nervous. I am human, after all. But I think it's ultimately going to go well. I certainly will not peak too soon with this five-minute presentation, though. Geez.

Defense Preparation

2010-10-29T00:13:00.003-04:00

Eight years of work is coming down to a 90-minute meeting with my committee? Anyone out there care to share ideas for how I should prepare for the dissertation defense next Wednesday? Perhaps a good combination of alcohol and prayer could work...

One more week

2010-10-27T12:35:00.001-04:00

One week from today I'll be pulling out my hair and biting off my nails as I prepare for my defense. At this point, I can't wait to get it done. Am not really dreading the experience...I'm dreading the anticipation of the experience. I hope the week just flies by...

Recovery

2010-10-18T09:03:00.005-04:00

It's funny: I'm not all that nervous about the defense just yet. I'm certain I will be a few days beforehand. For now, I just feel like it's done, like I've submitted a paper for class and I'm simply waiting for the final grade. I'm moving on to a few important tasks I have this week and next at work (like three presentations at two conferences between now and the 24th), and I'm starting to get back into a regular sleep pattern. Even went out of town with the family last weekend to visit relatives, which is something I've not done in a long while (usually I stay home alone to work on the paper).

I find it to be funny that I find myself in recovery mode. I'm just plumb tired. Supremely tired. Not physically, but mentally. To the point where I wonder if I'll find the energy again. It's just a feeling, and I realize it's not reality. The only thing I can chalk it up to is just needing time to recover from the stress of the last eight years or so. Let's hope it does not take me eight more years to recover! haha.

It's completely out of my hands

2010-10-12T19:59:00.005-04:00

At high noon today, I sent my completed dissertation to my committee. There's nothing more I can do till the defense on 11/3. So, I wait.

And as the weight of the final edits lifted, by body proceeded to fall apart. I have a completely mysterious toothache (just days after having a cavity filled on another tooth) that turned majorly painful, and I think I have a sinus infection as a hold-over from a head cold I had over a week ago. No fever though. But I even went to the doctor and phoned the dentist. I haven't been in this much pain in...well, I don't know, but it sucked. Am on a nasal steroid and major Advil amounts till I can see the dentist Thursday morning.

Kinda funny how the body works. Holds itself together till it knows it can let go. Am feeling better now that I'm home and legally drugged. I think I'm going to sleep well tonight!

Copy Edit Hell

2010-10-09T15:11:00.002-04:00

Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.
Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.
Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.
Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.
Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.
Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.

I need to keep saying this to keep me motivated today.

Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.
Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.
Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.
Copy edits suck, but they will make for a better dissertation defense in the end.

Defense is One Month from Today

2010-10-06T22:46:00.006-04:00

I've been remiss about posting an update or two in the last couple of days:

First, I did finish up that last bit of unexpectedness Sunday night. I had a head cold, so I decided to sleep in Monday and I did a final edit of everything from home later that morning. Sent it off to DC around 1:00 PM that day.

Second, my defense announcement now appears on the LMU web site with "upcoming Ph.D. dissertation defense announcements," so it's getting very real now. I guess I'm a bit nervous on the emotional side, though the logical side knows that ultimately it will go just fine. Hell, my qualifying exam defense did not necessarily go very well, but I passed. I didn't know what the hell I was talking about then. THIS should be just fine. A couple of colleagues have asked to attend the defense, as these things are technically open to the public. Not sure yet how I feel about having anyone else in the room besides The Committee and Wife. I'll have to think about that.

So at this point, I'm simply doing another copy edit of the whole document and awaiting DC's comments on Chapter 6 Draft 3. Hopefully the third time will be a charm once again. I am seriously considering saying, "No DC. No more editing. I'm done. It's over," if she were to give me additional feedback. Yeah, I'll just keep dreaming about that little joke.

More later. Bye.

One Final Bump in the Road

2010-10-03T16:26:00.004-04:00

I knew it would happen: I knew there would be one more hurdle to cross. It's not a big deal, but it threw me off guard this late in the game.

DC wondered why I had not included one well-known theorist's work in my dissertation. Well, I had included this person's work in my dissertation proposal in 2007, and my chair suggested I remove it at that time. I did, but I saved the text in a separate document just in case.

Glad I saved it. Now we're discussing whether or not to include this author's work in my final chapter as an unexpected finding. Really? How is it unexpected when I had initially thought it should be in there from the beginning? DC asked whether or not I agree with her point of view to include this theorist's work. I do agree, but indirectly, since I think this literature should have been a consideration all along.

At this point, I'm just saying, "yes, ma'am," I agree. All of our communication is done through e-mail, and I really REALLY hate using e-mail for communication of important information.

It's really not a big deal. I'll pull what I already wrote in 2007 and adjust it to fit into this chapter. I aim to have this complete this evening. Too bad I developed a fucking head cold on the eve of when I'll complete the fucking dissertation, but it's par for the course these last five years.

The Date has been Set

2010-09-21T01:07:00.001-04:00

I will defend my dissertation on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 in the early afternoon. Crazy.

No More Waiting

2010-09-19T17:59:00.005-04:00

Got a note from DC today with just a few suggestions for edits, but nothing too major. She suggested I get to work on scheduling the dissertation defense sometime in the next 6-8 weeks. Wowzas. She even said this:

This reports some really interesting stuff! You WILL publish this model...it is good.

Seriously?

Looks like we'll have plenty for which to be thankful at Thanksgiving.

I wait

2010-09-15T15:44:00.003-04:00

I wait for a response from DC. This has been a long week. I grow impatient. I also grow to enjoy not working on the dissertation, which is BAD! Hopefully my impatience will be kept at bay.

Remembering 9-11-2001

2010-09-12T15:45:00.003-04:00

I neglected to mention yesterday that Wife and I did spend some time remembering the 9-11 tragedy. We were living in the Southeast, within two hours of the Pentagon, actually. Moose was not even two months old. Amidst all the tragedy unfolding relatively nearby and in NYC, it was the first day that Moose smiled. Imagine the irony in it all when that happened? Crazy.

A Different Saturday

2010-09-11T09:54:00.002-04:00

It's pretty swell to be using an early Saturday morning to finish up a conference presentation proposal that pertains to my job and not to my dissertation. It has a tangible end to it, like in the next 30 minutes or so when it will be submitted and complete.

I've not yet heard from DC on the chapter, other than a confirmation e-mail on Thursday that she's adding it to her "To Do list." Fine by me: gives me time to take a breather from it. When I have time this weekend, I'll incorporate edits from a former colleague of mine who graciously took some time to read it last week. But the rest of the weekend will actually be a weekend. What's that like?

Out of My Hands

2010-09-08T21:23:00.002-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, I turned in the draft of Chapter the Sixth to DC. Glad it's now out of my hands!

I've had some fun with pulling together all of the separate Word documents into one long document for the dissertation. I know, I know: it's strange that I have "fun" with technical stuff when most people run screaming from the room. Nevertheless, it's really swell to see it all coming together in one document. At this point, I need to write the abstract and official dissertation defense announcement pages. The former is a formal 350-word summary of the study, and the latter is a more informal announcement of my dissertation defense that's supposed to be in non-technical language. Honestly, if someone said I'd need to run defense for the Chicago Bears in order to defend, I'd do it. I really don't care - I'll do whatever the hell they tell me to at this point to get the fucker done.

I slept really well last night. I think I'm slowly beginning to unwind after 8 years of being pretty wound up. I know I still will have plenty of editing to do for Chapter the Sixth unless by some miracle it actually makes sense to DC. But somehow the thought of editing and writing the silly abstracts and stuff isn't nearly as daunting of having another full draft of something hanging over my head.

'Night.

I landed the plane

2010-09-05T22:00:00.003-04:00

The landing gear came down and locked in place. It was a relatively smooth landing, if I do say so myself.

I just finished the first draft of the final chapter of my dissertation. It's all about editing from here. Holy SHIT that's pretty tough to believe. Honestly, I'm not yet certain the chapter is all that good, but at least the drafting is done. I will edit the shit out of it tomorrow and then send whatever I have to DC for her feedback.

Can't wait for this to be over. Time to watch Mad Men now.

With Good Reason

2010-08-30T22:11:00.005-04:00

I'm in year eight-and-a-half of this doctorate. I am fortunate that only a very small number of people have come right out and said, "Why the fuck is it taking you so long?" I actually don't mind the candor of those rare few, though I do find them a bit annoying and, well, social-climbing or one-upping. I don't make much time for those who climb or one-up (yes, that's right: "one-up" is now a verb). While I wouldn't refer to these people as my friends, as I said I don't mind the candor. What I do mind are others whom I can tell are thinking about asking this question but don't actually have the balls to do so. I can pretty much see right through them.

So I usually explain to both those with and without balls that the dissertation is my third priority behind 1) the family and 2) the job. The order of importance will never change. My priority list may not seem to be a full plate to some, but my family life can be a bit different than it probably is for others much of the time...

For example, read the Wife's post from this evening. Then ask me again why I'm not done yet. After an evening like this, I think I have a good reason to let my brain fry in front of the TV for 90 minutes. I just don't see a problem with it. So maybe I won't make much progress on the dissertation this evening, but I did help comfort my kid as he mentally tortured himself for 45 minutes about an issue with our telephone that doesn't really exist. Being there for him was far more important than working on the fucking dissertation.

I don't intend to use my son's disorder an excuse. It's part of the balance of our lives, and I wouldn't give up that balance for anything. In spite of Moose's disorder, or my "mixed-up" (ha) priorities, or any of the other stuff that life has brought our way in the last several years, I am still making progress on TFD. Wife and I are still married. My kid is growing like a weed, and he's healthy. Bottom line, I am being true to my priorities, and the process is working for me.

Fasten Seatbelt Sign

2010-08-29T20:19:00.002-04:00

The captain has turned on your fasten seatbelt sign in preparation for the landing of The Fuquing Dissertation. Please make sure your seatbelts are fastened, seat backs are in their upright and locked position, and tray tables are stowed. Any carry-on items should be stored securely for the duration of the flight. Portable electronic devices are no longer allowed to be used until we are safely on the ground.

I finished the pain-in-the-ass revisiting of the literature section. It's literature I really hadn't read in about three years since I wrote the proposal. I honestly felt like I was pulling that stuff out of my ass in this section, so it pretty much sucks. But the draft is DONE and it's time to move on.

