Chemistry Experiment

We took Moose to a specialist yesterday because we have him on a gluten-free casein-free diet (GFCF). For those of us not in the know, that's basically wheat-free and dairy-free food. Apparently, many autistic kids have a high sensitivity to these foods. There's gluten in a whole bunch of things, more than you'd suspect. We're thankful for a good organic food section at Chain Grocery Store Near Our House (CGSNOH), along with a natural food store elsewhere in town. Autistic kids' food sensitivities manifest themselves on two ends of a spectrum (this is my own lay-person's representation of the problems [I need visuals], so it may be incorrect):

physical gut problems <----------------> aloofness or spaciness

Moose falls, of course, on the "aloofness or spaciness" side of things. The specialist would argue that he's essentially getting high on drugs from consuming gluten and casein products.

For a long while, Wife and I balked at this entire notion because Moose didn't have any of the gut issues, which is the more-common problem. He eats a variety of foods, and his digestive system was always just fine. He sleeps through the night consistently. We were skeptical of anyone trying to say that a diet will "cure" autism.

But we decided to try the diet anyhow because we just didn't want to leave a stone unturned in this journey. This specialist agrees there is no cure for autism. However, her Asperger's-syndrome daughter has had a great deal of success on this diet, and the doc has been working in this area for more than a decade. "Success on the diet" is defined as a reduction of autistic-like repetitive behaviors and an increase in communication skills (in addition to getting rid of any physical problems, that Moose doesn't have, fortunately).

The visit to the doc yesterday was very interesting. After reading Moose's history (Wife has had to write out the details of her pregnancy and Thomas's entire life at least 15 different times, by hand, no exaggeration), the doc told us WE'VE BEEN DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT. I think this is one of the first people we've met who believe in the "the environment is out to get us" sort of stuff who has said that to us. Wife needed to hear that. Along the way others have questioned us about vaccinations, rho gam shots, flu shots during pregnancy, and other stuff...all of which were things our doctors told us to do. This is one of the first people "in the know" who told us we hadn't done anything wrong. Very refreshing.

Next, she immediately saw a few things in Moose and pinpointed the likely cause. "He grinds his teeth a lot," she observed. "Yes, he's done that ever since he grew teeth," I replied. "Well, it's probably due to an overdose of yeast in his system, I've seen that a lot." Who knew? So now he'll be on some drugs to help clear the yeast out of his system. OK, we'll see how that goes.

There was an iodine test. That's the yellow liquid stuff that stains your skin for up to 12 hours. The test was that if it absorbed into his skin in less than 12 hours, then his body is craving the stuff that's in iodine. (side note: his skin was back to his normal color in less than four hours, so I guess he's deficient in that area, ya think?)

And then they drew blood. Six vials, for all sorts of chemical tests. Apparently he's a walking chemistry set. After I had to gently, yet firmly, say to the nurse, "He won't understand you when you tell him to hold his arm still," we worked out a system where Wife held Moose down underneath her, I held his free arm, and two nurses helped to draw the blood. We had him in a sing-a-long/scream-a-long, and I think it helped to calm him down, a little. They had to stick him in TWO separate places in the same arm, but they eventually got almost as much blood as they needed (god I hope it's enough). A few hundred dollars later (I suppose he's worth it, haha), we were driving back to SCT peacefully, Moose was sucking down juice and GFCF pretzels, back to his normal self. Wife and I, while shaking, were at least relieved that we feel we've found a specialist who really understands all this stuff. Moose is really a trooper, truly. A very brave kid.

I feel like we're at the bottom of a very steep hill and are learning how to get the car into first gear without rolling backward. But I think it's the right hill, and we've been searching for the this hill for a while. We shall see. We'll try anything that has no potential of hurting him. I just hope he doesn't have to have another blood test anytime soon.

Dissertation? What dissertation?

Good stuff

The last post was a bit gloomy. There are a few good things that have happened in the last day or so that bode well for successful dissertation profection:

1. The weather is finally behaving by being cold! I shoveled the driveway yesterday along with a few of my neighbors. It felt very homey and neighborly. I actually enjoy shoveling snow.
2. A good friend from my master's program is expecting a baby after driving a particularly difficult road to get there. I'm VERY happy for you!!!
3. I want both Super Bowl teams to win the game (though deep down I'll probably cheer for my Bears at my home turf).

