A Bout with Academic Paralysis

If I were afraid of nothing, imagine how much more productive I would be. For me, fear is almost a paralyzing force, and it's one that I deal with in particular around academics. I think it's been that way ever since I was in high school. Sometimes I'm fearful even when I need to write about things I'm "good" at doing. I don't get it. Is it a fear of making an error? I doubt it - even as a pianist I was never too worried about being technically "perfect" all the time.

Fortunately, Academic Paralysis (AP) (hey, I just made up that construct!) has always been a temporary thing for me. One of the reasons I started this blog was to attempt to overcome this fear. I think it's worked to a point. When I finally start writing a paper (and I usually start later than I "should"), nine times out of ten it goes rather swiftly and ends with a decent-to-good result. An older and wiser colleague has said to me: Shooting for the stars is admirable, but you don't always need to hit the target to still be "good." It's excellent advice, and I should listen to her more.

I guess I fear the start of the dissertation proposal. I fear being alone without guidance, and I fear I'll drift too far down the wrong path and will never be able to swim back upstream. I realize these are probably not irrational fears: I imagine many other doc students go through a similar experience. It's just that this has been the longest case of AP that I've experienced do date.

I bet that many of these feelings of AP stem from the fact that my most trusted writing advisor and editor -- my father -- died unexpectedly about two years ago, during my second year in this doctoral program. The way he went was generous to him and horribly unfair to the rest of us still left. Basically, his heart just stopped one afternoon. On the one hand: write me that ticket! No major long-term illness traveling down a narrow road of disease or discomfort. On the other hand: his death left lots of un-finished business which he wouldn't care for very much. During the first year-and-a-half in this program I pictured the dissertation-writing process looking somewhat like: 1) write a draft of a dissertation chapter, 2) pass it onto Dad, 3) wait for him to rip me a new one with his feedback (as usual), and 4) off I'd go to write another draft with the end product being of thorough detail and succinct grammar. I'm feeling a little lost without that built-in structure in place. Dad operated with a nice blend of logic, organization, and philosophy in his work (I'll never know why he worked in sales and not academia), and I do miss his presence in my life.

I guess I need to keep the present day in mind. First, "life happens" and there isn't much I can do to control these events. The show must go on. Next, DC is turning out to be a fantastic sounding board for research ideas, and I know I'm very fortunate for that good relationship. Wife is always supportive and wonderful, and she's also a good editor too. Pink and a couple of other colleagues are trustworthy types who aren't afraid to argue with me about concepts and ideas. Argumentation was the way I would negotiate discussions with Dad, so finding this spirit in a couple of colleagues is good for me (and is probably not nearly as annoying as it was at times with Dad!). Hopefully things will start clicking again very soon.

Bloggiversary

Today is Chesterley's first birthday. Just one year ago I was in the depths of studying for qualifying exams. Seems like a very long time ago! Thanks to those of you who have been checking in either regularly or even just once in a while.

I'm a bit amazed that I've managed to keep up this informal writing habit on a regular basis throughout the year. I do think it's helped my writing process in general. Also, it's been a fantastic outlet for a wide variety of thoughts on the dissertation, the career, raising a child with special needs, being a husband, and many others. Being accountable to others with this public-and-yet-all-about-me sort of writing helps me organize my thoughts and even gain perspective when I'm going into a downward mental tailspin. So, thanks to anyone reading for being around and helping me stay focused.

I'm off to be a researcher for a few hours now before an actual date with my wife this evening. I can get used to this.

Cheers to another good year!

Kermit THEE Frog here!

Wow, I thought I was gonna be Rolf! My comments appear [in bold brackets].

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly [aw shucks], you get along well with everyone you know. [well, not quite everyone] You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems. [yep] Don't worry - everyone knows it's not easy being green. [well, not quite everyone] Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies! [yum!]

The Muppet Personality Test

Agenda: Research!

It's been a relatively productive week, though still not much progress on the dissertation. I've submitted a paper for publication (COMPLETELY different paper than the one I've discussed here before), ran a staff meeting in the place of my boss, helped meet a major deadline at my office, edited a paper for a colleague, interviewed two clients at our office on a new project we're starting, and I even submitted our tax documentation to our accountant (I've never done this so early!). Also, I'm breaking ground in some important areas for me, like learning more about research methodologies. On my to-do list for the weekend are:

1. act as a peer debriefer for a colleague as he decodes his dissertation data (qualitative)
2. "play" with a data set I've obtained for my multivariate statistics course (quantitative)
3. write a short paper for my stats class
4. plan a master's-level class I'm teaching next Tuesday evening
5. have dinner and a movie with Wife tomorrow night (wait, a DATE? What??)

It's interesting that I'm working on both qualitative and quantitative projects this weekend. I'm glad to be developing familiarity with both, though I think I'll always feel more at home in the qualitative world. It was cool, though: a colleague of mine cut this data set (no. 2, above) from a larger survey administered through our office. I was able to watch, and UNDERSTAND, how she pulled the data and even help make decisions on how to define things. It's just for a class assignment on multiple regression analysis, but this colleague and I hope this analysis could be the start of a larger project we'll work on together in our office this spring and summer. Much fun! And very geeky, which I sorta like. :-)

Sleepie

Greetings fellow bloggers and friends. I'm still here. It's been a long while since I posted last. We went to Chicago to see an opera last weekend and had a great time. Then, I've been swamped under a rock with work stuff. Things are going well, though, and I'm not feeling much stress. It's good to be busy again. I think my theory of having a few more things on my plate to kick my ass is actually working well, because I'm being productive. Somewhat. OK, not on my dissertation, but on the class I'm taking, the class I'm teaching, and the article I'm finishing up, all's going relatively well. I'm not sleeping much, though.

Starting this weekend I'm officially setting aside my Saturday for getting studying done. Of course I lost an entire weekend and a couple of days here & there with the trip to Chicago and a very busy time at work. Still, it's good to know I have that extra time carved out and scheduled in the calendar for working. Let's hope I can pull it all together sometime soon.

Loss!

I'm a loser! One more pound GONE this week. Honestly, it wasn't really that hard, and I didn't change the number of times I ate: I just changed the type of food I took in.

To work or not to work, that is the question.

I'm not talking about working on my dissertation! Of course I'm gonna do that...really!

I'm talking about working full-time, or not. I'm applying for a couple of full-time jobs right now. I've decided that I'm too old to continue to take out student loans. Besides, after this semester all of my courses and hours of "doctoral thesis," whatever that actually is, will be paid off as a result of having worked in assistantships for four years. So, I figure what's the rush? Why not take a job that can hopefully be in an area I'd like to work anyhow, stop going further into debt, and just plug away at the dissertation slowly. The thing I worry about, of course, is finding the motivation to finish.

However, I think I'm listening too much to others when I worry about this. Others say, "if you take a full-time job, then you'll lose the motivation to do the dissertation." I don't think I quite agree. I mean, it's not like I wasn't employed full-time prior to finding the motivation to come here. I chose to leave my job, and the salary wasn't so bad, as far as jobs in student affairs go. I was ready for a change, and most important, I was ready to conduct my own research. So why would I lose the motivation?

On the contrary, I think I'd stand to gain more motivation. Right now I worry, all the time (I've already used that word three times in this post!). Do we have enough money to make it through the next semester? Man, we really need a new oven. Will this doc student experience really move my career to a better place? Will Moose ever communicate and grow? If money weren't as much of an issue, it would be one less stressor. The position would be some stability in my life. Perhaps that stability would allow me the serenity to actually focus on finishing up, knowing that I would no longer have any barriers in my way for moving up in my field...at least, no barriers over which I have any control.

I will miss doing what I'm doing now: working for a half day, and then coming to the cafe, or wherever, alone to get my work done. But there's always vacation time. If I can really plow through the proposal this spring, then I do think I'd be able to work on collecting the data during the next school year and then spend some good chunks of time in the summer of 2007 writing up the results. Perhaps I'm dreaming with this schedule, but I'd rather risk extending the time on the dissertation even further than risk going into yet more debt and more worry.

We'll see what happens with these coupla job applications.

Four Things Meme

Tagged by Lemming, a fellow doctoral candidate (though in a different field, and not necessarily at LMU).

4 jobs you've had in your life: gate guard at the Ravinia Festival, summer home of the Chicago Symphony, stage manager for an opera company, resident advisor at my undergraduate institution, director of first-year student services at a university

4 movies you could watch over & over: Dead Poets Society, Apollo 13, Back to the Future, O Brother Where Art Thou?

4 television shows you love: Desperate Housewives, Friends, Law & Order, many of the home improvement shows on TLC

4 places you have lived: Glencoe, IL; Rochester, NY; Columbus, OH, Richmond, VA

4 places you have been on vacation: Leelanau County, MI; Galena, IL; Disney World; Outer Banks, NC

4 Web sites you visit daily: my.yahoo.com, my blog roll, weightwatchers.com, chronicle.com

4 places you'd rather be right now: Leelanau County, MI; Disney World; in my bed; on a beach

4 bloggers you are tagging: Cousin Dave, Padg, and that's about it for now.

Moose on a Horse!