I have two sections left to write for this entire dissertation. One is rather large: the explanation of the actual theory. But that's been in my head for a long while now, and I should be able to write that relatively quickly. The second is less large than the first: the research and practical implications. Again, I have had ideas for both of these floating around in my head for a while, and some of these come out in a few discussions that I've had with family and colleagues on the theory itself.

I have to admit I feel like the rest of this fucker could write itself! Of course, everything always takes longer than I anticipate it will, so we shall see. Wife and Moose will be out of town for the long holiday weekend, and I will have no reason NOT to finish the draft before they return.

That is really weird to say that I'm almost done. Really. Really?

It's a Dad's Life

2010-08-24T22:33:00.000-04:00

This video is awesome.

Mid-way through Chapter the Sixth

2010-08-22T15:24:00.002-04:00

I'm resorting to some funny techniques to keep me writing these days. Last night I powered through a good structure for the first section of this last chapter where I review literature that is relevant to my theory and note where it converges or diverges from what actually happened in the study. There's so much floating around in my head, that in order to focus I'm writing small half-sentences, knowing I will go back and write real sentences later. So, it's looking sorta like this.

[Quick fox - jumps over the dog].

...knowing it will need to become...

The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

So it's sort of funny to see a bunch of sentence phrases in [brackets] like that all over the page, but soon I will turn those into rich, thick, descriptive prose that will tell the story of my study.

Yeah, and I hope the four people who have to read about it don't fall asleep!

No More Public School

2010-08-19T13:07:00.005-04:00

As I mentioned earlier, Wife and I have been trying to make a decision on whether or not to keep Moose enrolled part-time in the public schools. As of yesterday, we indeed decided to pull him out. The decision is based on a couple of factors, first and foremost being that we're not allowing for either program (the verbal-behavior clinic and the public school classroom) to really have their maximum benefit when he's not attending either full-time.

Also, we had him at the elementary school in the first place to maintain a relationship with the public schools because we always thought that eventually he would catch up and be able to interact with his age-appropriate peers. However, at this point, given the fact that he's three years behind his peers in terms of their academic skills, we can't imagine he will be able just to magically make up that gap. He probably never will; let's be real about it. So WHY pull him out of the verbal-behavior clinic, that we know is helpful to him, in order to spend a few hours at the school, where we're uncertain of the impact? Maintaining a relationship for a just-in-case-he-could-go-there-someday scenario isn't really a good-enough reason.

It's funny: It just doesn't occur to me that he's behind his peers when we're interacting with him at home. He's all we know about child-rearing, so this is our normal state of affairs. Given that Wife and I will soon have five college degrees shared between the two of us makes it all seem sort of ironic. Schooling has been so important to the two of us. However, with our child formal schooling is really sort of arbitrary. It won't really make an impact on him. That's kinda weird.

It's not devastating or anything: I mean, he's not going to die of autism disorder. But it's just weird. Weird in an uneasy, sick sorta way.

Writing and Playing

2010-08-15T21:35:00.006-04:00

Earlier this afternoon, I played through one of the Bach two-part inventions on the piano. I used a technique for learning new music that I've used since I was about five years old: First play through the right hand part, then play the left-hand part, finally play both hands together, slowly. That first time playing both hands together takes some courage. One must be strong and work through the nerves, and then focus so that one's hands operate independently of each other yet still stay in sync with the music on the page.

It occurred to me there are many similarities between playing Bach and writing. For me, the prep work one must do before writing is very much like playing the parts one hand at a time. During the act of actually writing the first page or two, I get a little nervous about it, much like trying to play the invention with both hands at the same time. Usually when I work through the first couple of paragraphs, the rest falls into place, save for a few potholes along the way that I know will take some extra work to get into my fingers. I'll get to that someday. This is similar to that last sentence at the end of that section that you know really sucks, and someday I may be inspired to find better words to fill in the gap.

The main accomplishment from my self-banishment last week was to get through the first couple of pages or so. But there are those nerves, wondering if what I've done is on the right track. Before I did too much more today, I e-mailed back and forth with DC to ask her about a couple of questions that I've had to check and see if I'm on the right track with this last chapter. As it turns out, I am indeed correct. Onward, then. I guess I just need to keep practicing with both hands.

Self-banishment Day 2

2010-08-14T18:12:00.003-04:00

Hi. Posting a day late.

It went well. I indeed finished the edits on chapter 4 AND on chapter 3. I completely forgot I did the ones on chapter 3 quite some time ago, but I had a little further to go (I mean, is editing ever really finished?). So by about Noon yesterday, I reckon I officially finished 'good-enough' drafts of chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5! By about dinner time I had a solid outline of Chapter the Sixth, and before I hit the sack I had written about the first 2 pages. Writing the first few pages of any chapter is usually the hardest part for me, so I figure all in all it was a productive few days away.

I came home around Noon today, and I've been out with the fam running errands, buying new shoes (for the first time in about five years, seriously), hitting the grocery store, and now we're in for the evening. If I feel the energy, I'll plug away a bit more on the chapter tonight and will plan to do more tomorrow afternoon. May not have the entire draft finished by Monday as I had originally planned, but I'm making good progress. Bye.

Self-banishment Day 1

2010-08-12T18:41:00.004-04:00

I checked into my self-banishment hotel last night, and I tried to hit the ground running. Unfortunately, last night and this morning I had to finish up a couple of projects from work-work, but that happens when one spends waaaay too much time in various meetings and not enough time at one's desk. LOL. Work's all good: just a lot of transition at this time.

Anyhow, Wife was kind enough to stop by and rescue me for a nice lunch. Thanks Sweetie! And then I really got running on the ground early this afternoon. I've completely finished edits of Chapters 1, 2, and 5, and I'll finish up edits on Chapter 4 this evening. Tomorrow morning I'll do the edits on Chapter 3 and will get to drafting Chapter the Sixth in the afternoon. Guess I'm sort of a writing fool, as I should be!

Next Dilemma - to include, or not to include?

2010-08-10T22:06:00.003-04:00

Wife just said it all: she does have a way of expressing my own thoughts, much of the time.

Back in the 'Brary

2010-08-07T10:44:00.003-04:00

I'm spending yet another beautiful Saturday in the library. That's life for now, I suppose. I've been slowly editing the front end - chapter 1 was easy. Chapter 2 is taking longer, but finishing it up is my goal for today. Would be great to go through Chapter 3 tomorrow if possible, since I suspect it will be almost as quick as Chapter 1. Then the proposal will officially be part of the dissertation, and I can move on to Chapter the Sixth.

Should be a good day today. A colleague may meet me here, and then a small group of us, including PR#3, will go out for dinner this evening.

I'm taking this upcoming Thursday and Friday off from work, and I will practice self-banishment Wednesday night through Saturday morning. Yep, going back to a hotel, similar to last year, to see how much of Chapter the Sixth I can draft out. I plan to pretend it's due on the following Monday and get that type of last-minute energy powering the wind in my sails. I'm sure I'll update the blog accordingly.

At Long Last

2010-07-31T14:12:00.005-04:00

Alright. At long last, I am finally finished with that bear of a results chapter!!! I've sent it off to my two mothers (my mom and Wife's mom) for a good thorough edit. My mom is a longtime educator, and Wife's mom is a brilliant editor. I'm certain both will provide excellent feedback.

Now I no longer have to resist temptation to go back to the beginning and edit the front half. I'm finally doing it. I've changed my mind on the order of my tasks. I was going to draft Chapter the Sixth next. However, I figured that editing the front half first will better prepare me to write the concluding chapter, since it will put the reasons for doing the study in the first place (!!!) fresh in my mind.

I did work a bit more on Chapter the Sixth yesterday, though. I ran my theory (MY theory?) by PR3 yesterday afternoon. PR3 helped me respond to the three questions DC posed when she gave me feedback last week by basically agreeing with my thoughts and providing logical reasons for why she agreed. So now I actually believe I'm not just making up this stuff off the top of my head. Swell!

Once I see how long the editing takes me today, I may be able to map out when I'll continue onward with drafting Chapter the Sixth.

A bit more feedback

2010-07-25T20:52:00.003-04:00

I mentioned in my last post that I shared the outline for the final chapter along with the theoretical model for...um...my (my??) theory. I've not shared that with very many people at this point, so I'm surprised the act of sharing it with DC didn't cause me much angst. Probably a sign that I just want this thing to be finished.

Anyhow, she wrote back within 24 hours and asked me three very helpful questions about the model that she'd like me to answer within the context of the chapter. She also encouraged me to make my case in the explanation. So, I guess that means she's supportive and wants to learn more about the theory. I mean, about MY theory. Still getting used to that. She ended her e-mail with, "Good work," so I suppose this puppy is mine to finish, at this point.

Moving Onward to Chapter the Sixth

2010-07-22T20:45:00.004-04:00

Today I got up enough courage to ask if DC had received my latest draft that I sent on July 12. I also said I was looking at the front half of the dissertation, putting it in the past tense, and writing about what happened (as opposed to what will or could happen, when I wrote the proposal).

It was strange that I hadn't heard anything from her, not even a "I got it," type of e-mail after sending the draft.

She responded within 10 minutes saying,

I'm working on it right now!!! Did you sense me? I think it's in good shape, my comments are minor. What you are doing with the front half is perfect. I'll send feedback in a bit.

And she did. And indeed, it was minor...but it also helps to improve it a great deal. So this is good!

She then asked, "Anyway, how is chapter 6 going?" I sense she wants me to finish. What more could one ask for from a chair? I gave her the outline of what I'm working on at this point, and even my theoretical model which I've already completed. Perhaps I'll hear back on this part soon.

I may hold off on the literature update, in spite of what I said in my last post. We'll see. Or, I may just do it as part of my overall edit, too, if it doesn't take too much time. Not sure yet.

Next task is to get the last chapter drafted. Wow. That's pretty swell.

Anticipatory Revisions

2010-07-16T22:50:00.003-04:00

I like my new blog design so much that it makes me want to write up here more frequently. But I'm not sure what to say at this point, so I'm just rambling.