Focused, motion toward completion, getting the darn thing done...

Re-shifting

It's been a while since I've done a real post here. Let me start this off by saying that I'm just about done with my dissertation proposal. I have about another 4-5 pages to write in chapter 3, and I just received a good amount of feedback from DC on chapters 1 and 2. I'm working on a big revision of things right now, and I'm on track to defend the fucker in the next few weeks (that is, if I can get my committee finalized by then. I'll save that for another post).

But there's been a fairly significant re-shifting of my dissertation this past week. I am a big-picture thinker. In many situations I consider this one of my greatest strengths. However, when writing a dissertation, it goes only so far. One must focus a dissertation topic and go with it. At the same time, one must gain the approval of others in order for the topic to gain the support and "Miracle Grow" it needs to come to fruition. Finding a topic is not entirely an independent process.

I've mentioned here that I've had multiple dissertation topics throughout my time at LMU. If I weren't a big-picture thinker, I probably would have focused long ago. I may have been further (farther? I have no idea) along in the march toward completion than I am now, though I really can't say that for certain. Still, I hold true to the fact that I like my present topic a great deal, and I'm glad I felt free to switch topics along the way. I've identified a significant gap in the literature, and there is a group of researchers 'out there' that is now starting to work toward filling in the gap. This is a good time for me to be working on this particular topic.

I thought I had a solid plan for collecting data. I was going to administer a survey to a group of students, and out of the respondents I would choose a handful of them for in-person interviews to help provide data for a theory I'm developing.

After a long meeting with DC this past week (almost 3 hours...I have a good DC!), I decided to drop the survey portion and find participants in another way. Instead of running a mixed-method study, it will now have a straight qualitative methodology.

Compared to my initial idea, the overall design is more streamlined. The survey portion of the study was getting too large, and DC said it could have stood on its own as a quantitative study. My intent with even administering a survey in the first place was to find students to participate in a qualitative interview process. Clearly, my big-picture thinking was running away from me again. Streamlining and sticking with one methodology is the better way to proceed.

So why, then, do I feel like a failure for quitting the mixed-method study? Perhaps the better question is: Why did I feel a need, in the first place, to do one of the the toughest dissertation methods on the planet when this could be relatively simple? Don't get me wrong, there's nothing simple about any dissertation method, but mixed-method studies are essentially two different dissertations merged together. All the advice I received going into this doctoral program was similar: "pick a topic you like and is simple so you can finish the dissertation quickly." I didn't listen. Why isn't something relatively simple good enough? I dunno.

At least I'm not starting over, and I'm grateful that I didn't get too far into this thing before realizing I had created a monster and that I'd spend the rest of my thirties as a graduate student. I should be happy about a simpler methodology, but it's not yet sitting well with me. I'll get there eventually.

Yang

Most of these words describe me, except for Summer. I don't like that much heat.

I Am More Yang

Masculine Creative Angry Spring Summer Morning Sun Space Active Wood Chocolate

Are You More Yin or Yang?

Update on The Tree

I have an update on the recent post where I discussed our Christmas tree. I feel a little embarrassed I'm even spending more time on this topic, but I'm beaming with pride for my wife right about now. You'll see why if you keep reading.

We were heartbroken and felt guilty when we disposed of said tree. I mean, we killed A TREE so we could hang a few ornaments and lights on it for about 7 days. I still can't believe it. We paid money to have someone chop it down for us, exposing its innards and taking an oxygen source away from the world, specifically for this purpose. Wow. So when we were disposing of said tree at the recycling center (the proper, environmental thing to do, of course) (oh my God), we pretty much decided then and there that we'll never do that again.

Wife said she often has heard of major after-Christmas sales on the nice fake trees that come with lights already strung on them. They tend to cost in the $100 range, but she wanted to wait for a sale. Sales are good.

Last week Wife was at Chain Grocery Store Near Our House (CGSNOH), and she saw those trees on sale for $25. Not too bad. They weren't quite the fullest-looking trees, and it was pretty easy to see the trunk. Still, it's JUST a plastic Christmas tree, and with ornaments and other crap covering it, it should look OK. At least it was pre-lit, and at least it was only $25. But neither of us thought about it again, and we forgot about it till today.