IMG_0265,
originally uploaded by chesterley.

I've posted a few pictures of Thomas's first horseback riding trip last week. Once he got accustomed to sitting on a living & breathing beast, he ended up having a great time.

I was supposed to comment Monday night

...but Moose got sick again. Another stomach virus. It was totally out of the blue. Boy was that fun. The poor kid. He's feeling a little better now, but thankfully he realizes he can just stay in bed all he wants.

Monday afternoon I got a little more done on some edits. Last night was the night I teach with DC each week, and we usually get dinner together beforehand. I'm thankful for the planned time with her each week on a few different levels. First, I just enjoy hanging out with her - she has a great sense of humor and we have similar views on the higher education field. Second, I enjoy teaching with her and I'm learning a great deal. Finally, our regular meetings keeps me in constant communication about my dissertation progress, or lack thereof. Last night I told her more about the work Wife and I have put into finding schooling options for Moose; she's aware that the dissertation has taken a temporary place on the back burner, and she assured me my priorities are in line. So, even though the ship is getting stalled in the port, at least the navigator of the ship is aware of what's going on.

Blue Weekend

Kind of a blue weekend that just passed. Glad it's over. I suppose one runs into these road blocks, and for me road blocks occur when I feel like my future is out of my control. Of course the future's out of my control: it hasn't happened yet! Call me a control freak or whatever else you like: it's part of me, and I ain't changing it.

I am sick of the poverty and am sick of being a student. Still, the best way to get beyond the poverty and student-dom is to get cranking on this dissertation puppy. Arf. So, here I am back at the cafe and ready to go. I ran into two other colleagues, and we're going to make the Monday afternoon time at the cafe a regular thing. I have two hours today, so I'm determined to feel like I've gotten SOMETHING done. I plan to post again this evening with an update, and I will probably start doing regular weekly reports like I did last Friday.

One bit of good news: I did lose a pound last week! Down to 215.5 now. Some minorly- (minorly?) bad news (very minor in the scheme of life): my old Palm m500 finally bit the dust. I was able to replace it with one for under $100 (the Palm Z22), which was nice, and it's in color! However, this new one is too "new" to support the Palm-based WeightWatchers software, so I can no longer carry around the points calculators, food lists, and food database with me. It was kinda cool to be able to log in food choices and such and then upload it all to the Web interface. Oh well: at least I know where I'm supposed to be at any given time instead of having a frozen Palm. Hopefully WW will upgrade its software soon.

Enough of this geekiness and onto some editing!

The week in review

It's not been a great week on the dissertation front. Kinda shitty, actually. I think I was thrown off by the timing of the MLK holiday, just after getting a feel for the routine of the semester. I'm in a rut and I hate it. People who started a year later than I did are now ahead of me. I shouldn't compare, but I do. Moving onward...

We've had a good week for Moose, though, which is good. We met with the preschool coordinator on Wednesday because we're working on upping her therapies at home and at school. Also, we're thinking we're going to change schools next fall and send him to one that has a great deal more structure. We continue to be amazed that we have a CHOICE of PRESCHOOLS for kids with developmental problems, and these are all public schools!!! In addition, we started another therapy for Moose involving horses. Yes, Moose rode a horse yesterday! Pictures forthcoming.

The plan: I have times/dates scheduled with Pink, and I think that will help me with some "live" accountability for dissertation stuff. Also, the next couple of weeks are just going to be normal, schedule-wise. In addition, we're getting through a busy season at Assistantship, so next week should be more calm.

Public Disclosure

OK friends and fellow bloggers, this is one of these things that if I don't say it out loud, then it isn't "real." So, here goes:

I'm going back on WeightWatchers. Today.

Summary: At the end of 2001, I went on WeightWatchers (WW) for the first time, and I lost 25 pounds in 3 months. I kept it off for nearly a year, sometimes lingering at the 30-pound mark. Now I'm back up to 216.5.

Details (and if you hate details, then skip down to the "Plan" section): Son was born in July of 2001 and I was never heavier. Sympathy weight, perhaps, but I had been carrying around too much weight for about 7 years at that point (bad habits learned while earning the Master's degree). September 11 happened, and I had this infant son to raise into this strange world. I took a different perspective on my life that month and wondered why I was WAITING to get in shape. So, I joined the online version of WeightWatchers, which worked well for me since I was either at my desk or attending/running a gazilion meetings all day long. Anything I'd eat was logged into the Web site when I came back to my desk. I quickly learned I was eating for at least one-and-a-half of me, and I had probably done so for several years.

On September 18, 2001, I was 30 years old and I weighed 227 pounds, which at a height of 5'9" is waay too much. In fact, I'd have to be a 6'7" 45-year-old in order for 221 to be healthy, let alone 227!!! My body mass index (BMI) was 34, which is considered "obese." By December 9, 2001 I was at 202 pounds with a BMI of 29, or just "overweight," which I thought was pretty darn exciting. By the beginning of February I had lost five more pounds to be at 197. That was the first time in YEARS that I was below 200 pounds. I could literally pull off my size 40 waist jeans with the belt buckled. I didn't feel like I had asthma anymore. When walking across campus, my students and colleagues didn't recognize me. My knees didn't hurt when I walked Chester. I could fit into the Jetta easily. Life was definitely different and much healthier.

Oh, and I must say that I really wasn't exercising all that much. My weight loss happened primarily because I put an end to unloading a truck into my stomach each day.

That spring semester-into-summer was my last time running new student orientation, and I was back at 202 (BMI=30) during most of that period. For working 10+ hours per day for a couple of months, I didn't think a five-pound gain was so bad. Most important: it stayed right around there the next few months, and I was no longer being very religious about WW at that point. I had learned the tools to maintain my weight, which I think is the lesson in all of this.

And then we moved to SCT. I gained gradually during the first year. I was learning a new lifestyle and working zany hours where I'd eat whatever was necessary to help me stay up longer hours for reading, paper-writing, managing stress, etc. By the end of the first year here, I was back up to 217 (BMI=32, back in the obese range). I was still 10 pounds under my highest weight, thankfully, though it has spiked up here & there during particularly stressful times. I've pretty much kept it right around the 215 range since then.

Plan: Yesterday I was 216.5 pounds (BMI=32), and I'm determined to start the big decrease from here on out. I hope that putting a structure to my eating habits will also foster a structured life for dissertation-writing. WW says the "ideal" weight for someone my height is between 135-162 pounds. Can you IMAGINE?? My first goal is to get to the mid 180s for now, and we'll go from there. It's healthy to lose about 2 pounds per week.

Dang this post is long. Thanks for reading (if you're still here with me)! The blog-based accountability will be good for me.

What kind of coffee are you?

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Progression

There must have been something in the air today that was conducive to productivity in doctoral students. I'm sticking to my new schedule this week (OK, forgive me for being 45 minutes late for studying this morning), and this morning I CRANKED on edits for this publication I'm trying to finish. The friend with whom I was studying also had a productive morning: I think we sorta fed each other good energy, if you will.

And then I just read that my friend Lemming had a productive day too...probably a good breakthrough on her dissertation. Very exciting and inspiring stuff!

Here's to hoping this energy, or air, or whatever it is can carry through the rest of the week.

Je suis au cafe

I do like this cafe, but today it's a little bit weird. For one thing, the music's a bit too loud for my taste, but I can get past that.

The other is that the couple at the table next to me really needs to go find a room. Do you catch my drift? I mean, ew. I really didn't come here to feel like I'm in the way of someone else. I was here first, and they're sitting FAR too close to me to do what they're doing.

But that aside, it's good to be starting a new semester, and perhaps a new routine. I hate to say new "routine" when it's still rather new. How could it be routine yet?

OK, I really need to get some coffee and stop thinking so much about nothing. I should be writing a new Seinfeld episode.

"You, at the next table...Get off of her!" There, I feel better now. I think I'm going to switch to a booth...

Energy from Balmy Weather

I think the weather befits my mood today. I'm finding myself excited for this next semester because I'm going to be extremely busy. The weather today is a balmy, windy 62 degrees here in SCT, and it feels like spring even though it's early January. In spite of the date, I always get energized by the spring-like weather, especially when it's not too warm. It's like everything outside is about to start growing again, and my energy level usually increases in anticipation for an exciting time in nature.

I know, I know...it's probably going to snow again before long, and I don't mind that. But I'm savoring this nice weather nonetheless.

This sort of weather reminds me of a time during my master's degree that I felt like I had finally arrived as a graduate student, and perhaps as an "adult." It was the winter-into-spring before I finished up in 1996, and no longer was I making a transition from undergraduate work to graduate school. I was finally feeling like I was a "good" student. I knew who my friends were, and also those from whom I should maintain a distance. I lived alone and truly enjoyed the experience. I was very productive that spring, on many levels: it was the spring in which I proposed to Wife, found my first full-time job, and successfully finished the master's degree. I was confident that I was entering a profession to which I was well-suited and well-prepared. That spring was a very exciting time in my life.