I had lunch with a friend today, and his perspective calmed me down a bit about what I perceive is a lack of communication from DC due to the fact that it's summer. See, I hear that there are a few other things that may be expected of me before my dissertation defense, but I'm not hearing about them from DC. Instead, they're coming from peers. These things are good, reasonable tasks that I can understand needing to do, but I don't know why DC has neglected to tell me these details. I suspect it's a factor of no longer living in SCT. Out of sight, out of mind. Perhaps.

Anyhow, the perspective is this: Why don't I just anticipate that DC WILL eventually clue me into these details in the future, and go ahead and tackle some of these things myself. That way, it won't be a big deal later on, and perhaps she'll just gloss over this stuff since it's already done. For example, I wrote the literature review chapter in late 2006 and early 2007. If other relevant articles on my topic have been published since then, then I should include those in the dissertation as well. I don't plan to write a new chapter or anything, but it could be a simple task of just adding the references into something else I've already written, or maybe just a sentence or three on the newer articles. Call it an anticipatory revision. If I can pull in a few more things without being asked to do so, then perhaps DC will just say, "OK, good, you've done it," instead of spending a great deal of time on it later. When I'm even more stressed.

Yeah. That's it. Especially now that I'm in a holding pattern on this @#$% results chapter anyhow.

There. I started writing without a topic in mind, and I ended up working something out in my head. This was good.

Bye.

Bad Dreams

2010-07-15T09:49:00.006-04:00

I was up half the night last night, stressed about TFD. I've not actually lost sleep over my doctoral work in quite some time. I guess the reason for this is that for the time being, my progress on the dissertation is out of my hands. DC has my third draft of chapter 5, and I've not yet received acknowledgement that she even received it, let alone is even reading it at this time. It's summer. Professors are under no obligation to read over the summer. OK, OK, I get it. Hearing something, anything, even a "I can't get to this right now, Rob," would be better than silence.

So my dreams went something like this: DC doesn't even start reading the chapter till next month, and then later on she tells me I need to go back to chapter 2 and add a new section of literature because it's been so long since I wrote that chapter. And then chapter 5 still isn't right. And I haven't yet finished writing chapter 6. Oh yeah, and I do have to work. And, did I mention I'm going to have a new boss in about two weeks?

Hate to say it, but I can't wait for the summer to end.

(image credit: http://www.wolfescape.com/Humour/WorkStress.htm)

Clearance to Land the Results Chapter

2010-07-11T20:53:00.004-04:00

The pilot has received clearance to land Flight #3 of The Results Chapter by morning. He may be up half the night flying the plane, but this flight must land before the pilot goes to sleep this evening. The fuel tank is just about on empty, the flaps are down, and the passengers are getting pissed off.

UPDATE: I managed to land the plane at 12:38 AM Monday. That's really not all that late. Glad it's out of my hands...for now. Let's hope this latest version passes DC's inspection.

What happened to June?

2010-06-29T11:55:00.001-04:00

LOL

What happened to May??

2010-06-05T13:02:00.002-04:00

Clearly it's been a bit of a crazy month, seeing that my last post was May 1. Commencement, May 7, was good fun, and it was great to have the family in town. I admit the entire thing was a bit odd, seeing that I'm not yet done with the doctorate, but it was an enjoyable, and I admit monumental, event nonetheless. The speech at commencement went well, as far as I can tell. It was tough to get feedback in that environment, but I think it was well-received. I'd do something like that again! LOL

I turned in a second draft of the results chapter to DC just prior to commencement, and she was pleased to receive it. Two weeks later I received edits from her that said I need to move around major sections and tighten it up a bit. Guess I'm almost there. The process has been exhausting, though. It wasn't till after I had written the first draft that she mentioned I needed to answer my basic research questions in this chapter. I thought that was to come in the Discussion chapter, and this one was only a reporting of the results. It would have been helpful to have known that tidbit sooner! So the second draft included my responses to the research questions embedded into the already-existing chapter. DC's feedback on the second draft was that I now I need to re-organize the chapter so it more clearly focuses on the research questions, like as part of the basic structure of the chapter. Seriously? Again, would have been helpful to have known this at the beginning of this process!!! Oh well. Plug away I must, and today should be a good afternoon for doing as such. Hey, that rhymes. Kinda.

It occurs to me that we get to the end of writing these ginormous dissertations only to realize that we've never done this sort of work before and need some hand-holding on how to finish. That seems a bit backward, though. Sort of embarrassing, honestly. My chair's expectations don't quite appear to match up with the way I was led through the coursework. We don't have a very structured program at LMU, so I guess I can understand that there are different expectations from different professors. Still, it's odd that I get this far into the process, and I have to ask questions like, "How do you expect the last chapter to be structured?"

Good-bye, May. Hello summer.

Gearing upwardly

2010-05-01T11:22:00.003-04:00

The post would have been called "gearing up," but I thought it would be better to end on an adverb instead of a preposition. Right, Donovan? :-)

Am going to try working from the home office/prison today. It's a temperate, yet soggy, day outside, and I don't feel like going out there. My writing buddies are doing other things this weekend, so I'm locking myself upstairs here at home. I mowed the lawn yesterday, fortunately avoiding today's rain, so I don't have that hanging over my head or anything. We do need to clean and dust this house before the entire family arrives next week. Oh well: tomorrow for that.

Commencement is now officially less than a week away. It should be fun, though I will feel like an impostor. I will admit, I don't see the point of participating right now. However, it has at least kept me focused on making really good progress these last couple of months, so I suppose it'll be worth it. My speech is written, and I've been practicing it here and there. Should be fun. But I'm still an impostor!

I'm becoming bored blogging about my dissertation. I'd rather write about something else. Guess I should finish up here pretty quick. I'm random today.

Still editing

2010-04-24T11:04:00.002-04:00

It's been a crazy-busy week at work, so I've made slower-than-desirable progress on my edits due to sheer exhaustion at night. I'm in the library with my writing peeps today, so hopefully their presence will keep me focused get through these things today. More on that later.

As it turns out, I was elected to speak at the commencement ceremony in just under two weeks. I was pleasantly surprised. Should be good fun.

I attempt to ignore the fact that I'm missing an Autism Day activity a local historic museum near our home. Next year, damnit, I'm there.

Editing Weekend / Commencement Preparations

2010-04-17T14:35:00.005-04:00

Hi Blog,

Wife and Son went out of town this weekend, so my task is editing chapter 5. I took yesterday off from Work-work so I could do dissertation-work, and well, it worked! Got a good amount done in the library.

Today I've been a little lazy in that I did a few things around the house this morning and had a late lunch. Buckling down now for hopefully the next four hours or so to do more editing. Plan on doing the same later tonight and tomorrow before the fam comes home. It would be GREAT to have these done this weekend.

I've heard back from two of my three peer reviewers, both of whom gave me very helpful feedback that I will try and incorporate into this chapter. I'll also need to write up the details of that whole process in chapter 3, the method chapter, before long. The third reviewer told me she's working on things this weekend, so that's good.

So, it's all moving along. Meanwhile, I've ordered my cap and gown for commencement, which is coming up in less than three weeks. That's a bit surreal. I also learned I was nominated to speak at our department commencement ceremony, so my name will be placed on the ballot for that voting process among my colleagues. It would be a pleasure to do it, but if I don't get voted into the role, then I will gladly listen to whomever wins. It doesn't matter to me all that much, though it's certainly an honor to even be nominated.

Bye blog.

Edits

2010-04-09T22:21:00.002-04:00

On editing the results chapter...

One of the many things I enjoy about working with DC is that she does not edit for grammar. Rather, she edits for concepts. She expects me to have the grammar part covered. Fortunately, I'm a decent writer, so I'm confident I can repair the grammar. I would rather spend the precious-little time with my dissertation chair discussing concepts rather than grammar.

That being said, receiving "a handful" of edits from my chair is more like climbing a mountain of them! I'm working my way uphill steadily, though, and perhaps I'll be able to start descending said mountain by the end of this weekend? Would be nice.

Sick of it

2010-03-31T21:01:00.008-04:00

I am sick of talking about my dissertation with other people. It's getting humiliating, actually. Not the work itself, but the time its taken me to complete it. Technically I'm two years ahead of my final deadline, which for me as a last-minute type of guy is a pretty big deal. Still, I'm sick of the judgmental looks I get from people when they ask about it. I'm sick of sharing small personal victories for myself about my progress that no one else really seems to believe are that big a deal. It feels like I'm being looked down upon when I talk about the progress I'm making, even though my progress has been decent lately. For example, instead of being happy for me that I've received feedback on this second-to-last chapter, and that it went well, I have seen colleagues roll their eyes. Or, they simply say nothing. Perhaps they are skeptical that I'll ever finish. Perhaps they wonder why I'm still bothering to work on this. I've even seen others literally fall asleep right in front of me when I do discuss the finding or the progress I am making, even when they were the ones who asked. Apparently, I have that effect on people. When did I become boring?

It hardly makes me want to walk at graduation because I won't be finished by then, and I don't think anyone is really going to understand that.

At this point, I'd rather end all of this dissertation stuff quietly, without anyone knowing about it, without all the pomp and circumstance, without hearing all the, "Finally," or, "At last!" comments I'm going to hear. I guess they'd be well-meant comments, but really, I don't think I'll want to hear that shit. From my point of view, I'm going as quickly as I can and still maintain a decent life at home and at work. This is not my top priority, and it never has been. The fact that I've still stuck with it, for me, is a pretty big deal.

So perhaps it's easier if I just stop talking about it till about a month or two after it's all over and done. I dunno, though. Wish I were better about keeping my big mouth shut.

Findings Chapter Feedback

2010-03-31T20:49:00.003-04:00

I had a good conversation with DC on Monday about my findings chapter. She said, "For a first draft of a findings chapter, this is quite good. All of the data are there. I've seen worse. But you still have a lot of work to do."

I don't think I could ask for more, honestly. I realize I have a lot of work to do, but at least I'm not starting over on a 45-page chapter.

It's funny: I honestly don't know what I'm doing with any of this. I'm literally learning about it as I go through it. It's funny what you learn in coursework, and what you don't. I know how to conduct a research study from start to finish. I even know how to write up the results. But writing up a dissertation is apparently an entirely different thing, and I've obviously never done this before. So, there were a few things I left out of first draft because I thought they should be written about in the closing chapter. Apparently I was wrong. OK then. At this point, I'll pretty much just do whatever I'm told to get this done. It would have been nice, however, to have been told how to structure these last two chapters before I started on them in the first place!!! Ah well. After Monday's conversation, I think I've got a better handle on how to finish up this fucker.