Today, the trees were on sale, marked down again. They were only $10. We now own said tree. Loving the wife's financial savvy and patience. I feel like we beat the Christmas machine at its own game. Too bad we had to commit a cardinal sin against the Earth before we learned our lesson, but that's OK. Someday I'll stop feeling guilty about it. Maybe.

Horoscope

I hardly EVER read my horoscope, and I don't know what prompted me to do so today. However, I found it helpful and frighteningly close to being relevant for me right now, so figured I'd put it here.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) - Conditions looks exceptionally good concerning a project that has suffered a loss of progress lately. If you get back to it now and are tenacious, you can make up for lost time.

Last week was not my best week in terms of dissertation progress, so this was relevant. So, I took its advice and buckled down today in my campus office.

I finalized two sets of questions. First, I decided upon the ones I'll use for my questionnaire. I've reduced a rather long extant questionnaire to something more manageable. What took me a while was developing my "theoretically-sound rationale" for choosing these particular questions. Second, I wrote the 14-or-so questions I'll use in my semi-structured interview protocol (Patton, 2002), when I interview a handful of the higher-scoring respondents to my questionnaire.

Now I just have to write chapter 3. I got page 1 done today...that's hopefully the hardest part. Yeah, uh keep dreaming Rob.

Sometimes I feel like this is actually going really well. And then for some reason, that gets so overwhelming that I literately need to leave the room for a couple of minutes. I used to think that was a really silly way to react until I realized I'm not the only one who feels this way. I have a colleague who understands these feelings, only her reaction is that she thinks she thinks she's going to throw up. Last week, I said to her, "I think this is finally coming together." Her response: "That's great. Do you feel like you're going to throw up?" "No," I said, "but I had to leave the room and put this latest draft in the freezer." "Oh, OK," she replied, as if this was all just normal behavior. Well, if more than one person understands these feelings, then in my book it IS normal behavior!

My Window is Open

It's January 5, I'm in the Midwest, and I just opened my office's window because it's 63 degrees. What the f#$%???

Zoo in December

I completely forgot to post our pictures from a mid-December trip to the zoo. Click the pic below to see the rest of the online album. A few really good pictures of Moose and Wife in there (a few of yours truly as well).

zoo

That day we traveled up to Large City to the North to hang out with a friend who was in from out of town. Then we got Moose's hair cut and went to the zoo. Good trip!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

We had a fun time with some friends over here at Chesterley last night. Laughed and ate and laughed and ate till we kicked everyone out at 12:15 AM since Moose has been waking us up extra early lately. A good time was had by all.

Check out Wife's latest post for a good description of our trip out for lunch with the same group of friends. I no longer really care all that much about others' reactions to Moose when we're out and about. I'm proud of him and I'm not afraid to show him off, odd noises and funny hand motions and all. I'm also thankful for the good friends who understand all this stuff and a few accepting people we happen to meet when we're out & about.

The tree

We're taking down our Christmas tree sometime tomorrow. Figured I'd post this short album of tree decorating pictures up before then.

A funny thing happened: I was crawling around on the floor trying to water the tree the other day, and I pulled on the base or something a little too hard. Next thing I know, I hear my mother-in-law shouting "Tree! Tree!" I'm not aware that the darn thing is falling over on top of me till needles and ornaments start coming down like a hailstorm. Fortunately, Wife was only a couple of steps away and was able to save the thing from going completely horizontal. That's a first for our family! After we up-righted the tree and re-decorated it, it never really quite looked as good as it does in this album. It has a pretty good lean to the left. Oh well.

Anyhow, here's the album.

christmastree06

Mappy Chrismakuh/Herry Hannumas

When I was younger, my bi-religional (bi-religional?) family would use these phrases to ring in the winter holiday season. Herry Hannumas was my personal fave.