So, I'm getting the same sort of feelings of excitement today, on the Sunday before the new semester begins. To be honest, in past years I've dreaded this Sunday, and now I'm just ready. In the first paragraph I mentioned I was excited because I am going to be very busy. I think I did not take advantage of the unplanned time as well as I could have, so this upcoming term is an opportunity to fix that and move onward. I will take a class for fun (multivariate statistics in educational research - FUN??), and I will help my dissertation chair to teach the capstone course for my department's master's program. My assistantship will continue as planned, and I am feeling good about the schedule/battle I've won with when I'm going to work and when I'm going to study.

Mentally, I'm in a good place at the beginning of what should, hopefully, prove to be a productive semester. Perhaps I've arrived in a new stage of my life? Well, I don't know if it's that deep. I prefer to just blame it on the weather!

Virus Update

Many thanks to Joe who created a helpful post on this virus stuff. Please check it out.

Turning it Upside Down

I just finished fighting a battle with my schedule for the upcoming spring semester, and I think I won. I'm using the upside-down trick.

Mornings tend to be my best time of day, mentally-speaking, so last semester I scheduled my work hours in the afternoons with the thought of using peak brain power for studying in the morning. The problem with this was the lack of externally-imposed structure on this lifestyle. Mornings would quickly become scheduled with @#$% car repairs or doctors appointments (achoo). But I never touched the assistantship hours. I could borrow time from myself to do these errands, as long as I did the assistantship hours. As a result, everything at work is just fine, but once again I'm paying myself last, if you will. Silly, because my goal here is to finish this degree. In addition, since there was no external push to be sitting in front of my computer at 8:00 AM each day, or whenever I'd set aside the study time, so I was perhaps being more relaxed about my study attitude than I could have been.

To win this battle, I will flip things upside-down this next semester. I'm going to work smaller chunks at my job over more days per week and limit them primarily to the mornings. Then, the afternoons are for my studies, barring the one class I'm taking and the other I'm helping to teach in the evenings. If the car breaks down or the nose gets plugged up again, then the appointments to fix said things will happen in the mornings and I will reschedule the assistantship hours to other times. That's easy to do, and it helps me keep priorities in order.

I'm a bit nervous about making myself get anywhere early in the morning: I've fallen out of the habit while in school. It'll take some time to adjust my sleep schedule, but this will give me more daylight hours to be productive. Perhaps it will prepare me to go back to work full-time. Next week will be an interesting one.

A New Virus Scare

A friendly public service announcement. Oh, I'm not being sarcastic or anything! This seems to be authentic.

Check out this link from the Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus blog for a warning about a new virus scare.

Also, my office just sent out a note about this saying we should "unregister" the Microsoft picture & fax viewer. I can send you the instructions on how to do this, if interested.

Don't people have anything better to do than to create this stuff?

Chicagoist: Berghoff Closes Its Doors

Berghoff Closes Its Doors

Ach. This is hard to believe. When I was in high school and early college, my father's office was just a few blocks from this establishment. We went there for lunch sometimes when I was on a break from school. There's just something about that place that transformed me back to a different time in Chicago: it probably felt more like my father's childhood version Chicago than my own. I'll miss this place.

Thoughts on 2006

I am a planner. We have at least three wall calendars around the house, and I carry a PDA that is always synchronized with my Outlook calendar which is shared with my work colleagues. I love to plan, strategize, and get things down in my calendar. I find that people rely on me to have important events stored in my calendar, along with an up-to-date address book and stuff like that. "Rob, when's the last day of classes?" or "Do you have so-&so's phone number?" I suppose that's the more "type A" side of my personality.

What's funny, though, is that if a plan does not worked out as I, um, planned it (my word-choice creativity level is ZERO today), I typically just move on and develop a new plan. For example, if you've been reading this for a while then you may have noticed that I changed my dissertation writing plan about three times in the past year. That "relaxed" attitude usually is limited to planning things for myself. With things I plan for others, those must be kept on schedule. I'm pretty conscientious about that. This tells me that I can plan well as long as it involves something external to myself. So, am I putting myself on the back burner?

I bring this up because it's starting to hit me that 2006 is no longer the year in which I will finish my Ph.D. There's simply no way: I've not started to write anything officially for my dissertation, and I still have to write, edit, and defend the proposal let alone conduct the research itself. It's been in my mind for a long time that this will all be said and done during the 2006 year, while I'm 35 years old and about 10 years out from my master's degree. And now that ain't gonna happen.

OK, OK, so I'll be 36 and 11 years out from the Master's (said as keeping my fingers crossed and lighting a candle). Big deal. However, when I reflect on it I find it hard to fathom that there have been only seven years of my adult life when I have not been in school: one year prior to my master's and six full-time before coming to LMU. Where has the time gone?? My practical friends would slap me around and remind me that I am gaining work experience while I'm in school. OK, whew. So that means I've been in the higher education field for almost twelve years, if you count the time while I was in my master's program (which most employers do count). That makes me feel a little better. And the main difference now is that I truly enjoy what I'm doing, which isn't something I could say as confidently just a few years ago.

Perhaps I should stop planning so much and focus more on living in the present and DOING. Now there's a novel idea. Perhaps that's my New Year's resolution? Plan less and do more. It has a good ring to it.

Music & Technology

I just walked into Wife's office area of our house, and I heard this great jazz coming out of her computer's speakers. Then I realize that she has downloaded hours of our CD collection into "realplayer," so now she can listen to music she likes whenever she wants. A good idea, this is.

And then it hit me: How is it that I have a degree in music and I'm a better-than-average computer user, and yet I know absolutely nothing about combining these two interests? I'm CLUELESS about newer musical technologies like doing CD downloads, using iPods, iTunes, and all of that stuff. How did I miss this boat?

I had a good chuckle to myself, and then I went back up to my office/prison to prepare for the online course I help to teach while working in utter silence...my CD, record & tape collections gather dust behind me on the shelf.

Weather?

What the f-ck is up with this weather? It was like 58 degrees here today, December 28. I thought I left the Southeast and moved to the Midwest? Huh? I saw a bug outside, alive. ALIVE?? In December??? Our Christmas tree is still up, it's still Hanukkah, and I'm starting to do spring cleaning because it's so damn warm!

OK. Rant over. Hoo boy that was a close one. I feel better now.

Post-Holiday Plans

The Christmas weekend was indeed a festive and fun time, and the "family invasion" was very nice, actually. So much of the stress was reduced by not traveling ANYWHERE, except for a day trip to "a nice town" to do some shopping the day after Christmas. Moose is really in his best element here in the confines of Chesterley, and I think the rest of the family understands that now. We're already planning on doing this again here at our place next year, which is good.

So, time to put it all away, pack up the decorations, and realize that Santa is dead, etc. At least, that's my opinion. Wife, however, is more of the opinion of following the twelve days of Christmas, of which this is day 3 (I'd like my French hens now, please). OK, fine. While the Christmas tree is not going to be put away tomorrow, we have agreed to start organizing, and even throwing away, some of the holiday decorations we have stored. I guess after hosting one's first Christmas weekend in one's own home, one realizes what can be kept and what can be chucked. I'm a minimalist in my holiday decoration style, but I usually lose that negotiation. Oh well...it's not really a huge deal.

Now I need to focus back on school and remember that just because I do not work at my Assistantship this week, that does not mean I can just take the week off from The Diss. I'd like to, but I shouldn't. I should take advantage of the time to get stuff done. However, I could justify a vacation pretty easily, though. Hmm...I could use some time off right now.

Yeah, nice job with the positive self-talk there bud. You go on. Dig the hole deeper, that's it.

Hee hee.

Friends & Family

In my calendar, I have marked off the next five days starting with tomorrow with the words "family invasion." This is a tongue-in-cheek phrase: I actually really do like my extended family. Wife's family will descend upon our home for Christmas this weekend, and I'm sure we'll have a great time with lots of food, drink, and probably a few presents hither & yon. And yes, we'll light Chanukah candles, too. It's going to be a big slumber party here at Chesterley for the next several nights, and I'm really looking forward to it. We have the tree all set up, and decorations appear in most rooms in the house. This photo is a more festive corner of our living room/dining room/music room.

Note the cards hanging over the glass doors. One of the things I look forward to this time of year is sending and receiving holiday cards. I like the opportunity to get caught up with friends and family from all over the place. We typically send cards only to friends who do not live here in SCT, since the goal is to update those we rarely see on our lives. Years ago when I lived alone, I started decorating my windows with holiday cards I'd receive, just by tying a piece of string between my perpetually unused curtain rods and hanging pictures along it. It's really the only holiday decoration I'd bother with at that time in my life, but I'm glad we're continuing that tradition here at Chesterley. For me it serves as a reminder of the friends we've gathered in the various places we've lived. The cards are always colorful and festive, and we seem to get more and more each year as our circle of friends grows. So, many thanks to our friends for helping us decorate our house! For me, that's the "meaning" of this holiday: a reflection on the good relationships we have as being one of the better gifts of the season.

And that's probably as sentimental as I'm going to get about Christmas. I'm not a Scrooge or anything, but for me this has always been more a time to reflect on good friends and family than it is a religious thing.

Happy winter solstice to you!

I am a composer.