In other news, I learned that my minor advisor (and committee member) retires at the end of this year. Good for him! Fortunately, a possible defense date either this summer or next fall will not conflict with his retirement plans, so apparently all is still well. However, it is yet another sign that I simply need to finish up very soon.

Starting Sucks

2010-03-20T14:51:00.002-04:00

I hate starting to write something. I have learned to overcome this hatred by just starting to write whatever is on my mind, as if I was telling it to someone who gives a rat's ass. Sometimes these start in the middle of a sentence, but I don't give a crap. I keep writing, knowing I'm going to have to go back and edit out the shittiness at a later date anyhow.

So I've started the last chapter. It sucks, but it's started. And now I can move on through completion.

I haven't posted photos from the bath renovation here just yet. And, I may or may not do so soon. So far it's looking good. They are moving faster than I expected, which is pretty amazing. Also, they are CLEAN. Our garage, where the supplies are being stored, is cleaner now than before the guys started. No joke.

Back to it. I wish it were raining. Would make it easier to focus, knowing the weather sucks. Instead it's in the mid-60s and sunny. I don't want to talk about it.

Master Bath Renovation

2010-03-16T08:38:00.002-04:00

Today Chesterley is getting a bit of a face lift, inside. We're starting on a renovation of the master bathroom. This is a good thing, seeing we've not used the shower stall in there for about 8 months. Fortunately it's not the only bathroom on the second floor.

We're really nervous about it. In prior fixes to things in this house, there's always something unexpected that pops up. We know something will appear here as well. We just hope it's not too much more expensive than what we've planned.

I'll post a few photos later.

Chester's 11th Birthday

2010-03-15T08:50:00.004-04:00

Happy birthday, Chester! I can't believe you're 11 years old today.

This photo was snapped just after Christmas, a few months ago. Not a great picture of him, photographically, but it's what I have on me today, in my phone.

I still remember very clearly the day we brought him home from the farm where he was born. We were living in our two-bedroom apartment in a mid-size city in the Southeast. It's strange to reflect back on all that has happened in our lives since Chester joined our family, but it's really neat he's been with us the entire time. We're really lucky that for now he hops around the house as if he's still quite young. I do notice his stamina isn't quite what it used to be, but that's understandable for an old dog.

Here's to several more happy, healthy years with Chester!

Results Chapter Delivered

2010-03-05T17:36:00.002-05:00

The editing took forever! That, and the fact that I had to change the spaces between sentences back from one space to two, due to the new APA style guide that was released last year. Pain in the ass, but it's done.

And you know, it doesn't suck. It's really not half bad. We'll see if DC agrees.

Onto the final chapter now. Wow, that's pretty damn cool.

2AM - not too bad

2010-03-05T02:11:00.002-05:00

I finally finished writing around 1:00 AM. That took longer than I thought, but again this is not news to me. I decided not to include that one last section - it should be shoved into the Theory chapter anyhow.

I was cutting/pasting all these little Word docs into something bigger, but I was falling asleep at my desk. Ack! As a result, I feared I had cut/pasted things out of order, all over the place, in my sleep. Yikes! Fortunately I had a backup copy of one important piece I messed up, so I started part of it over.

Anyhow, it's 46 pages in a pretty raw, rough form. I will do the edits tomorrow morning and will plan to have it turned in by Noon. Whew!

Almost there

2010-03-04T20:03:00.003-05:00

It's been a good, productive week. I've carved out time in my schedule to do both dissertation work and work-work. I've started using Twitter again (got a MUCH better app for my Damn Blackberry), so I can quickly post things up here I'd like to remember.

I have a small part of one section left to do this evening. That literally fell together quite quickly, during my last hour or so at the office today, after I had two meetings in a row. Where do I find the energy? Then, either I'm going to pull together the last section very quickly, or it'll be end up as part of the theory chapter. I haven't decided yet. Guess I should get on that soon.

When I'm done with the actual writing, I then need to pull together 12 small Word documents that I've been constructing into one big-ass document that will form the chapter in its entirety. I've been considering how I'll actually arrange all of these for some time now, so it may actually come together rather quickly. It's funny: I still don't know how many pages this chapter is going to be. That sort of cracks me up.

I may be up half the night, but that's alright. Honestly, there were some papers in my coursework that I started at 9:30 PM the night before they were due, and I would usually get A's. Tonight I'm much farther along, I'm just shooting for a draft to be done for tomorrow. No problem!

I'm not exaggerating when I say I have never been so relaxed going into An Evening before A Paper is Due in my entire academic career...and that's been a LONG career!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quilt Squares

2010-02-27T20:39:00.004-05:00

I just realized that I haven't mentioned my quilt-square metaphor up here, and yet I referred to it in my last post. Briefly: I have no experience with quilting other than that I can see how they are constructed. One builds each quilt square first, then they are arranged in a pattern that makes sense, and then finally they are somehow all sewn together.

I view the creation of my results/findings chapter as similar to constructing a quilt. The codes that I developed from the data analysis are essentially the small squares. Some of them can be grouped together to make a larger square. First I must develop all of the small and larger squares (I've completed four . Once those are complete (perhaps by tomorrow or Monday), then I can start the process of arranging them in a logical order and finally "sewing" things together with text that connects the whole thing into one big-ass quilt.

I've already realized that I'll have a six-square quilt. Each of those squares can be broken down into three or four smaller squares. I have completed the basics for four of the six squares, and I started on the fifth one this afternoon. I hope to finish up that one tonight and possibly get through the sixth one tomorrow (that's probably too ambitious, but one must set goals).

Arranging: I honestly have already arranged them in my head. I'll play with some of the small-level details just a bit, but I think I have the arrangement of the six squares ready to go.

Sewing: I tend to make connections and write connective text pretty quickly. Heck, I write pretty quickly in general, when i set my mind to it. I started this post at 8:39 PM, and it's now 8:46 PM...

So, if I can finish making squares this weekend, I can probably give myself Monday-Wednesday to get the arranging and sewing done. Thursday can be editing day, and then I can deliver the quilt to DC on Friday.

Again, it may be too ambitious, but it's a plan. And it's 8:47 PM now.

Graduation Application is In

2010-02-27T12:13:00.002-05:00

I turned in my application to walk at graduation in the middle of last week. It's funny that I did that, because I really didn't make much progress on the dissertation last week. However, I know deep down that regardless of WHEN the deadline for completion is set, I will finish SOMETHING. So, now there will be a tough push starting today through the end of next week to get the results chapter finished, but it'll happen. I may not sleep very much, but it'll happen. It's gotta happen.

I'm back in SCT this morning writing with a friend. I finally finished up the biggest, most important quilt square of them all, which is a big relief. Two more biggies to try and conquer this weekend....then I can weave the whole quilt together this week before turning it all in to DC. It's gonna suck, but it'll be done.

Home Stretch with this Results Chapter Thing

2010-02-22T08:41:00.005-05:00

I had a great meeting with DC last Friday (I was in SCT for the day). She was just as excited as I am about the various things I'm finding with my study. More important, she encouraged me to start expressing my own views in terms of, um, "my" theory. Yep, it's mine. All mine. That was a little weird at first, but then again, the point of all of this is to create a theory, so I just need to get over the weirdness.

In the next five days I'll solidify whether or not I'll walk in graduation. I suspect I will, but I do need to make significant progress this week or else I will not make the 3/5 deadline to give DC the first draft of the fifth chapter. What's cool is that I'll start drafting the sixth (and LAST!) chapter after that deadline. Wow, that's pretty swell.

My perfectionist tendencies seem to be kept at bay for now. I'm even to the point where I'm writing paragraph after paragraph, and if I think they suck I literally write [THIS SUCKS] as a marker to go back and edit. A good friend heard an expression saying something like, "I'm just a decent writer, but I'm an excellent editor." I like that mantra.

I think that's similar to my attitude toward being "ready" to graduate. I figure I'm never really going to feel ready till I'm completely finished. But will I ever finish unless I feel I'm ready?? ACK- that's a mad cycle! Instead, I'm just plugging forward, setting hard deadlines and trying to stick to them.

I pay my auto insurance every six months, and I just paid us up through August of this year. What's funny is that the next time I replace those little insurance cards in August, it's very likely I will already have participated in graduation and will have my final defense date set. It's going to be a pretty wild six months. However, the six months prior to the end of both my BA and my MA were exactly like this, so this seems like the perfect time to finish.

Deadlines

2010-02-17T09:11:00.007-05:00

I'm all for using extrinsic motivators as a short-term fix for getting something accomplished, quickly. The application to graduate is coming up very soon. I think I'm on track to make it in time, which is great. It's also a bit weird. Participating in commencement doesn't feel quite right since I'm not yet being finished. However, if this goes the same way as all of the other papers I've written, I suspect the end of this project will come more quickly than I anticipate. But then there's the "everything always takes longer" phenomenon, which I've encountered time and time again throughout this process. Bottom line: who the hell knows?

I think that if I keep up this pace, I'll at least have a decent draft of the rest of the study done before I would walk in May. Then I'd feel comfortable about walking. Maybe I'd have my defense date scheduled by that time as well. That'd be cool.

I've not yet decided if I'll participate in Commencement just yet, but at least I'm continuing to make decent progress. I still have another week to make good progress and make my final decision. Fortunately, DC is supportive my decision either way.

Things that Go Bump in the Night

2010-02-14T08:34:00.001-05:00

At about 2:45 AM today (yes, I was still awake!), the strangest thing happened. As a car drove by the house, I heard the engine roar, and then I heard a "Bump-Bumpity-Bump THUD." I scrambled to the window, and I saw that a car had stopped in front of our house. I had to stare at it for a few seconds and wrap my brain around what I saw: The two rear break lights were vertical...one on top of the other. Yep, the car had flipped onto its side, right in front of our house.

Chesterley, our home, is in a suburban-like subdivision (even though we're within the LSC city limits), and we're on the one through through street in the entire neighborhood, just about a mile long. There are no stop signs, and the road has numerous twists and turns. Tonight the road was extremely icy, as the private company that takes care of the roads in the winter apparently has yet to invest in salt and/or sand. Normally the speed limit is 30 MPH, but typically in the winter I keep it around 20 to prevent from sliding into one of my neighbor's mailboxes on all the ice.

