What happened to May??

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.