This post’s title is a difficult sentence for me to write out publicly for two reasons. First, it may come across as snooty or haughty. Second, I feel it presents a high bar that I now need to meet: If people find out I’m a composer, then they are going to expect me to write like Mozart or Handel. At least, that’s the type of discussion going on in my head. That’s probably why I’ve not yet written about it here.

I also never mentioned it when I was seeking my bachelor’s degree in music from a well-known conservatory. Stupid, really. A missed opportunity. I know: this is very self-denigrating behavior, and it is not something I like to do unless I’m just kidding around. But in my head, discussing my composition experiences involves putting a very near and dear part of my brain and heart “out there” for all to see. At that point in my life, I’m not sure that I would have handled criticism of my work, as constructive as it might have been, when I was in college. Still, in retrospect I regret not pursuing that line of my music career more at that time. Who knows what could have happened had I opened up that part of my brain to the rest of the world?

The fact is, I’ve been writing piano music ever since I can remember. While I did not solidify much of it till I was in high school, several melodies were floating around my head, and in my fingers (fellow pianists will understand about a melody being in one’s fingers), all the time. I continue to write a little bit today, and I still play several songs today that I wrote in high school. During my junior year, one of the pieces I wrote was choreographed for an annual spring modern dance concert. That experience still remains as one of the better performing arts experiences of my life: I played the piece solo in the orchestra pit while about 15 people danced to the music in costume, with full lighting design and the whole nine yards. I was 17 years old, and it felt like a pretty big deal at the time.

My reason for bringing all this up is that I’m making all sorts of connections between this notion of embracing my composition tendencies and coming into my own as a researcher, a writer, and therefore (dare I say it) a scholar. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah, if you will, to be able to promote my area of academic expertise and not feel (or sound) like I’m being snobbish or haughty. I’m really just expressing facts. I am a composer. I am developing an area of academic expertise. So why, then, do I have difficulty with self-promotion? Well, it’s probably because of that bar I feel I’ll need to meet when bringing up all of this stuff.

I suppose there is a balance between self-promotion of factual information on the one hand and blowing oneself up to be the best thing since the wheel or the printing press on the other. While I’m all for people being aware of their strengths and their career directions, I admit I get a bit skeptical when others present themselves as The Expert in an Area. I want to say, “Get real. Sure you study that stuff, but so do others and many of them are pretty good at it too.” Again, it’s in the balance. And I suppose it’s in the delivery of information as well.

What’s interesting about these thoughts is how closely related this sort of discussion is to my dissertation research. I guess doctoral students do bring a bit of themselves into their dissertations. After seriously considering about four different topics, it’s this fourth one that is cutting it pretty close to my heart. Part of me thinks I’m treading on some fragile ground here, that I may never deal with my own issues and find a way to muddle through this process. And yet a stronger part of me knows that without my heart right smack dab in the middle of the project, I’d probably never start writing the darn book in the first place.

I have a feeling the composition metaphor is going to be a frequent visitor to this blog from here on out. More and more I realize that my interest in writing this dissertation grows right out of my passion for creating music. It’s funny how life takes us in a big circle sometimes.

We saw reindeer downtown

IMG_0069,
originally uploaded by chesterley.

A longtime friend of mine and Wife is working temporarily in our state's capital, so we decided to drive over and meet him for breakfast. Then we spent a little time doing holiday shopping. I do enjoy larger cities during the winter holidays. I like seeing the different types of people walking around and the festive decorations and such. Feel free to browse a few of our pictures by clicking on this one. We even ran into a couple of reindeer downtown...no joke!

Office/Prison Work Attempt

I was sick yesterday. Had to leave work early, and realized I had a slight fever and a stomach bug. Yum. I'll spare any readers the gory details. I'm fortunately feeling better today.

Am working from home today. So far I've done nothing, as Wife's car needed to go into the shop this morning (why do we BOTH experience car problems within a week of each other, always?), and then I've been on the phone with relatives for a family debriefing of sorts (long story). I've had lunch, and suddenly it's 1:45 PM. Time flies more quickly when trying to work from home.

I have a 5:30 appointment, so I'm determined to focus now for a couple of hours and get something done on this publication I want to submit next month. I'm meeting with Pink tomorrow morning, so I need to have something to show her.

Don't ya wish time could just freeze for about an hour each day?

Almost there...

A while back I mentioned I met with PaW KiTS, or the Person Who Knows This Stuff about all of the administrivia it takes to officially become a doctoral 'candidate,' as opposed to the lowly 'student' as I'm classified today. Last Monday I literally chased my program advisor from his classroom to his office (no joke!) to get him to sign my final paperwork. To make a long story short, I turned in said paperwork to PaW KiTS immediately after making copies of everything. I'm pleased to report that already I see the five courses I'm transferring in from my master's degree appearing on my unofficial LMU transcript. Glad that part is complete! Now I just need to wait to hear from The Graduate School to make sure they accept my program of study, nomination to 'candidacy,' and so forth. As soon as one lingering grade flips over from an incomplete to a "real" grade, then I'm technically all good to go. But I'll feel a sigh of relief only when I see the official word on this stuff. I can't imagine any other barriers, but ya never know.

Blog Page Renovation

This is sort of a geeky post, so disregard if you don't care. If I had categories or tags in this blog (which I really wish I had, actually!), then this would be marked "Geeky."

Yesterday I did two things to the site. First, I put up Chester's winter picture. I'm probably going to start changing that on a regular basis, just for variety's sake. It's similar to my annual rearrangement of the furniture in my office/prison.

Next, there's a Flickr badge appearing to the right that has a mix of several photos from our trip last summer to Cape Cod. I set up a Flickr site in preparation for a digital camera that we're getting in the next week or so. This purchase was inspired by the fact that we tried and tried to find a decent family picture of us from sometime in 2005 to send around as our holiday greeting card. Nope. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Nichts. Tons of pictures in general, but nothing of all three humans and one particular canine. Ergo, the digital camera purchase will perhaps offer more photo opportunities. Perhaps more photos will appear here on Chesterley, therefore? Flickr seems pretty cool for both posting to the blog and sharing with friends and fam.

That's about it.

Suction

If anyone heard a really loud sucking sound last night around 9:30 PM, that was the sound of my car because it SUCKS.

I had finished a meeting, and it was COLD outside. I turned on the car, cranked up the heat, and released the parking brake. With a shiver of both coldness and trepidation, I noticed there was no tension in the lever, where usually it quickly falls to the floor of that compartment in between the front seats. I took my foot off the brake pedal, and the car didn't roll backward. "Hmm...maybe it's just too cold to roll," thought I, quizzically, and perhaps hopefully. Then I took up the clutch, accelerated backward just a bit to exit the parking space, put the clutch back in to shift into first gear, and then I realized something was weird: The car was at a dead stop, and yet, I was on a slight decline and my foot was NOT on the brake pedal. CRAP, the emergency brake is at it again!

Yes, again.

Last year at right about this time (last week of classes and first whopping cold snap), the parking brake cables froze. At the time I didn't know what it was, and like an idiot I DROVE HOME smelling brake dust. This idiot had to pay far too much money because he (I?) wore the brake pads down to the rotors. They replaced the rear brake pads and BOTH rotors, even though only one was damaged, because one does not replace only one rotor at a time, so I hath learnt. They got the parking brake cable to release its Vulcan grip on my brakes, but they did not replace the cables themselves. A different handy mechanic informed me last summer that those cables need to be replaced. The cheap graduate student in me realized that I was lucky to have it working at all, and decided not to bother spending the $ fixing it till next winter.

It is winter now. I was not all that surprised when I came to a dead stop in middle of the sloped parking lot with neither of my two feet on any of the three pedals. Augh.

This year, this idiot got smarter. I pulled right back into the parking space and turned off the car. Fortunately an acquaintance was leaving the building at that very moment, and she agreed to drive me home. This morning it was AAA to the rescue, God bless them: they came and towed the car to a fine establishment specializing in brakes and other things. By the end of the day the car was fixed for a mere fraction of what this former idiot self paid last year.

Just in time for 7 inches of snow to accumulate in about 5 five hours! Glad I have a car. They also noticed corrosion on the battery, so they fixed that, fortunately for me. That battery was replaced last year too.

NOW do you hear the sucking sound??

You're sitting at my table.

I arrived at the cafe this morning for my weekly meeting with Pink. I was running late, and she had already scoped out one of the "good" tables with an electric outlet and a good overhead lamp. But it wasn't our usual table: there were other people sitting where we normally sit. There are telltale signs that it's the last week of classes: the cafe has even more people studying and camping out here all day. I was tempted to approach "our" table, stare at the current occupants with a confused look, and then say, "It's Tuesday. This is our table. What are you doing here?" I decided to take the higher road and just move over to the spot Pink scoped out, and here I sit after about three hours. And so does the other couple, the impostors, sit at "my" space.

OK, maybe I really need to get out of here?

Things are going OK today: I'm focused. I'm editing the paper I received feedback on the other day. DC is going to help me find a spot to get the thing published, so it's well-worth the extra time. Afterward I'll create Dissertation Schedule 3 and see if it's one I can maintain this time around. No other academic hurdles in my way now (as far as I know, at least...ugh!), so I don't see any way around not sticking to it this time.

A Calm First Week in December?