Speaking of which, I completely missed Hannukah this year. This is unfortunate because for me Hannukah is more of a celebration of God than Christmas is, even though Hannukah isn't all that "important" in the Jewish faith. Don't get me wrong, I think the American Christmas is a whole bunch of fun, but the part one celebrates at home is essentially a big birthday party. Doesn't do much for me in the god department, but that's just me. The home festivities themselves are fun, I love the music, and my wife does a wonderful job of decorating our home with festive things. So, I'm thankful for the season and the various tidbits therein, but I'm kicking myself for not at least taking out the menorah and lighting a candle or two. My own darn fault on that one. Bah humbug. At least we'll hit church tomorrow (twice, I think?), so there will be some religion in the season tomorrow. This is good. I don't mind a little liberal religion one bit.

I've not written here in the blog most of the month. But the dissertation is going well, believe it or not. Chapter 1 is revised already, chapter 2 is into DC (the ball is in her court to give me feedback), and I've created much of the interview protocol that I'll write about in chapter 3. That chapter should go smoothly as soon as I find time to write it. Finding the proper balance among dissertation work, family work, and work-work continues to be a challenge, but overall I've no complaints.

Wife's family arrived here last night and will stay through Christmas. Then wife & I head to see my family in Chicago for a few days while parents of wife stay here with Moose (a VERY nice Christmas present!).

We actually got a "real" Christmas tree this year that was chopped down yesteday. It just went up in the livingroom/dining room/music room, so I need to run and help decorate. Bye.

Happy Christmas, too!

Moose hung out with Santa

I completely forgot to post this last week. The day after Thanksgiving, Wife and my mother took Moose shopping around SCT (not at any of the big-box stores at 5:00 AM, mind you).

They had a chance to stop & see Santa. If they hadn't taken these pictures, I never would have believed that Moose actually interacted with this strange man in the fake beard. He's making a ton of progress lately - very exciting to see.

santa2006

Writing and Holiday Preparation

I cranked yesterday, thank God. Got lots of writing done, and am attempting to do the same this afternoon. In the past hour or so I've only written another paragraph and done a bit more moving around of other paragraphs. I guess this is part of the whole deal. It may never end, but if it does I've certainly come much closer to it in the past couple of days.

I also have the warm fuzzies I usually experience preparing for the winter holidays with Wife. We decorate the house a bit, play some of our holiday music that we only take out in December, that sort of thing. We sang "O Come O Come Emmanuel" at church this morning, which reminds me of college and fun times singing in the Christmas Carols & Scripture concert each year. No doubt about it, it's Advent out. I do enjoy this time of year.

It's funny: I now associate these Advent weekends with the time when I hunker down and write final papers till my wrists hurt. For some reason, today's afternoon solitude in my home office/prison is actually adding to the warm fuzzies. Well that's sort of messed up, isn't it?! But, this is my fifth December in a row doing this sort of thing, so it's becoming sort of a tradition, I suppose. And I actually don't mind it this year - it's that "do or die" time of year with my academics. Not that anything academic could really ever KILL me, but, well you know what I mean. Life's pretty simple right now: I just have a SHITLOAD of work to do in the next two weeks.

Guess I should get back to it, then. Just had to share these weird thoughts & feelings of "comfort & joy" along with fervish writing. I am SUCH a nerd.

Behind, yet thankful

We had a thankful holiday weekend here at Chesterley. My mom came in from Chicago and we all a lovely time. My mom is a very good photographer, and she attempted to snap several shots in an effort to help us get find a greeting card photo. See the album linked here if you're interested. Only a couple turned out OK, but of course either my eyes are closed too much, open too much, or Moose is looking the other way. C'est la vie, I suppose. Wife looks fantastic in all of the pictures, of course!

SCT has a neat tradition of lighting up the courthouse square for the holidays on the night after Thanksgiving. We went for the official lighting event for the first time this year. Pictures of that are also in the album linked here. Really is quite beautiful.

I got a little bit more done on the diss, but not as much as I had hoped. So, I'm feeling behind, but I suppose it's understandable. I'm thankful for many, many things, and this weekend was a time to celebrate those. Sure the damn diss is still hanging over my head, but I'm not really stressed about it today. However, my sense of awareness is heightened that time for the completion of the proposal is running out quickly if I indeed want to collect data next semester. So, I guess I have a mixture of emotions today, but remarkably none of those involve stress. Guess we all needed the holiday.

Thanx2006

Any thoughts on which picture(s) to use for the holiday photo? Speak up!

Geeky part: Also, am still deciding whether or not to keep using the Google Picasa feature for posting these, or if I should fork over the $25 for a Flickr "pro" account to share pictures more widely. Hmm...