I immediately wondered if the person inside was injured or dead. The Wife was awakened by the "Bump-Bumpity-Bump THUD" sound. She asked, "What was that?" My mind and heart were racing. All I could say was, "Car on side. Car on its side." Wife said, "Our car is on its side?" I finally took a deep breath and said, "A car has flipped over onto its side in front of our house." I hear a "holy SHIT," so I know she's then comprehended what I said.

I called 9-1-1:

"9-1-1 may I help you?" said a tired yet friendly, female voice who had probably been at work for a while on a busy Saturday night.

"Hi," I said, making my voice stay calm. "There is a car that has flipped onto its side in front of my house." I really couldn't believe what I was saying. I mean this kind of thing could happen on an Interstate during a snowstorm, but on our little windy street??

"What's your address?!" said her then excited voice, almost with the appearance of saying, Ooh...this'll be a fun one!

Wife and I both threw on heavier clothing, and I ventured outside toward the car. The neighborhood was completely quiet. I think we were the only ones who heard the crash. I walked toward the car, which I then realized was a little red Jeep Wrangler, and I tried to see if there was any movement. The weirdest thing was that there was no movement, and no sound at all, except for a bent windshield wiper that was slowly wiping the air, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

Way too eerie. Way too quiet. Way too little movement from the driver. I hoped she wasn't dead. I hope she hadn't just died right there in front of us. I hope the car wasn't going to explode in front of my house. Man it was cold. Ran inside.

By the time I shut the front door, two police cars had already pulled up from the north. Then another pulled up from the south. So Wife and I both went outside this time to watch, even though it was under 15 degrees. We heard the officers saying to the person inside, "OK honey, we're working on getting you out." and "Can you reach up and crank open the window?" They had to repeat the question several times. It was as if she didn't understand that the passenger seat was actually above her now instead of next to her, because she didn't appear to quite get that the car was flipped on its side. Maybe she was drunk, intoxicated, pissed, hosed, and wasted.

Once Wife and I realized the driver wasn't dead, and once a police officer thought she may have been drunk, intoxicated, pissed, hosed or wasted, we decided to go inside the house. My sympathy for the driver waned at this point, I will admit. At least she wasn't dead. At least she hadn't killed anyone else. We watched the whole extraction and towing experience from our living room window. Around 3:00 AM. A total of FIVE firetrucks proceeded to the scene, flashing lights and all, at least one ambulance, along with like three more police cars. Seemed like a bit much, but hey I'll admit it was good to see the quick reaction .

Bottom line: they sawed her out of the car through the passenger side (the side up in the air), and took her away in a stretcher. We watched a tow-truck driver upright the car and get it on his tow-truck. He even swept up the broken glass from the street. In just under one hour, the entire scene was cleaned up, and Chesterley is back to its regular state of quiet and not the eerie quiet.

A police officer called me a few minutes later to follow up with a couple of questions. He informed me the driver was "extremely intoxicated." And, she took out my neighbor's mailbox in the process.

No. Sympathy. Relieved no one died. Don't drink and drive.

Moving along

2010-01-30T13:36:00.002-05:00

I'm wearing my trendy new bifocals and am sitting back in the library trying to get more work done on the friggin results chapter. I may be a pound heavier, too. Oh well. It's been a long week. Am happy for the serenity of the library for a while.

More later.

Weight Battle

2010-01-23T16:20:00.003-05:00

If you'd rather not know about my weight gain and loss story, then simply don't read this post, Mom. :-)

I am a member of the online version of WeightWatchers (WW for short). In the fall of 2001 I lost 30 pounds. This was weight I gained during the time when Wife was pregnant with Moose. He was born in July, and in September (soon after 9/11, but with no strong connection), I hopped on the WW bandwagon. By the holidays of that year, I had dropped about 30 pounds, and I kept 25 of those 30 off the remainder of the academic year, until we moved to Indiana. So, I was 202 lbs when we moved to SCT in '02, down from 227 just a year earlier. I stand at 5'8", and according to WW I should be at 158 at the most.

I changed my lifestyle when we moved to Indiana (staying up late studying, sleeping later, etc.), and I went off of my weight maintenance routines. But I still do track my weight on Weightwatchers.com as much as I remember to do so. When life gets really busy or stressed, I tend not to check into the site, deal with depression shit, eat more/exercise less, and what a shocker I gain weight. Then a few months pass and I get my life back in order. I get more organized, less stress, less depression, and I stop eating like an idiot and I lose weight. I know exactly a) what causes it and b) how to get it under control. It's not easy for me, but I do know what it takes. It's just that sometimes I don't give a rat's ass, and other times I do.

A year ago I was getting into a decent exercise routine. I didn't really change my eating patterns, but since I was exercising I was at least fitting into my clothing well. The summer hit and I took off a chunk of time to work on TFD. It paid off: I got a lot done, but I stopped exercising and started eating. Then I hurt my shoulder on our vacation and I didn't go back to the gym for a while till that healed. October, November and December flew by with only one trip to the gym.

As a result, I'm now officially 11.5 pounds heavier than I was one year ago. Yesterday morning I was 224.5...almost up to the evil 227 of 2001. Now, I'm proud of the fact that I've never crept up to the 227 in about eight years, but this is getting too close for my comfort.

So, it's back on WW again, drinking lots of water, limiting sugar, keeping things in moderation. The last time I did this in full force, I was applying to doctoral programs. That worked well: I lost the 30 pounds and I got into everywhere I applied with assistantship offers at more than one location. Maybe getting back on WW again will help me keep the rest of my life organized to keep plugging away on TFD.

Ten Pages to PR1

2010-01-23T16:14:00.002-05:00

Earlier this afternoon, I sent off about 10 pages from the results chapter to PR1. That's the local peer reviewer friend (see the case of characters in the column to the right).

That felt a little weird, because that was among the pages that were really easy to pull together earlier in the week. I'm interested to hear her thoughts on how this went. If she thinks I'm remotely on the right track, then it'll be some smooth sailing ahead. If not, well, then perhaps I'll have a better idea of what track to hop on in order finish up this puppy.

Another round of glasses

2010-01-22T23:14:00.007-05:00

Age catches up with me. I ordered new these glasses this evening. Bifocals. My friend Rachel would call them "bifuckols," and I'd completely agree. I do think these frames look pretty darn cool, however, in spite of them giving me great age and wisdom. In addition, I admit every time I try the bifocals, the reduced strain on my eyes when reading things up close is really very nice. At least I shall age in up-t0-date, rather stylish, frames. They arrive in a week or so.

LMUU has a sweet supplemental vision benefit package that gives us nice discounts on eyeglasses, so I decided to replace my prescription sunglasses as well.

I'm excited about these puppies. My current sunglasses are several years old, as is the prescription in them. I guess I have become accustomed to driving in the sunlight and having things a tad blurry. Probably not the greatest idea. Hmm. These will be ready tomorrow, so if I decide to venture back to the big-ass mall, then I could pick them up at that time.

An unfortunate thing happened while we were there. It was about 8:00 PM, and a group of about five or six young adults...not sure how old...late teens/early 20s?...came in and spread around the store, looking at frames. Personally, going glasses shopping is not something I did on a Friday night with my friends before we had Moose; we only went tonight because it was convenient. The person helping me got visibly disturbed by their presence. I wasn't sure why at first, but I understood what was really happening a little too late. By the time the young adults left, they didn't purchase any glasses. Instead, they stole three frames. At least!

C'mon people: grow up. What are you gonna do with those frames anyhow? And what about the loss to the store? And what about others who may have wanted to purchase those legitimately?Finally, what did you just teach my son about your behavior? You should set a better example instead of working to bust up a decent society. Geez.

This seems too easy

2010-01-19T09:45:00.005-05:00

I'm in the throes of my results chapter now, officially. I'm simply writing up the facts as I saw them in the study. It's a bit refreshing not to be attributing every other sentence to somebody else. I'm slowly getting accustomed to writing sentences starting with, "I found..." or "I viewed..." or "I heard...". Me me me, all about me. Guess I'm finally finding my own voice in this process.

So why did I feel like I was going to throw up yesterday when I got together with my writing group? I sounded like the worried Rose (Olympia Dukakis) in Moonstruck. I sat writing in the cafe, wringing my hands, groaning with worry, wondering what I'm missing. This seems too easy. I'm cranking out text, telling the story in my own words, placing quotes where appropriate, and it's easy? The chapter I thought was going to kick my ass for the past six months or more is easy? Are you fucking kidding me?

On second thought, it better be easy. I mean, I've been looking at the interviews, spinning my wheels about all this for YEARS at this point. I practically have these 14 interviews memorized. It shouldn't be a surprise that it's easy.

But it still makes me want to throw up.

So. I guess it's going well.

Results Chapter Structure

2010-01-06T23:25:00.004-05:00

I am pleased to report that I've worked between 15 and 90 minutes on the TFD each day this week. It's progress. Yesterday wasn't great. I attempted several random queries of the database to see if I could get a good baseline of quotes to use when writing the sections. This didn't really work. It felt like I was pulling back a bow string ready to shoot an arrow right at a target, but I couldn't find the right arrow. It's like shooting blanks and expecting a target to get hit. It was useless. Pointless. Dumb. Horrible. I couldn't sleep last night as a result. That was fun.

Tonight was a different deal: I remembered that I did get quite a bit of writing done on this chapter last summer. Something during that process was the catalyst to put the writing aside for a while and work on recoding the phuquing interviews. So, I thought, why not go back into what I had actually written, refresh my memory of where things stood early in the fall, and then start to fill in the gaps with quotes and such from the data. Brilliant!

I wrote about 36 pages last summer. Thirteen of those comprise the chapter with participant descriptions. The other 23 were actual text for this beast of a results chapter. Wow...23? Didn't realize that. And fortunately, these are brief descriptions of the six major themes I found in the data...

...so I think I have my structure for how I'll finish the writeup. Cool! Light-bulb moment! Each of the six themes is comprised of about 3-4 codes. For now, I have a separate Word document for each code that I've summarized, and now I'm explaining its significance to the study and using quotes to support each idea. I think what I need to do first is to finish writing up the individual codes while adding quotes as evidence. Then, I need to weave together each code per its parent theme. Finally, I'll pull together all of the themes, somehow...hmm...not sure how. But I'll leap that hurdle when I get there.