Tomorrow starts the last week of fall classes, and I have nothing pressing for the first time since I can remember. Even when I was working full-time prior to my move to SCT, this time of year would be busy with arranging the final details for running January new student orientation, so I was anything but relaxed. As I'm looking at my schedule for the upcoming week, I'm not feeling stressed. Certainly I have plenty of work ahead of me, but no deadlines looming overhead like vultures in a tree awaiting its next innocent prey. So, what I'm missing?

Wife and I decorated our Christmas tree this evening, and I pulled out my Menorah as well. I grew up with both Christian and Jewish traditions in my home. I've not celebrated Chanukah during the 8 years of my marriage, but this year I decided we'll start doing it. It's a simple holiday and it reminds me of my dad, so I figured it's high time. This holiday season brings about another first for our marriage: we are not slated to travel anywhere the entire month. Wife's family will join us here in SCT this year, and it should be a nice, relaxed time.

Status Report

I am pleased to report that Wife came home to a home with three well-fed, well-groomed men (yes, Chester is a "man" in this little scene, OK?), staying in a house that was not only still standing but was particularly well-kept (I vacuumed and dusted: Martha would be proud) and anxious for her return. I then went out and hunted, killed, and prepared our evening feast of Chinese food from the place around the corner, as this is traditional end-of-road-trip fare for the residents of Chesterley.

Moose and I had a good time together, even with Chester herding us around every which way. Wife was greeted Moose's big smile, Chester's loud bark and need to play fetch, and my sigh of relief that I'm not doing this all alone anymore. I handled the three solo days just fine, I'd say, but I'm sure glad Wife and I have each other.

Moose, Myself and Chester

Wife has had to run out of town for a few days to attend the funeral of a family friend. This leaves me alone with Moose and Chester till Friday night. I don't think I've ever done this before for more than a day at a time, so it should be interesting.

Last night, our discussion sounded like:

"So, what do you DO all afternoon?" asked I.
"You know, we play, we do this & that. That's also when we run to the grocery store. By the way, can you pick up more diapers?" said Wife, as she batted her eyelids.
"Wait, so, what exactly do you DO with him? Diapers? Huh? What kind do we get?" In a panic, I forgot that I really am an adult, and of course I reverted to my childlike helplessness.
"I'll write it down for you. Relax."

I mean, they may give me a Ph.D. someday, but they won't teach me these basics. Wish me luck! Gotta go chase the Moose...

Reading That Which I Wrote

In preparation for my afternoon meeting with DC, I'm re-reading the paper I turned into her two weeks ago. This is not for the faint of heart. I can see how I wrote this in pieces, and not quite all of the pieces fit together just yet. Oh well, it was designed to be a good working draft of something larger to get published. But does that justify the incomplete sentence at the end of the second paragraph?

GOOD GRIEF!

I guess when I make myself stay up all night to finish the paper, my early-morning proofing job doesn't go so well.

I'm actually finding it physically difficult to make myself re-read this paper. The blood pressure rose just a bit. Did I really turn this in to DC?? OK, wait, here's a good section on page 5. Well, the theoretical framework is looking OK for now. But what about the data analysis section? Not sure I can get through that again.

It's like I'm reading this paper as if I've not written it myself, and yet somehow I know every word. It's a very strange experience for me: coming back to a paper I finished up a couple of weeks ago, and willingly subjecting myself to the meeting in about two hours where I'm going to be brought through the academic sieve like clumpy flour about to go into cake. Usually, I turn in papers, read feedback on them, occasionally make some changes here & there if needed and move on. This is the beginning of the constant review process, the constant world of criticism that one NEEDS in order to grow. But am I ready to have my work pulverized into dough only to be baked up into another souffle that will deflate if Moose stomps too hard on the kitchen floor? Can I deal with my blood pressure rising each time I re-read something I wrote?

Well, it's not like I've never been subjected to criticism of my own work before. I have a degree in music: people commented, criticized, and complained about noise I'd make on the piano for years. I guess the difference is that with a live performance, the music doesn't necessarily hang in the air in quite the same way that the written word sticks around forever. A music recording could miss a nuance here or there. The printed word, however, is crystal clear (unless using a mimeograph machine from the 70s, but let's not go off on a tangent here) (oh, guess I just did) (oh well).

Sigh. Back to reading, then. Yep, here's a paragraph I may cut on page 6. Well, hopefully DC will appreciate the fact that I'm coming back to her with some of my own edits. We shall see. I'll keep you posted to let you know what type of dough I turn into after today's meeting. Hoo boy.

Blah Day

Today was a Blah Day. Know what I mean? I'm just a bit tired, not all that motivated. I thought coming back to my own pace and my own place in the world would energize me and allow me to get cranking on stuff for the diss. Not so. Perhaps it's the changing weather? Perhaps it's still a lack of academic feedback on things. Fortunately, I'm meeting with DC tomorrow to go over the big pilot study paper I handed in recently. It was "a draft," so I'm gearing up to hear the feedback and will attempt not to judge my entire since of self-worth as she drags my brain through a meat grinder and spits it out into nicely woven-together links of psychological task matter.

I'm just kidding. You see, I get extremely sarcastic, to the point of complete ridiculousness. Most find it funny, while a few start to wonder if I'm losing it. So, to anyone who thinks I'm losing it: GET REAL. It's called a sense of humor, OK? To those who get it: I'm glad ya got it.

I'm determined that tomorrow will not be as "blah" a day. It's my study day, so hopefully I'll be able to get through some organizational stuff and some reading before I meet with DC. We shall see.

Three nights, not four

Note to self: visits to out-of-town relatives should only be for three nights or fewer. Three nights provides plenty of time to catch up with people without feeling like you're missing out on something at home.

We're back in SCT, safe and sound after a seven hour drive that should have taken five. Ugh.

City Experience: Winter Wonderland-ish

Yesterday Wife and I received a nice holiday gift: an afternoon in the city, just the two of us. First, I accompanied Wife on a trip to get her haircut. And you're probably thinking, "Really?". Well, I like the location. Her hairdresser lives in this cool 26th-floor condo on the far north side of Chicago overlooking the beach, and she does hair in one of the bedrooms. Great views! She also does hair & make-up for commercials and movies, so it's always fun to hear the stories of the people whose faces she's painted, and so forth. The stories always remind me of when I worked as a stage manager for the Opera where I met Wife, so we always have a good time when we visit Hairdresser.

Hairdresser allowed us to leave our car at her place, so after tipping the doorman a couple of dollars, we then spent $1.75 on a public bus that whisked us to the top of Michigan Avenue in about 7 minutes. It was nice to not have to deal with that traffic, let alone the fact that we probably saved about $25 in parking! We had a nice lunch at a Thai place at 900 North Michigan Avenue, and then we walked around with hundreds of other people going shopping, etc.

It's now the time of year that I don't mind hearing holiday music and seeing decorations, etc. Anytime before Thanksgiving is way too early, in my opinion. We spent hardly any money (don't forget what I do for a living), but the big-city experience was much fun. Just a couple of hours later we paid another $1.75 and took the bus back up the north side to retrieve our car.

Moose did well with his grandmother yesterday, and he got to hang out with his cousins, aunt & uncle (and some friends) during the day. We of course ate leftovers last night, and that's about it. Much fun!

Thanksgiving Trip

We made it through busy Chicago traffic to arrive safely at my mom's home last night. The trip was fine, though it took us two hours longer than normal due to an accident in northern Indiana and long lines at toll booths on the way into the city. However, this could have been much worse, so we're thankful we arrived in time for dinner and such.

Moose woke up at 2:45 this morning and probably didn't go back to sleep afterward (not sure...I was sleeping through most of it). We'll play it by ear if we're going to stay here through Sunday or take off a day early to get him into his own bed.

The Thanksgiving day will be calm, with my sister & her family joining us for the meal. We have lots to be thankful for this year, as with other years. Most members of my family are relatively healthy and happy. Even with the complexities life brings us, our lives seem relatively simple when compared to those who truly have had major losses this year. I savor this family time: one of my favorite times of the year. As my family has expanded with my sister and I finding partners and growing our families, the food we eat at Thanksgiving has changed with the addition of combining other families' recipes into our own tables. This is fun. I like to see the changes. I've never needed to replicate the exact same holiday traditions year after year. I guess since my family has always been so mixed (my father was Jewish and my mother is technically Catholic), and becomes even more diverse as time goes by, the holidays have always been about bringing together various customs into one place. Makes life more interesting that way, in my opinion.

This is the first Thanksgiving since 2001 that I do not have a major end-of-semester paper or project hanging over my head that must be completed in three weeks. Very different! Sure, I have this dissertation to construct, but without a looming deadline I plan to spend a few days not working on school-related things. Big change for me for this time of year!

Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks as always for taking the time to read this blog.

Romper Room 2

The houses of Chesterley and Three Bed Two Bath joined forces last night for a lovely evening. You may recall when I first met Hugh's Missis a while back; she and Wife met at a Kindermusik class here in SCT. Hugh and I go back to high school in the 80s, though we've not seen each other since then. So, we all sung a round of "It's a Small World After All," ate pizza, attempted to keep up with our children playing in the back yard and basement of Chesterley, threw the ball to Chester himself till he puked (oops!), and really had a great time!