Feedback Received on Draft 1

...and it was good! And now I know I need to kick my @ss into gear, FAST, if I want a chance in hell of collecting data by the end of the year.

Tasks:

1. Tweak chapter 1 (glad I'm in the tweaking stage now)
2. Finish chapter 2 (she told me I don't have to do as much as I thought...but I do still have a bit left to do)
3. Draft chapter 3 (this won't be nearly as tough as chapter 2)
4. Get a committee together (oh yeah, THAT)

If I can get a draft of all of this by November 27 (um, that would be 10 days from now), I'll feel MUCH better.

The light at the tunnel has gotten a bit brighter. Can I really pull this together between now and the end of the year? Well, I've had more end-of-semester work to do in the past, so if I can kick up the work gear just a bit for this final push, I should be good to go.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Thanksgiving is Next Week?

I shudder to think that we're already nearing the time when seeing holiday decorations is appropriate and not too early.

I was out of town at the end of last week and into the weekend. It was a stellar experience, truly one of the highlights of my doc student career. I attended a conference, well more of a workshop, that explored creating a new research domain around the notion of creativity. The focus was on participation in the arts when in college: right up my alley. And I'm making a pretty major connection between creativity and some other concepts in my dissertation, so this was a WAY COOL experience. I have much more to say about it, but I'm not yet ready to share those thoughts here.

Now I need to synthesize all this information and get the damn lit review done. I think I'm almost there, and I meet with DC on Friday to get my first round of feedback on the first 20 pages I gave her a few weeks ago. Since then I've written another 15 pages or so, and hopefully that will increase by a few more pages between now and Friday as well. Gotta get these thoughts out of my head and get the literature cited.

The looming Thanksgiving date is a bit daunting. If I don't finish the proposal by the end of the year and start collecting data next semester, then I'll either need to change my entire topic or wait an entire year to collect data: I'm attempting to research seniors in their last semester of college: um, that sorta starts in two months. I don't want to wait a year.

I suppose things could be worse. As far as I know, I'm not dying anytime soon from some unknown disease (except maybe Wife may wring my neck if I don't get this done soon). But I am so sick of having this hanging over my head. Just want it done.

I'm glad the weather has finally turned cold. Makes me want to hit a pub and drink several thick beers with friends and wife. There's no time for this, I realize, but it's what I like to do on rainy cold grey Midwestern days like today.

Wait, it's only 10AM and I'm thinking about beer? This is bad!

Elekshun Dae

I haven't really ever posted anything political on this blog. I guess expostulating on the state of world affairs isn't my strength, so I don't attempt to do it very often. However, I vote in every election and feel very strongly about doing so. I come from a line of relatives who were highly involved with various civic responsibilities, though thankfully (my opinion) none of them ever really ran for an actual political office. My parents and grandparents always seemed to be volunteering their time for the betterment of society in some way shape or form. My grandmother, especially, continued this sort of work until just before her death at age 98, earlier this year. I have yet to meet another with the same sort of "do it to improve society" determination that she had.

Growing up in this "engaged" family (ack, did I just say engaged?), I always thought it was normal for people to get involved in a cause, even if it meant working with those who held different political or religious beliefs (hell, my family had, at minimum, two very different religions within itself). Disagreement was just a part of a good conversation. Not only was it acceptable, in fact it was expected. Discussing where people differed in their views was a crucial part of my childhood education. Don't get me wrong: this wasn't always easy, and sometimes it really sucked, but this sort of thing taught me a great deal.

I realized something sort of funny a few weeks ago while hanging out with a buddy who was the best man in our wedding. If I based my friendships on agreement in political affiliation, I literally would have had NO groomsmen! These are four of my very closest friends, two from high school and two from college. I don't think it occurred to any of the five of us that our friendship was somehow impacted by my "different" political views. I guess we're all able to see a little bit of both sides of political arguments, and we don't let it get in the way. I can pick right up with any of these guys at a moment's notice, no matter the time, place or situation. In spite of their unfortunate thoughts on certain issues (and they're all WRONG! haha), I can't imagine not having these four guys as good friends.