Now I just need to plug away and write it all out of my head. This is supposed to be the toughest chapter, and I can certainly see why. But I think I've figured out, finally, where the hell I'm going with this. Maybe I'll sleep tonight.

Welcome to 2010

2010-01-04T21:31:00.004-05:00

The mandatory week off last week went relatively well. I finished all but just one-half of the last fucking interview, which I intend to finish tonight.

I'm determined to work no less than one hour per day on this sucker for the indefinite future. Seven hours per week is better than what I achieved last semester, so we'll see.

It's going to be a late night, though, seeing it's 9:30 PM and I'm just getting started. This is typical, though, after a late dinner and Moose's bedtime routine. Oh well: sleep is an under-rated waste of time anyhow. :-) Glad I have a glass of fruit-of-the-vine in hand.

It's not really a new year's resolution, but I'm seriously considering pursuing better living through drugs. Not illegal ones, silly. Rather, the "get rid of the dissertation blues" kind. Or, as my buddy Jason puts it so well: happy pills. I'm generally not a big fan of using stuff that alters my body (beyond caffeine and alcohol in moderate amounts), but I figure these may be worth a shot at this point. I'm discussing all this with Jason on Friday and Gibsyn via e-mail when I can, and I'm certain both will offer good insights in their own ways.

Off to finish the last blasted interview.

Mandatory Week Off

2009-12-28T14:24:00.004-05:00

And to think some people complain about a mandated week off with pay. I mean yes, we are forced to save four vacation days for this week. However, we do get a ton of vacation time at LMUU, so it's not that difficult. Also, I have no complaints about not making an excuse to my colleagues, or to myself, for taking off time this week.

So now I have time to write. Insert evil, sinister laugh here.

Oh yeah, I've added a Twitter feed back into this blog. There have been several times when I have a thought about the dissertation that I won't put up on Facebook, but I could certainly add it to my dissertation blog via Twitter.

Off to finish up another interview tag map. Bye.

Two-and-a-half months

2009-12-18T13:37:00.009-05:00

Today is the last day of fall-semester finals at LMU. I had planned on being finished by this time. Hell, I had planned on being finished by this time a year ago, but that's another story that I really don't want to discuss.

I had a good discussion with DC today, via e-mail. I informed her of my (lack of) progress. I told her where I am with the writing at this point, and I did mention my struggle to achieve a balance among work, family and the dissertation. Her response (at 1:00 PM) was her usual supportive self:

I know the feeling - work is getting in the way of research! I have 13 more papers to grade before 5:00 today!

I am fortunate to have a realistic chair who is not a pompous ass. I think I need to pin a note on my bulletin board reading, "DC is not a pompous ass," just to keep that in mind on a more regular basis.

She also reminded me to check on the dates for applying for (gulp) graduation. It's March 1, 2010. I suppose there is a chance I could have a good draft of at least the results chapter finished by then. It's two-and-a-half months from now. I may actually feel comfortable submitting said application for graduation if that were the case.

So, I think that's the new deadline. Too bad February is a short month, though. Sigh. Anyhow, I'm glad it's winter. Time to hibernate and get this fucker done.

Coffee Shop

2009-12-02T09:35:00.003-05:00

Finally found/made time to get back to TFD here in a coffee shop. Am hoping to crank it out this morning before an afternoon of meetings on campus.

The 20th reunion experience represented a whole bunch of different emotions all at the same time. All in all, a good time was had by all, though it was hardy worth the face value of the tickets (god that was expensive). I did get to catch up with a few friends I had not seen since high school, a few I saw on & off from time to time, and also my very first friend, ever. The first friend and I had completely lost touch earlier in our lives, though we did end up at the same high school after spending elementary school in different locations. Once we were in high school, we had grown apart. Seeing each other there, though, was really cool. We had a good long chat and caught up on each other's lives. Crazy.

OK, focusing on TFD now.

UPDATE at 2:18 PM: the morning TFD work went so well this morning that I almost forgot to go to my actual job at 11:00 AM. Sigh. If only...

20-Year High School Reunion

2009-11-24T21:06:00.003-05:00

I pack a back this evening, as I and the fam prepare to travel tomorrow morning to Large Midwestern Metropolis (LMM) for Thanksgiving. Usually we host the meal here at Chesterley, but this year my high school class decided to hold its 20th reunion on Thanksgiving Friday. I guess they assume we all still consider LMM as "home." That is definitely not the case for this researcher. In fact, I think it's odd that this assumption has been made, especially given that about 97% of my 850-person class went to college upon graduation (and most had to go out of town to do so). But who am I to skew their reality with data?

I am not always that stylish in my choice of clothing, but I do care about how I look. I have a vague idea of what the hell I'm going to wear Friday night. It's pretty vague, though. So I just ran a Web search on the question, "What does a guy wear to his 20th high school reunion?"

Most of the articles that appeared are about women pondering what "little black dress" they will wear. I didn't find much about guys. And it's funny, because the more I read blog posts about people getting nervous about their reunions, the more I realized I'm just not at all nervous about mine. I am looking forward to it, not because I plan on renewing old friendships (why?) or reliving the old HS days (why??), but because I think the experience is going to be fascinating. I plan on studying the crowd, making conclusions, and reporting the results. I am a fearless researcher.

I'm a complete nerd, I realize. And I'm damn proud of it.

Also, I will admit that there are a few people that I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing again. I actually had a good time in high school, probably because the place was so darn big (n=4,000), and this increased the chances finding others who were as odd as I was. I mean am.

I think a sweater, a button-down shirt shirt, and decent pants will suffice for the evening. I even got a haircut today, a pretty amazing feat for a bald guy.

Writing the music in my head

2009-11-18T22:05:00.004-05:00

I've had a tune pounding through my head these last couple of weeks. I actually wrote this tune a while ago...I think it was around the time Moose was born. That was a year before I started my doctoral coursework, about eight years ago.

I have no clue why the tune just popped back into my head again. I don't think I've even played this piece in like 4-5 years. I was pleased the tune came back to me again, but it happened during a very busy week where I had no time to sit at the piano.

If I'm right about when I wrote it, it was during a very content, positive time in my life. But I actually had hit a brick wall with this piece, as I couldn't finish out the first phrase. I had a good introduction, but after the first few bars it just sort of fizzled. Even so, I liked this piece a lot, so I guess I just didn't forget it. I certainly had put it on hold for a while, though.

I had yet another crazy day at work today. In the middle of a meeting, the way to resolve the phrase pounded through my head like a drill. I considered driving home immediately to get to the piano and write it down, but that wasn't realistic. I ended up not getting to the piano till after dinner, but I'm glad I remembered the song. It's funny: I first had to re-learn the piece (weird to have to re-learn a piece that I wrote!), and THEN I could play the part that was pounding through my head. I quickly grabbed my pad of blank staff paper (can't BELIEVE I actually still had some in the piano bench!) and wrote it all down.

I honestly don't know how I do it...I don't know how I write music in my head. I can't explain it. Writing music is a strange process for me...I can hardly even write about that process here. It feels like my language skills tonight seem to be all chopped up by the music in my head.

My Eyes

2009-11-14T00:13:00.005-05:00

My mother visits this weekend. Her visits are often marked by going out for Italian food. So we went to a local Italian place up the street that we discovered last weekend. I am pleased that I did not overeat this time. Not the case last weekend, but I digress.

Mom footed the bill, which was very nice. She showed me the check and asked me how much tip she should leave. I pulled out my trusty tip card from my wallet: it's a series of charts that show dollar amounts and their 15% and 20% tip amounts. To my horror, I could hardly read the little card unless I held it about TWO FEET away from my eyes. Wife laughed.

Honestly. Bifocals at age 38?

Where was I?

2009-11-12T14:03:00.004-05:00

Time flies when balancing the various components of life sucks the energy right out of one's brain cells. I'm finishing up the re-coding process. The more I do it, the faster I get with it. This is merely an organizational step that must be done in order for me to provide evidence toward the large chunk of the results chapter I've already written. Pain in the ass, but I'm almost there.

I've taken part of this week off from work to get it all done. It's been alright. Not as productive as locking myself away in a hotel was last summer, but certainly more affordable. It is helpful, also, to anticipate going back to work and not being so behind as I was after the summer time off I took. Today I'm in the library again, and it's going well.

Actually, I'm sort of entering a "summer" season at work because I just completed a large annual report. There are a few major tasks here and there, but I'm no longer launching anything new for quite a while. This is good.

Back to it, then.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-01T20:57:00.002-05:00

We had a nice Halloween this weekend. Wife's sister was in town. Unfortunately we didn't get any photos of her, probably because she was taking most of the ones you see here. More later.

Slow and Behind

2009-10-27T23:08:00.004-04:00

I haven't posted here in a month. Probably because I really haven't worked on TFD in a month. We moved Moose into his new school today, which is GREAT. His school/therapy will finally get back into a routine, which will be good for all of us. [contented sigh]

I'm behind on a couple of projects at work, probably because I am constantly sitting in meetings to which I'm called or invited. Tomorrow I have meetings from 9:00 AM-5:00 PM straight through, save one hour in the middle of the afternoon. Seriously. I mean, I understand why we all need to meet together, but when exactly does one get one's work accomplished?

I am getting through some hurdles, though. Settling the school thing is good and removes some of the stress from my plate. Also, I attended a conference here in LSC and even did a workshop with my boss and a colleague. It went well, and it was important for me to attend this meeting. I made some new connections and revived a few that were dying off, so it was time well spent. Last year I attended this same conference, and it didn't feel like my time was well-spent, so this was a welcome surprise.

Assuming I indeed am able to plow through these next couple of projects and then finish a division-wide report by the end of next week, I will be able to take a week off (11/9-13) to focus on TFD. Finally.

And I thought I'd be defending the dissertation by Thanksgiving. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Honestly at this point I'll be surprised if I ever finish. I know it will probably happen, but I have absolutely no idea when.

Droning

2009-09-29T08:44:00.003-04:00

I've created a playlist of songs on my iPod that is basically songs that drone. These are sort of repetitive songs with a steady bass line, easy rhythms, just enough to block out extraneous noise and let me think. Hearing the same songs each time I work seems to help me focus. Guess it's sort of training my brain to focus when I hear these songs. Interesting.