Chester is just fine now, by the way. Must have been a stomach bug.

Moose was actually quite social last night, when normally he keeps to himself around those he doesn't know very well. I guess it takes good people to bring out the socialite in him. Thanks 3B2B folk!

Hugh played our piano so his D#1 could sing for us: very cute. I was reminded of when Hugh was one of the choral directors of a student-run musical I was fortunate enough to be cast in during my freshman year in high school. Who would have thought 20 years later he'd be playing piano for his DAUGHTERS and my SON in my living room?? Wow. Guess we're all grown up now.

Thanks for a nice evening, everyone! Hope to have another gathering sometime soon.

Dramatis Personae

Given the growing list of characters featured in this blog, I just added a cast list immediately underneath the profile box.

I must admit, I really enjoy tinkering with the background details of this blog.

"I can see clearly now, the rain is gone..."

Last night I stayed up late and finally finished up the pilot study. Really late. At 7:15 AM today I went to bed. Yep. That was about 45 minutes after Wife and Moose rose for the day. Wife woke me up about 90 minutes later to make sure I got to campus in time for my 10:00 AM meeting with DC (that's Dissertation Chair).

All went quite well with the meeting. I gave DC the completed pilot study so she'd have plenty of reading material (35 pages) for a trip she's taking this evening. She seemed pleased. I explained that writing this piece was a bit like assembling an orchestra for the first time. Each part had been well-rehearsed beforehand, but pulling the full rehearsal together for the first time was a little noisy. That made her laugh. "You and your wife with these musical jokes!" she said. The paper isn't publishable just yet, but it's a COMPLETED draft. My Incomplete from last semester should turn into some sort of passing grade sometime soon. Hopefully, DC will work with me on submitting this piece for publication somewhere, later on down the road.

An aside: During the writing session last night, I received an email informing me that my proposal to present the results of this study were accepted at a well-known higher education conference next March. Woohoo! That certainly gave me the motivation to get the thing done last night!

Back to my meeting this morning: We then had a great discussion about my dissertation, the method, the timeline, etc. It was good. I needed the feedback. I've been feeling too disconnected from the faculty this semester since I'm no longer in coursework and I really haven't started writing the dissertation proposal. I've been catching up on these lingering papers (no feedback from Program Advisor, unfortunately), learning about Moose's autism, dealing with flat-on-the-back allergies, eating bon-bons: you know, the usual. Today's feedback was well-timed. I admit I was getting grumpy during these past few days, but now I feel I have a better direction.

I'm extending the timeline on the dissertation, but that's not a huge surprise. The new anticipated complete date will be August of 2007. It makes sense: I can take my time writing a solid proposal this spring. Data collection will happen in the fall and spring of the 2006-2007 academic year, and I can write up the results next summer. I may look for a full-time position for next year during the data collection process. We shall see. It's taking me longer than I had hoped, but "life happens" (I'm quoting a supportive DC), and I'm just pleased finally to have a plan that I can actually see working.

OK, this is getting too long. I'm off to bed now, for the second time today.

Flow - Finally!

I don't know what it is, but I'm focused and productive today. I haven't felt this sort of "flow" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) (apologies to Lemming for the citation, but I couldn't help it!) in a long time. Looks like I'll finally get the pilot study out of my hands very soon. Part of this is due to the fact this f-cker needs to be done by 10:00 AM Wednesday, before Dissertation Chair leaves town: I'm supplying her with reading material for her plane ride. There's nothing like a solid external deadline for promoting internal focus.

When I experience productivity like this, things don't seem so daunting, and the sky is no longer falling around me. How 'bout that? I gain more confidence in my writing ability. What's hard for me is dealing with so little feedback so much of the time, and that's probably where I get stalled, emotionally. So, I look to Wednesday morning as an opportunity to gain some feedback from Dissertation Chair (DC for short?) which usually inspires me to keep going.

I'm pleased to announce that today's productivity actually happened within the home Office/Prison! If I can keep up with this, than my life may become more simple. We shall see. I'm sure I'll need to get out of the house hither & yon.

Let's see how things are continuing to flow tomorrow.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

My Motivation Lacketh

In my early 1990s college days, a popular phrase to use when people would complain about a large amount of work they had to do was "Sucks to be you!" Also, when complaining about one's own large workload, one could say, "Sucks to be me!" A friend of mine used the following remodeling of this phrase, which I prefer:

Aye. For to be me, it sucketh now.

Perfect timing for that phrase today. I'm unmotivated, as the weather is nice, there is a yard to be tended (which I enjoy), etc., and yet I'm stuck inside finishing up this last pilot study write-up. I've learned what I'm going to learn from this study long ago. Now the act of writing it up is external to my motivational core, if you will. Ida is back (that is, my friend Ida Wanna), and she's pulling me out the door of the Office/Prison to go play and have fun.

I guess I better start focusing on being motivated by the feeling I'll have when all of this external stuff is done. And at least the Office/Prison is clean. Yeah yeah, yada yada and all that stuff. YOU try to find motivation to work on a 69-degree sunny mid-November day, OK?

What's your hidden talent?

This one made me happy, though I probably err on the side of communicating a little bit too much!

Your Hidden Talent

You are a great communicator. You have a real way with words. You're never at a loss to explain what you mean or how you feel. People find it easy to empathize with you, no matter what your situation. When you're up, you make everyone happy. But when you're down, everyone suffers.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Tuesday Focus

I'm back at the cafe now. I had a helpful meeting with Pink Princess today who is making good progress through her first chapter. I helped her with some edits. In return, she's pushing me to finish up this pilot study this week. Good plan! If I can focus and follow her idea, then I MAY be on track for getting into my actual Dissertation Chapter 1 next week. Don't hold your breath, but man would that be exciting!!!

I'm off to grab lunch and get back into this stuff. While I like this initial study, I think I'll like it even more when it's complete. The next post or two may be to help me process all the stuff in my head related to the study...we'll see.

K, bye.

Allergy Update

I went to an allergy specialist in town. They have a large operation for a town of this size, and I was pleased to see it's a husband-wife team who are both DOs, or Doctors of Osteopathy. My sister-in-law is a DO general practice doc, and they tend to blend the use of medications with things that are more natural. For example, Moose and I both get craniosacral therapy once in a while, as recommended by a DO (it's the COOLEST, by the way).

Anyhow (wow, BIG digression there! I'm wide awake this evening), I had my shoulders and arms pricked and be-shotted about 90 times (I'm not exaggerating) in a half hour to learn that I'm allergic to four types of "major molds" (both outdoors and indoors) in addition to dust mites. At least I finally know what the hell has been going on with me this fall. Now I'm hopefully on the proper medications.

Hey, I was able to rake leaves without my head exploding, so the stuff must be working!

Onward and Thitherward

Alright, I finally turned in that doggone paper this morning via electronic mail. I didn't quite meet my self-imposed deadline, but the professor won't know it, nor do I suspect he'd mind. "Subfusc" remained in the paper, and after all that I think I indeed learned something from the exercise (fear not, I'll spare you the gory details). Still, this was the longest 12-page paper I've ever written! Far longer than the 30-pager I'm working on now to finish up the final incomplete from last semester (this one's the dissertation pilot).

I guess having my qualifying exams in the middle of the semester really kicked my ass more than I care to admit. Perhaps summer would have been better? Ah, who cares. They're over, gone & passed.

Anyhow, I rewarded myself for finishing the paper by having a beer at lunch (something I rarely if ever do), and then I spent much of the afternoon with Moose (pet name for Son) out in the backyard raking leaves. More on leaf-raking in a later post.

Subfusc

From the Dictionary.com Word of the Day site:

subfusc \sub-FUHSK\, adjective:
Dark or dull in color; drab, dusky.

I like it. I'll have to figure out a way to incorporate it into the paper I'm about to complete. How about something along the lines of: "The postmodernist organizational theories described in this section turned the classic theories on their sides and removed a somewhat subfusc shroud from these newer organizational concepts."

Perhaps. This professor may enjoy this sort of description. Then again...

I dunno. I'm actually looking for a word like this that I'd like to attempt to throw into the dissertation at some point, just because I can.

OK, I just need to finish this paper now before I become too prolix!

My last non-dissertation paper is "due" tomorrow.

There, I said it. And even "out loud," so to speak. I need to set a due date for myself and stick to it, even if it requires an all-night writing party tonight. Putting this date up on the blog will (hopefully) make me stick to this deadline. It's not an impossible one.

The paper I mention here is one I need to complete in order to transfer in a course from my master's degree. It's not a tough paper, but it's just not directly related to my dissertation or much else I'm interested in, for that matter. My motivation for this is practically non-existent, therefore, and yet I'm putting this in front of my dissertation priorities because I need it done before I even consider defending my dissertation proposal. However, with other aspects of life going as they have been going lately, I've needed a break from school. Let's call it my "fall break." Net result: nada, nichts, rien, nothing has happened with the dissertation since a few paragraphs were written at the beginning and end of the writing retreat a couple of weeks ago.

