Changing Focus of this Space

Well hello, dusty blog. Haven't seen you in a while. Am considering re-visiting on a regular basis, yet again, and connecting to my latest hobbies where I can flex my creative muscles: knitting and writing music. The latter has been on hold for a while; the former has quickly turned into a bit of an obssession. 

Connecting hobbies with my work as a researcher will help me sort out how my brain processes information. For me, the process of learning something new not only informs the new tasks at hand, but also I can reflect further on how I learn, process, and manage various bits of information. 

Perhaps I'll use you as a spot to work out any issues I'm having in my brain. I don't suspect this site will generate much readership, nor is that my goal. Likely I'll write to you, O Blog, as a way to have a routine audience for my intellectual ramblings from time to time. 

And also, I like how well connected blogs are to Ravelry, the databases of all things knitting and yarn. 

Establishing a Routine around Clutter

I haven't written in a while, and I miss it. So I may just start up writing in the old blog after a long hiatus away. There's a chance this may even be read by someone else looking for something to read online, though that's not why I've kept this blog. I've kept it for me, and I keep it semi-public as a measure of accountability so I feel motivated to write something, once in a rare while.

 

During this pandemic I'm thankful to be alive, healthy, awake, employed, married, and relatively content. I do miss freedom of movement without fear of getting sick, but this feeling shall pass. I don't enjoy wearing a mask, so perhaps that's a good motivator to just stay the hell home. I'll wear it if I need to, don't get me wrong.

 

I do want to get a bit more routinized . I don't have many intentional routines I follow, and yet I'm a relatively orderly person. I do think being intentional about routines may help me stay focused at work and in various aspects of my life. It may start as just stretching out or, gulp, exercising in the morning, to just rituals on how I keep my at-home work space clean and orderly. I can live with a lot of clutter, as I've mentioned like gazillions of times in the history of this blog. That's a blessing and a curse for me. I enjoy being orderly, but it's not a requirement for me to be productive. So I end up ignoring it, but it makes me a bit blue to see the clutter. Not a productive cycle.

 

Anyhow, time to get to work today, here at my safe, albeit cluttered, home audience. Hope you enjoy your day.

I'm baaaaaaaaack

A good way to determine whether or not you really enjoy something is to stop doing it for a while and see if you miss it. I miss writing out my random thoughts, so here I am once again.

I have no idea if anyone is still actually reading this blog. Not sure I care, actually. The motivation for me to write is really self-driven; it's a good way for me to get thoughts out of my head and out in the open. I don't write for the pleasure of others. I write for my own mental exploration and growth.

If you do happen to be reading this, though, I certainly would welcome your comments and dialogue. If this were really private and personal, then I wouldn't post it online.

Dissertation Compression

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.

I miss writing

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?

Copy Edit Hell

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.

Out of My Hands

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.

Fasten Seatbelt Sign

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?

Mid-way through Chapter the Sixth

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!

Writing and Playing

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

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

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!

At Long Last

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

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

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.

Bad Dreams

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)

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.

Still editing

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

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.

Findings Chapter Feedback

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.