Back to the drone...

Re-Coding

2009-09-25T13:00:00.004-04:00

This is the first week in a while where I actually spent more than just one day on the dissertation. I was glad to be back at a cafe I've found nearby on recommendation of a couple of friends.

I've written at a conceptual level on the results chapter for while now, and that's been an extremely helpful process. I now have a good picture of the theory itself as it starts to take form. However, more recently I realized that I was struggling to remember the details of the interviews. Also, I am starting to mix up which participant said what quote. Last March, I took a pretty big shortcut by using NVivo to code only interview summaries (to save me time) and not the interviews themselves. It was a good decision at the time, because it allowed me more time to start writing. However, now I need more detail. I'm now using a concise list of my most relevant codes and am going through the interviews, adding codes where needed. I think it's the only way I can keep all of the details straight in my head. Yes, it's time away from writing, but I'm at a real block now and I need to do this to get through. This morning it took me only an hour to code one of the longer interviews. I'll get better at coding with my short list as I go along, so I figure I can get that one-hour time down to perhaps 30-45 minutes. Hopefully I can fly through the recoding process during the next week and be set to finish up the results chapter in October.

However, as my wife always says, "Want to see God laugh? Tell him your plans!"

Updates

2009-09-22T09:10:00.006-04:00

Oh yes, that's right. I keep a blog.

There has been a ton going on, and none of it is related to the dissertation.

First: we had a stellar moment for our son at our falling-off-the-left-edge-of liberal church last weekend. It was the Sunday for a children's sabbath program. Typically, we have Moose sit out on these things. Frankly, that always makes me and the wife shed a tear or five. Seeing the stupid typical kids up there singing their little hearts out off pitch is pretty hard on the ears when we know Moose can out sing the entire group. That statement is from my unbiased perspective as a musician, and not as a proud parent. OK, this is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely. Moose is a really good musician, but no one would know this since he cannot share his talents in these typical environments.

While we had no major musical breakthroughs, we did have one cool moment: he was able to participate in the children's processional with the rest of the kiddos for the first time. Many tears were shed, and there was great rejoicing. Maybe he'll be directing the children's choir in a few years. haha.

Second: we are probably pulling Moose out of his school. There is an excessively-long story to go along with this, and the last two weeks have been a bit rough. I won't share it all here, so if you'd like more information, contact me directly. Fortunately it's very likely we'll be able to get the same training for Moose in spite of all of this, but it's been rocky nonetheless. I am SOOO glad we don't live in SCT anymore. There is no way we would have any other options for Moose's education if we had stayed there.

So, I'm back in a cafe continuing to plug away on the dissertation that I easily forgot about the past couple of weeks. I pretty much have no chance of defending the entire piece prior to Thanksgiving as I had hoped. However, I'm going to attempt to pretend that Thanksgiving s my deadline nonetheless. I will be lucky to have a shitty draft by Christmas, but if that actually happens, then at least I'll be finished with TFD by graduation in 2010. It's only four years after I had planned, but fortunately two years prior to the real seven-year drop-dead deadline.

Finally

2009-09-06T20:19:00.004-04:00

Wife and child went to a birthday party in SCT today. As much as I would have enjoyed catching up with our old friends, I stayed back here at Chesterley to work on TFD (the fucking dissertation). I do look forward actually to attend weekend trips, parties and the like. Missing out on these things got old two years ago.

Moving on...

The last couple of weeks I've been catching up from what turned out to be a really hellish summer at work. Generally speaking, I've learned I don't acknowledge difficult times till they are over. Reflecting on the summer, while I am grateful for the time away from work I was able to take to make progress on TFD and for vacation, the summer itself was horribly busy, and far busier than I expected. In fact, I'm still catching up on a couple of summer projects, and fall semester classes started over a week ago. The time away probably contributed to the busy summer schedule at work, but it should never be said that life at a university is 'dead' over the summer. Au contraire, mon frere.

Moving on again, to today...

Since I've not made much progress during the work week on TFD due to said busy summer schedule, I felt somewhat justified in my choice to stay home from today's birthday party. And I'm glad I did. I think I actually have the basic structure lined up for My Theory on My Topic, which is, of course, the entire point of conducting a grounded theory study in the first place.

Finally.

Now I just have to get all the pieces lined up, find quotes to support these hair-brained ideas, and finish up this piece. I think I'm almost done. At least, I'm almost done with the draft of the results chapter.

Yeah, no big whoop. The thought of writing this up has only been on my mind for two years.

:-)

Slush

2009-08-25T11:31:00.001-04:00

Today I've made only a little bit of progress: only about a page or so. I feel like I'm muddling through slush. I am starting one of the toughest sections of the paper, though, so at least I'm not running away and hiding from the task at hand. But now I have a ton of other work-related projects on my mind, so I need to clear some of those off my plate before I can focus back on the diss. Perhaps I'll write more later tonight. If not, then I'll be back on it tomorrow AM.

Bye.

Thermostat

2009-08-25T10:13:00.002-04:00

This is the first time in my thirteen-year career that I've had an office in which I can actually control the heating and cooling, reliably.

I just may never leave.

A new work schema

2009-08-17T22:22:00.004-04:00

Last week, I tried an experiment. I purposely attempted to avoid scheduling too many appointments, and I set aside each morning to work on my dissertation. I mentioned last Wednesday I had written six pages. By the end of the week I wrote nine or ten, depending on how you count things.

Needless to say, it was a productive week. I've learned something. While having an entire day off from work to work on the dissertation was very helpful during the data analysis process, the writing process itself is VERY different. It's actually sort of tedious. I enjoy it, but it does not require the big, lofty part of my brain. Instead, it's actually pretty technical, so I just need to set aside time to work on it each day. If I can write about two pages per day, or 8-10 pages per week, I actually have a chance in hell of finishing this puppy before the holidays. Besides, the prospect of writing two pages doesn't seem that difficult.

So I've set aside 8-10 AM four days per week (total of 8 hours) to write write write. Unfortunately my favorite library doesn't open till 9, so I won't be able to frequent it very often, except on the weekends. I post this photo of one of my favorite spots over there. I enjoy the view of downtown, and I'll miss it during the week. However, this switch just made my life a bit more simple. I'll arrive at my on-campus office on time each morning, write a few pages for the first hour or so, and then move on with the rest of the day. Not too shabby.

I even wrote another page this morning, so I think it's working well.

Mid-week Update

2009-08-12T23:24:00.003-04:00

I wrote six pages this week. Not too shabby. Sure is better than zero. I'm getting on a roll, of sorts. I'm honestly bored out of my mind, but on a roll nonetheless.

Fattening

2009-08-11T20:59:00.003-04:00

I'm blowing off my night to work out at the gym so I can work on my dissertation. Sorry Mom. Yes, I know how fat I am.

I am seriously considering making the rest of the month of August one all-nighter so I make sure I get this chapter done. Do I really need to sleep?

No go today

2009-08-05T22:26:00.002-04:00

I did not get anything done on my dissertation today. Oh right: I do not write about my job on this blog. I won't say another word.

August: The Big Sunday

2009-08-05T11:13:00.004-04:00

A good friend of mine from college now works as a high school music teacher. She used to refer to the month of August as one long Sunday: the day of dread before the work week begins. Of course, these days schools are starting earlier and earlier, so the month-to-day ratio doesn't quite work. Still is a good metaphor, nonetheless.

And I'm feeling the crunch now that August is here. Must get the results chapter completed this month. Even if it sucks. We had a nice vacation last week, but now the summer is basically over and its back to work.

Today I'm working on the screened porch at Chesterley. After being gone last week, I find I miss just hanging out here at home. I don't have my usual need to get the heck out of the house. So, I'm taking advantage of the decent weather, the porch ceiling fan, and an empty house (except for Chester) to get some work done today from home. I still need to do a work project at some point before the end of the day (quelle surprise), but that's all part of the balance. Wish I didn't have that particular balance right now, but I certainly do value having a full-time job these days.

The good news is that prior to the vacation I shared a revised method chapter (ch. 3) and a new participants chapter (ch. 4) with DC. These were things I worked on during the "summer crunch" in June. I received feedback from her just last Monday after she returned from a trip:

Hey – read the two chapters on the plane – they look good. The only suggestion I have for you is to add a paragraph at the end of Chapter 3 that explains that the sample will be described, along with case studies of the participants, in chapter 4 and that chapters 5 and 6 will have in the findings and discussion. That way the reader will understand the format for the remainder of the dissertation.
There were a couple of grammatical things, but I assume you will catch those at some point.

Good job!

Fine by me. My sense is that she and the rest of my committee just want to see a final product. Not a perfect, publishable product, but a final product for this study. It's good to release the drive for perfection!

Here we go

2009-07-18T12:02:00.002-04:00

Scenario: you have a month of the semester remaining, and you have a two-and-a-half papers left to write. You pretty much know what you're going to write about for all three of these, but you don't feel like you have had a decent start. You have no idea how it's all going to get done, but somehow you know it will. It must. Or else. What do you do?

Write my flippin' assets off.

That's where I am right about now. The only really scary part is that "spring break" is happening next week (i.e., our vacation), and I cannot bring the laptop with me.

Today I'm in the library with two friends from SCT. We're all cranking out pages. Should be good writing energy together before a fun dinner with our families later on. Not such a bad Saturday, that is, if one must be locked in a library on a weekend.

Bye.

Assurance of Trustworthiness

2009-07-08T14:44:00.003-04:00

Today is my dissertation day. I think it's the first Wednesday I've had without any other work-related commitments since May. Today has been very productive.

One method of assuring trustworthiness in my data analysis is to check in with the participants and seek their feedback on a part of the data analysis. In the case of my study, I wanted to make sure my main description of their work and their future aspirations was accurate. This is called a "member check."

I've been dreading this process due to the time it has taken me to analyze the interviews and write up the summaries. It's been just over two years since I conducted the first interview, and I honestly don't know if my contact information for the participants is still accurate or not. Fortunately Facebook has been a big help with this process, so yay for modern communication. I know I've written about this up here in the past.

Well, now that I finished Chapter 4, or the write-up of participants (did I MENTION I finished Chapter 4?), it was high time to get back in touch with the participants. I finally went ahead and contacted them, and I shared with each his or her interview summary. I did not share any of my reactions. Just my overall summary of the interview.