Guess I need to give myself a break about this hiatus and get my assets back in gear. Actually, when I reflect on the experience of writing this one last paper, it IS serving the purpose of getting my brain around this literature (organizational behavior) and it COULD help as a part of my dissertation literature review. Or, at least, it could help my thought process on explaining the effects of a university's organizational structure on fostering (or hindering) academic identity development.

Perhaps it's a bit of a stretch, but at this point in my career I need to have a tangible reason for writing a paper!

Wow, this turned out to be a cathartic post. I think I'm actually going to focus a bit more on this bugger of a paper now.

Thanks to anyone actually reading this purge of my rather full brain!

Eyeglasses & Halloween Costumes

I picked up a new pair of eyeglasses this morning, pictured here. This is a very different look for me: a big change from the wire-rims I've had since 2002 (and the only other pair of glasses I've ever worn). Wife isn't going to recognize me this evening, so I'm calling it my Halloween costume for this year! I've seen myself in the mirror and I wonder who the heck that is looking back at me.

Speaking of Halloween, our son is dressing up as a giraffe tonight. It was on sale at the clothing resale shop in town. Wife and I were very pleased that he actually wore the costume, with a head piece and everything, a couple of weeks ago. Big step for someone who hates hats! Let's hope the weather holds up tonight to allow for trick-or-treating.

Random post. I'm procrastinating from writing, which I'm going to get back to doing right...about...now.

Autism Conference 2

Has it really been a week since I've posted? Time flies.

The MAAP Conference on Autism was really quite helpful last weekend. Wife and I learned a good amount of information from the medical, educational, and social points of view. We met many very interesting and warm people. We also had the pleasure of hearing Temple Grandin speak at the conference. She is the author of Thinking in Pictures and several other books on both autism and animal behavior (she has a Ph.D. in the area, which is truly remarkable for anyone, let alone someone with autism). She autographed our copy of Thinking in Pictures. We asked her to dedicate her signature to our son. Someday whenever he starts reading he'll have a really special treasure from this incredible woman.

Naturally we're exhausted and are pretty much on overload from the entire discussion of autism. Nevertheless it was time well-spent. We finally have a good view for what our son's future looks like based on numerous others we met who are living relatively normal, successful lives with autism. It will be slow going for a while, but one promising thing we learned is that the symptoms our son struggles with now will only improve with time. This was VERY encouraging to us; I think this would be harder if Autism was degenerative in nature.

This might take longer than I thought

I keep hearing this statement is a common trend among those of us writing dissertations. I guess I'm not surprised.

The dilemma now is the timing of my data collection (qualitative interviews). One committee member is suggesting waiting till the fall. If Advisor agrees, then my personal plan falls apart. I was hoping to have the data collection completed next semester so I could seek a full-time job starting in the summer. I know that analyzing the data and writing the results & implications chapters on the side of a full-time post would not necessarily be easy. However, I don't know if I can go a fifth year as a full-time doctoral student. Not that I don't love the lifestyle, but the lack of a paycheck is wearing very thin very fast.

There I go again, worrying about things in the future that haven't happened yet, and may never happen. AUGH! If I can focus this week on finishing up the unfinished business from my Writing Retreat, then I'll have a chance to get to a point where data collection CAN happen in the spring.

Thinking positively, I sign off for the evening. Bye.

Autism Conference

Wife and I will attend a conference on Autism next weekend (her folks will come to SCT to watch Son for these couple of days). Click the link embedded into this post's title for more information, if interested.

Temple Grandin is one of the keynote speakers. She is a 50-something woman with a Ph.D. in animal behavior, and she is autistic. She's one of the few people I've ever heard who can actually explain what it is like to be autistic to those of us who are not. She's written several books, and I'm currently reading her second one called Thinking in Pictures: and Other Reports from My Life with Autism. I've only just started it recently, but it's fascinating thus far. While she has a "different" way of communicating and writing, she's communicating nonetheless. The amount of brainpower coming out of this woman is incredible, so it will be a pleasure to have the chance to hear her speak in person.

I've attended numerous conferences over the past 11 years as part of various jobs in higher education. However, I have yet to attend a conference with my wife, so I'm really looking forward to the experience, on several levels.

Request for Technical Assistance

This isn't really a big deal, but I'm just curious: does anyone out there know why the "Technorati" icon isn't showing up in my sidebar? I have a Technorati profile, and the URL and other coding is embedded into the sidebar section of my blog's template near the coding of the other buttons (it's supposed to be in between my Bloglines and Firefox butons). It's not appeared there in a few months, and I'm wondering if others have experienced trouble with this?

I can't stand it when something technical decides not to work for some unknown reason!

But once again, it's really not a big deal in the scheme of things.

First Week after the Retreat

While I don't miss the separation from my family and the self-induced pressure to get a lot accomplished in a short amount of time last week, I do miss the simple life I led. This week has been a catch-up week at work, catching up on the number of hours missed by being away, that is. It went well, but I didn't get anything accomplished on papers and such.

However, earlier this week I asked my minor advisor to join my dissertation committee, and he agreed. I'm excited about this because I like his advising and communication styles. He questions things I'll say about my topic with a simple, "I don't know what that means," or "Tell me more about how that works." If I can't respond to him, then he's found a gap and I have more work to do; if I can respond to him appropriately, then I know I'm on the right track. We have good arguments. These are not arguments that either of us are competing to win. On the contrary, it's a good way to communicate for us because it gets the pertinent issues out on the table. He likes the topic and is an expert at putting together a variety of research studies, so it will be good to have him on board as my Outside Person (i.e. he's from a different academic department).

OK, I'm off to get some writing done this morning prior to when the football games start up on TV.

Writing Retreat - Days 5 & 6

The writing retreat has been well-worth the trip. I finished up a couple of projects that I have been struggling with for a long time, and it's a good feeling to leave those behind me. There is one more that's still looming overhead, but at least I've started it. Starting it is half the battle for me, so I should finish things up pretty soon.

I have lost my steam these past couple of days, so I've not been as productive lately. It's definitely time to go home. Yesterday was slow, but I did finish up Project A officially. Then I spent the evening with an old friend and her family.

Mid-afternoon today when I realized I wasn't getting much done, I chalked it up to needing to get the heck out of this house. Also, weather is nice here today (I HATE allergies!). So, I drove over to my favorite local Lake Michigan beach and just stared at the water for a piece. That was nice. I came back to the house and had a good chat with the couple who lives in the house next door. He's a freelance writer who works at home, so we had a good amount to discuss in that regard! They have kids around the same age as Son, so it was nice to have a good social chat with people in a similar place in life.

Tomorrow is my day to drive home, but not till the late afternoon. I'm taking an old friend to the Bear's game. Should be fun, but I'm really looking forward to a safe arrival home.

Am off now to find a bite to eat somewhere and then to attempt to get a little more work done on this paper before packing up my things this evening. But I expect I'll have a little wine with dinner on my last night in town.

Thanks for reading this week. More once I return to Small College Town (unless I'm so inspired later tonight).

Writing Retreat - Day 4

Well...this wasn't as productive a day as the others, but I did get SOMEWHERE. I'm trying to get through a bunch of reading for Lingering Paper #2, and it's going OK, just slowly.

Tonight was my night to just hang out at Relative's house alone, and it was nice. I ordered my own Chicago-style pizza (mmm) and watched some TV for a bit. Then I spoke with a colleague on the phone for a while, which was very good and provided some much needed social contact from someone who "understands."

I think my allergies are diminishing here a little bit, but I'm relieved I was able to find a replacement for the prescription decongestant I've been on for a while at the local Walgreens. I run out of the stuff tomorrow, and the last thing I need now is another sinus infection. TMI, I know. Sorry, but it's my blog! :-)

Tomorrow will be productive. I'm determined to have a good draft of this Lingerer done before I have dinner with an old friend tomorrow evening.

Writing Retreat - Day 3

This was a productive day in that I good solid draft of Project A, and I shipped it to a colleague who will provide some feedback for me. Then, I started outlining/brainstorming about Lingering Paper #2. I hope to knock out this one tomorrow and have it be over & done with. Frankly I've been avoiding this paper for a while because the topic is very general and I don't have a lot of guidance. Still, it really shouldn't be that difficult, and getting something completed for this is better than having it continue to linger! Send good thoughts my way: this is the one I'm dreading the most of this week.

Spent another evening at the home of my sister and brother-in-law, hanging out with the nephews and helping out with their evening routine. We all wish we lived closer together. Who knows what will happen with our location in the next year?

Solitude

I have a "grass is always greener" relationship with solitude.

In general I'm an extraverted, social guy, especially with people I know well. I often gain energy from being around others. There are times, however, when I become overwhelmed with interpersonal communication and I crave sitting in my cave by myself. And yet, too much alone time makes me pine for interpersonal interaction.

I must admit I was nervous about taking this retreat. Think about it: I purposely took time away from my family and friends, traveled to another state, and am practically locking myself in Relative's home in order to get this work done. Part of me thought, "Am I NUTS? Am I going to lose my mind??" However, another part of me knew I should savor this time and use it wisely."