And yet it seems this country is completely torn apart by politics. Why? Is it turning into a civil war of sorts? I'm not sure. What I do know is that I think our society needs to learn how to have a good, healthy argument without completely losing its cool. We all need to be more comfortable disagreeing with each other. Where's the joy in a good discussion unless there's disagreement leading toward growth? I don't think I'm being too idealistic when I ask this last question.

Well, the election coverage on the network television station I tend to watch started about 50 minutes ago, so I should go see what's going on. I hate this part of the night, but I'm looking forward to the end of the political advertisements and telephone calls.

The Deadline Loomethed and Passethed

Earlier today I turned in a draft to CPA Kim, the one who works across the hall from me and is helping me find the extrinsic motivation to kick ass on the proposal. She gave me an "incomplete," which was appropriate, but I was grateful for the deadline to actually make myself progress. Being accountable to someone else (funny word choice in "accountable," since she's a CPA) (I digress) is what made all the difference.

She moved the deadline back to next Wednesday, the day before I go out of town to confer at a conference. I now have only two sections left of Chapter 2 to write before going back and trying to make better connections between the sections. The goal is to have the two sections written before the end of the morning on Wednesday. Shouldn't be nearly as tough as the first portion I've already completed, because these last two sections deal with areas I've already read about. The first two sections involved exploring some new territory. I anticipate doing some editing on the plane to & from the conference and in the late evenings at the hotel.

"It" is getting easier. Finding the inner energy to get this done and not take it so damn seriously is how I'm defining the "it" in this case. The light at the tunnel's end is getting brighter each day, and I think that's my main motivation at this point. I can practically taste what life will be like when I'm done. That sort of sounds pathetic, because it seems these last four plus years are culminating into an attitude of "just get it done!" Not sure I like that too much. On the other hand, it's a hell of a lot better than sitting around and basking in academic masturbation, i.e. having great thoughts but making no progress whatsoever. Tee hee.

"It's Friday out," and I need to finish up a project at work before going home to mow the lawn/rake the leaves. Just thought I'd get this thought out of my head before the day's end. K, bye.

National Novel Writing Month

Well shit. I mean, isn't a dissertation nothing more than a really really organized novel? Perhaps I should join this group on the National Novel Writing Month. I could be done with the proposal before December hits.

What's ironic is that I clicked on the web site for the organization (www.nanowrimo.org) and the page isn't working. How am I supposed write my dissertation in a month if the site is down?? It's almost the end of November 1 - I only have 29 more days!!! ACK!

OK people, gimme a fuckin' break and let's get real. I mean, are we expected to quit our jobs and do nothing but write a book? Are we living in fantasy land? Oh yeah...oh SHIT. I quit my job over four years ago to start this degree. Forgot about that detail.

[Rob goes to crawl into a hole now and ponder this fantasy land life he's been living much too long...]

Looming Deadline

With the exception of the post from last Tuesday that just went up, I realize I haven't written in a while. So, hi.

A work colleague, who has already finished her higher education profection, is wonderful about checking in on me just about each day to help me be accountable that I'm actually getting things done on the diss. I'd say it's working. I turned in about 20 pages of the diss to DC on Monday. It's a large portion of chapter 1 and a medium-sized portion of chapter 2. Sounds like I'm ordering fries: I'd like a large please! Oops - digression. Anyhow, that experience was sort of scary in some ways, but cathartic in others. At long last, the feedback loop has been opened. I won't hear from DC for a while, but knowing she has a good chunk of the first two chapters is making me more comfortable with the possibility of sharing it with other colleagues I trust. Feedback would be a welcome change.

Anyhow, said work colleague from the preceding paragraph has set a firm deadline for me and another doc student for a draft of the entire proposal, or dissertation chapters 1-3, on her desk at this time one week from today. This is a good thing: I need the extrinsic motivation (even though it's "weaker") to fuel the stronger, more crucial intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Will I ever again be able to write something without citing it (Harvey & Katz, 1985)?

Guess I'll be focused this weekend in my on-campus office. Oh joy. But it'll be worth it if I can actually get something done by next week. Perhaps I should start chapter 3? YIKES!!!

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press.

Harvey, J. C., & Katz, C. (1985). If I'm so successful, why do I feel like a fake? The impostor phenomenon. New York: St. Martin's Press.