Glad that's over!

One has already responded, so I hope a few others follow suit soon. I don't expect to hear from all of them, but somewhere around half be nice.

Onto write a few more pages of Chapter 5 now. Deep breath. Trying to stay awake in the mid-afternoon is always a challenge for me.

Summer Crunch - Day 6 Report

2009-07-01T23:51:00.003-04:00

It's good to be home.

Honestly, I didn't get much done today on the dissertation. I moved home from the hotel, unpacked a few things, and then worked in the garden a bit. I needed that.

The net effect of this time away from work and family is very exciting, in my opinion. I made a TON of progress. I'm now right in the middle of one of the more complex chapters, and I'm comfortable living with the complexity for a while. I'm also very, very motivated to finish up everything. Heck, I may even write up another code or two here before going to bed.

At this point, if I can keep plugging away on things in the evenings, weekends, and my regular day off of work during the week, then it's quite likely these chapters will be written by the end of August. They'll SUCK, but they'll be written!

Summer Crunch - Day 5 Report

2009-06-30T22:46:00.004-04:00

I am pleased to report that a good day does indeed follow a bad one. I continued with the "not caring so damn much" philosophy I adopted late last night and just kept going today. Things are finally flowing quite well with this chapter. By the end of the day tomorrow, I hope to come out of this focused time with a solid skeleton for Chapter 5 such that I can spend the next few weeks simply filling in the blanks with quotes and a bit more prose to tie together the various pieces. Then I need to figure out the order of said pieces, but this will come with time and thought. One hopes.

I had to get the heck out of this hotel room today for a bit, so I went over to the nearby large chain coffee establishment and had a decent few hours there. I froze my ass off though. Man it was cold in there. Guess they wanted us to buy more coffee or something. Dang.

Tonight's my last night in the hotel room. In celebration I treated myself to some ice cream. Now I'll settle in for another couple of hours of writing before bedtime.

Bye.

Summer Crunch - Day 4 Report

2009-06-30T00:56:00.005-04:00

Today was tough and frustrating. Tougher than I thought. And did I mention it was a bit frustrating? It was unfortunate that I had to attend to something for work in the morning. This didn't please me very much, but it had to be done. Fortunately it didn't take much of my time, and it didn't require that I go into the office.

While writing, I got stuck several times, and after having such a productive few days last week, this was disappointing. I found it tough to know where to start and what to say. I attempted to start this one section over and over, but to no avail. And then my mind would wander too much and I would wonder what Wife and Moose were doing at home...

After refocusing, I ate way too much junk for dinner (my typical stress reaction). Still frustrated, I turned my back on the computer for a while. I opened a beer that I had been saving for when I felt comfortable taking a break. I stood up from the desk, and I spread out my papers across the bed in the hotel room. I looked over the notes and realized that if needed, I could stand in front of a room of people and discuss the various components of the theory. I could even bring in a few of the more memorable quotes off the top of my head. In fact, there were a few times since the spring that I attempted to construct the theory based upon what I was learning along the way, and those musings were among my notes that were spread out on the bed. So, I transported myself into the future, where I visualized myself presenting the results of my study at a professional conference. I spoke out loud, and I started to explain the theory to, well, to the bed. Slowly but surely, I was able to construct complete sentences. Suddenly my speech patterns became more confident, and I knew I was going somewhere.

So I started writing down some of what I had said. I still questioned the order in which things would go, but then I stopped thinking so damn much and started writing. I wrote a two-page brain dump at this point. It's not great, but it gives me a decent outline where to start plugging in quotes and such. It's a start.

Even though today was frustrating, I got more done on the dissertation today than I would have had I not taken the day off from work.

I plan to take the "stop thinking, start writing" approach tomorrow and just keep going. We shall see.

Prelude to Week Two

2009-06-28T22:39:00.003-04:00

Well, after a busy two days and one night at home, and I'm now preparing for the second week. Unfortunately it's not an entire week, but it is three full nights (including tonight) and three full days (starting tomorrow). We have holiday plans this coming weekend, starting Thursday, so the work week is cut short. Not that I'm complaining or anything!

After last week's success, working remotely from a hotel (did I mention I finished Chapter 4?), I am determined to keep up with the speed I've gained and continue forward the next few days. I wasn't planning on coming back to a hotel this week, but after Wife suggested it practically unprompted by me, who am I are argue? Perhaps she just wanted me out of the house? Haha. Just kidding. On the contrary, she's definitely by best cheerleader by far.

This is a different hotel than last week, but still nearby. After only a $15/night increase, and suddenly I'm living in the 21st century again. It's certainly not home, and I would still rather be there, but it is nice to be in a spot that doesn't make me feel like I'm on the set of the movie, Office Space. That other hotel was giving me a headache and allergy attack. I started asking around for my stapler (if you've not seen the movie, you won't get the joke). Anyway, big improvement here, including a real desk chair and desk, so these things will certainly help me continue to stay focused.

The plan for this week is to write out as many bits and chunks of chapter 5, the Findings chapter, that I possibly can. I am not going to concern myself with organizing the chapter very much for now. Just need to get the writing of the pieces accomplished.

So, here's to a good second week!

[raises a glass of water, neat, as a toast-like gesture toward no one else in particular].

Oh, did I mention I finished Chapter 4 last week?

Summer Crunch - Day 3 Report

2009-06-27T09:44:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was not quite as productive in terms of tangible deliverable items as Days 1 and 2 were. However, progress was made nevertheless on chunking, writing, editing, etc. It wasn't a bad day, but it wasn't as good as Day 2. These things ebb and flow, so it certainly was well-spent time and worth the trip.

I'm off to home now. Busy weekend planned, which will be nice. Then it's back to the dissertation grind Monday.

Bye.

Summer Crunch - Day 2 Report

2009-06-26T10:38:00.003-04:00

Oops - forgot the Day 2 Report. Probably because Day 2 ended at 2:00 AM today. With the lack of time commitments yesterday (except for a 2:30 PM meeting at Moose's school yesterday), my schedule has turned sort of upside down. I had a few work-related e-mails I needed to handle (it takes a few days for it to sink in with my colleagues that I really am taking two weeks away to write, and I wasn't kidding) in the morning, and then we had the meeting in the afternoon. Then I got into the writing process, and I moved slowly but surely up till 2 AM (not consistently...I took breaks). By 2 AM, I finished a draft of the "participants" chapter, or Chapter 4. It's not the entire "results" chapter like one might find in a typical five-chapter dissertation. Mine will likely have six chapters total. My actual results chapter is coming up next. I feel good about the progress yesterday, and that I wrote what might be a stand-alone chapter in just a couple of days.

I have never had a TV in any office where I've worked before in my entire life. Obviously there is a TV here in my hotel room, so I've had it on quietly much of the time. It's provided good background noise. Yesterday was the big National Basketball Association selection day, so the Entertainment Sports Programming Network was on much of the time. For any of you who know me, this is shockingly odd behavior for me. I hardly know what ESPN stands for, let alone the NBA, and I usually wouldn't give a rat's ass about the selection. But on further reflection, it became appropriate as to why I'd care about that event. My dissertation addresses issues of transition out of college upon graduation, and most of the guys selected for teams had just graduated, themselves. I thought it was an appropriate connection to be writing about college graduates while watching a whole bunch getting jobs at the same time.

During the breaks, I watched the coverage on Cable News Network regarding the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. It's amazing these notable deaths happened on the same day.

Fawcett was popular in the 70s when I was a little kid and girls were "icky." But she was a hottie in Charlie's Angels, no matter how icky girls were at the time. It's sad that he slow death was a) so slow and painful, and b) now is probably over-shadowed by Michael Jackson. Fawcett was a good performer in her own right, and I hope those who knew hew work (and hottiness) better than I do can say more.

I bought the Thriller album (LP of course!) in the spring of 1984 when I was in seventh grade. I still have it, as does Wife: it's among the few albums we both brought into our combined household when we married. I learned about his earlier music, and about The Jackson 5ive, after Thriller was such a big hit. But I had numerous moments as a teenager like, "Oh, THAT tune is Michael Jackson? Cool." I thought he was a complete weirdo, but I always liked his music. It's tough to disagree he was an amazing performer, and it's certainly a loss to the musical community.

OK, back to reality. Today it's time to dive into the tough chapter - the theory chapter. I've already broken it into smaller chunks, and I've started writing about it already. I just need to keep getting the chunks done, and then later on I'll weave things together into something understandable. We shall see.

June Plantings

2009-06-25T01:16:00.004-04:00

Alright, well now that I've had a good productive day, I feel no guilt about posting a quick house update. Last weekend we finally finished planting the garden in front of the front porch, which is practically the first thing one sees when walking up to our front door. This pretty much matches a plan we had done by a landscape architect about a year ago. The company we used specifically does plans for the do-it-yourself gardener, which was great. They planned it (horticulturists we are not), and we installed it. Love that. It just took us forever. Wonder what else we've been doing?

Next, we'll focus on the garden to the left of this porch that used to have old shrubs obscuring the view out of the living room window. That's at least six feet up off the ground (the ground slopes down over there)! After that, we'll finally plant grass and a few shrubs along the side of the garage. Used to be overgrown trees and shrubs. We ripped those out almost two years ago, but still haven't done a thing with the space, except probably piss off the next-door neighbors.

Do you see why I can't wait for this to be a house blog??

Oh yeah, the two shots of hostas (hostae?) at the end of the slide show are actually in our back yard. Those plants came from my in-laws, who live out of state. We do enjoy adding plants to our garden from family and friends. One of the only things I miss about living in SCT is the garden we planted at the original Chesterley house, as it was a combination of plants from various important people in our lives. It's probably being ignored now. Sigh. That was not easy to leave behind.

Update to Day 1

2009-06-25T01:12:00.002-04:00

I ate dinner and kept on moving through for another couple of hours. Then I gave myself the rest of the evening off. Why I'm still awake, I don't know, but it's not like I'm setting an alarm tomorrow morning, or anything. I do plan on finishing up the character descriptions before lunch, though. Based on how quickly things seemed to roll this evening, especially after dinner, that goal is quite possible. Hmm...perhaps I will set an alarm.

Now that I have the time to focus, this writing process is far easier than I thought. Let's hope I'm still singing that tune tomorrow night.