Fortunately, I've learned to be OK with the rarther brown grassy lawn of solitude this week. While I don't particularly enjoy the alone time, I do enjoy the fact that I finally am feeling productive, more so than I have felt in several months. I'm maintaining a more simple life this week. I desperately miss the companionship of my wife and the playfulness of my son, but I don't miss the feeling of being torn apart by having to choose my studies over my family. These past two days, I've worked during the day and have felt no guilt about hanging out with relatives and friends at night. If I can achieve a similar balance after I return home next week, then perhaps I can start to get my life's balance back? Perhaps I can handle the alone time at home better if I reward myself with family/friend time in the evenings.

You'd think that by the 22nd grade I would have all this crap figured out??

Writing Retreat - Day 2

A grey day hung over Chicago today and it just should have rained! There are few things I do not miss about living in Chicago, but one of them is the grey autumn and winter weather where no precipitation falls from the sky all day long! Oh well: at least I wasn't missing anything as I sat here inside Relative's house at the computer.

It was a productive day, but slower than I had originally planned. I finished up Lingering Paper #1, final draft and all, and I sent it to the professor. Yay!

I started working on "the other project," and I hope to have that finished up tomorrow. I may chunk away at that one tonight in front of the TV.

Tomorrow I need to power away through Lingering Paper #2 as quickly as possible, because I really want to spend most of my time on Lingering Paper #3, the pilot study to my dissertation.

At the beginning of this week, I had grand plans to finish the three Lingerers by the end of the day today and then start on the dissertation proposal itself tomorrow. Now I'm more realistic: I realize that even if I ONLY finish the Lingerers this week, then I'll still be farther along had I not come on this retreat at all. When at home from here on out, I'll only need to focus on the dissertation proposal itself. I hope I can stick to my "realistic" schedule and get all this stuff done this week.

My evening entertainment was hanging out at my sister & brother-in-law's home with their two kids. It was much fun. My brother-in-law even helped me fix a couple of minor issues with my VW. Also, I got to hold my four-month-old nephew several times, which always puts me right to sleep. Zzz...

Writing Retreat - Day 1

I'd say today (well technically yesterday) was a successful first day, even though I didn't get through my entire list. I do have a decent schedule set out for myself for the rest of the week, and I did just about finish Lingering Paper #1. I was reminded about Project A (thanks to a colleague who commented to the post below this one), so I need to get on that in the morning before hitting Lingering Paper #2.

After a day of solitude & writing, and I enjoyed dinner at the home of a good friend from high school and her family. I had not yet met her youngest child, now two years old, so it was fun to play board games with their children and have a good meal with old friends. I stayed there till Midnight catching up! Sign of an enjoyable evening.

The Writing Retreat Begins!

Greetings from the home of Relative, set in idyllic suburban Chicago. I arrived yesterday afternoon and attended a block party that was happening in Relative's neighborhood (I know another couple in the neighborhood). Then I went out for dinner with my sister, brother-in-law (& their two kids) to celebrate their anniversary. Needless to say, it was a nice arrival here. I'm now settled into the house for the next week.

And now it's time to get crankin'. My plan is to focus and be productive while the sun is up. Then I should be able to relax at night. I will exercise each morning (already did that today) and be at the desk as early as I can, when my brain is "on."

I'll probably post here at the end of each day so I feel like I have some accountability on a regular basis. I also have a couple of "foot-tapping" friends back home, waiting to hear about my progress. You know, tapping their foot, arms folded, waiting for a response. Did that joke work over a blog? I dunno.

Anyhow, I have three Lingering Papers, two from last semester and one to revalidate a course I took in my master's degree in 1995. The over-arching plan for the week is to get through the Lingering Papers and have a very good, solid outline for Chapter 1 of The Dissertation. Today I plan to do the following:

• Get a good, realistic schedule planned out for the week
• Finish Lingering Paper #1 (it's about halfway done now)
  
• Do research/outline for Lingering Paper #2 (the revalidation paper I've been avoiding for a while, I must admit)

Stay tuned.

Not THIS Kind of Doctor!

You Should Get a MD (Doctor of Medicine)

You're both compassionate and brilliant - a rare combination. You were born to be a doctor.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

Brilliant? Me? I dunno...

I've actually never considered medicine. Interesting questions to ponder, nonetheless.

Opportunistic, yet frustrated

I have a fantastic opportunity, and I don't remember if I've mentioned it. One of my relatives is traveling out of the country for a couple of weeks, so I'm going to house-sit for her and take advantage of the solitude to complete a major portion of the writing done on my dissertation proposal. At least, that's my hope. My generous in-laws are coming to SCT to help Wife with Son while I'm gone. And my mother & sister/family all live near the place where I'm house-sitting, so I plan to have some home-cooked evening meals after what I hope to be productive days of writing. I feel very fortunate to have support from my extended family. I leave this Sunday 10/9 and will return the following Sunday.

I had planned to be much further along in the writing process at this point than I am. However, I'm still working on finishing up an incomplete and this silly revalidation paper, and it's giving me the blues. One of the reasons for not being finished is beyond my control: these allergies are kicking my ass. I've felt under the weather for the past month. Also, I've never experienced an allergy to doing something I LOVE to do for relaxation & focus: being outside. I think it's getting me down more than I realized.

The other reason for not being as far along as I had hoped is probably a bit more in my control: it's the notion of developing a structure for myself and then sticking to it. Sure, I have a set schedule developed: that was no problem for me. Sticking to the schedule...now that's another story. I've found it hard to focus, and I'm not sure what the hell is going on. Suffice it to say that at this point, I'm just so angry at myself that I haven't gone as far as I'd like that I'm probably going to be motivated by my frustration rather than by any structure I try to implement on myself. This isn't necessarily the type of drive I was looking for to plow through this stuff, but nevertheless it's probably going to be the motivator I need.

I tend to work well under pressure, so perhaps I'm scheduling TOO MUCH time for myself to get this work done? That sounds ridiculous. But I'm actually a very fast writer and am often more motivated by a deadline than by much else. So maybe this next week will be a good way to condense a great deal of work into a relatively short amount of time. However, I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. It's sort of a balance there, I suppose.

I will have internet access from the house-sitting location, so I'm sure I'll continue posting in the week to come.

Well, I'm off to attempt to get something completed before heading off to work.

A Diagnosis

Everything went very well at the children's hospital. The day went smoothly (though very long) and our son was his normal angelic self, which frankly was pleasantly surprising with all the new things he encountered that day. We figured he would be crabby at some point, but really that wasn't the case.

The diagnosis from the hospital is indeed autism. This is not a surprise, though it certainly makes us sad. Our plans for today and the next few months certainly are no different as a result of this diagnosis. However our vision for the future is now a big question mark. I guess it will just force us to live in the moment and not worry as much about the future. Living in the present isn't my strong point, but Wife and I can hold each other up throughout this process.

The nice thing we kept hearing is that we're doing the right thing for him now, so we just need to continue onward. We were relieved that we never heard anything like, "You're going to need to change the way you do 'X' with him." On the contrary, they were quite complimentary. This was good to hear since both Wife and I are the types to blame ourselves for these sorts of things.

The preschool he's in now will do its own evaluation by the end of this month. We suspect a similar diagnosis, but it will be interesting to see how it all pans out. The school has been fantastic with our son, so we suspect they'll be part of our team that helps him learn.

So, onward and forward. Son is a great kid, and with any child it's the parents' job to stick by him and help him grow and develop in whatever manner that may be. Wife and I are relieved to have a diagnosis and to no longer be in the dark as to what's going on with him.

A Journey Begins

We're in a hotel in Large City to the North, getting ready for a day-long cognitive evaluation for Son at Well-Known Children's Hospital. Wife and I are feeling quite ready for any diagnosis that may come about as a result of the day. At least we'll know SOMETHING!

More later. Suffice it to say it's the beginning of what will be a very different day for our family.

VW Blues

I absolutely love driving my 1999 VW Jetta, Wolfsburg Edition (the last of the older-style Jettas). However, I do not like owning this car. I'm thankful it's paid off and the engine runs well. However, the DUMBEST things get messed up on this car, and it always ends up costing an arm and a leg. A "check engine" light often means $700 or more. This has been an all-too frequent occurrence lately. Also, three of the four electric window motors has broken...two times EACH. The speedometer/tachometer work only about 50% of the time, and that's a $500 repair. It's a very frustrating car on the one hand, and on the other hand I absolutely love driving it.

And now the latest: the glove compartment latch broke, and I can't get it open. Why I oughta... Contents of the glove box include:

• registraion
• insurance card
• owner's manual
• tire gauge
  
• a box of Altoids
• a small squirt gun (hey, I always travel prepared)
• a pad of Mad Libs for road trips
  
• and - if you can believe it - two pairs of driving gloves. One must keep at least 1 pair of gloves in one's glove compartment. I hardly ever actually use them, but nonetheless they form the defining factor of said glove compartment.
  

I kinda need that tire gauge right now, not to mention the fact that I (ahem) would like that box of Altoids handy. And I'm supposed to go to Chicago next weekend, so I'd like access to the registration & stuff just in case. Guess I need to make yet another trip to the auto place this week. Glad I found a spot other than the dealer that works with foreign cars.

ARGH!