Interviews Complete for Study # 07- 11947

I have finally finished my data-collection process for the dissertation. Wow. I guess that's a pretty big milestone. But when I think about it in the abstract, I don't get a feeling of accomplishment. Instead, I experience more of a feeling of "holy SHIT do I have a lot of work ahead of me." And now the work is all on my shoulders. No longer do I need to wait around for others to respond. This is a good spot to be in, but I am now putting a good amount of pressure on myself to carry though quickly. Pressure is good, at times. Though work gets more and more hectic the longer I'm in the new job...

Let's focus back on the dissertation. When I look at some of the 'hard data' (not that qualitative data are really considered 'hard', but that's another discussion), then I can visualize the accomplishment of finishing the data-collection process a bit better. It is good to celebrate milestones during this process, no matter how small. So, since this blog serves as my doctoral program diary, I share this descriptive information, hither. Did I just write "hither"?

First interview: April 27, 2007
Last interview: October 26, 2007

Hmm. That's exactly six months, isn't it? Weird. I didn't plan that. Granted, there was a three-month hiatus starting around May 29 and ending August 23. That's to be expected during the summer months. Oh yes, and then I moved and started a new job during that hiatus. Interesting. OK, moving on.

# of interviews completed: 16
# of interviews I can use: 14
Average interview time: about 1 hour (OK, that's just a SWAG: some wild-ass guess)

Some of the earlier interviews ended up being lllonnnngggg because this is an exploratory study. I didn't want to cut off anyone. I am not out to prove or disprove a theory; instead I am creating a new theory because I actually do hate myself that much. Later on in the interview process, I probably became more adept at conducting the interview, and I could guide the participant toward information in which I was interested. But looking at the above numbers, this means I pretty much conducted about 16 hours of interviews, or perhaps more. Jesus. Lots of transcriptions ahead of me. I can only use 14 of the 16 interviews, since I learned part-way into a couple of these that they didn't meet my two main criteria for participating in the study. Oh well. Both interviews could contribute to a future research ideas I have, so I decided to conduct those interviews anyhow and just leave their data out of my dissertation.

# of women: 6
# of men: 8

This was surprising to me. It was far more difficult to find female participants for this study. What's surprising is that there simply are more women in college than men. Since August, I have been seeking only women participants for this study because I had too many men. Too many men?? This never happens in higher education research. I wonder if there's a participant gender bias based on the fact that I'm a man. Could potential female participants see my first name as "Robert," and not want to participate? Definitely possible. Vice-versa, perhaps a potential male participant is more interested in participating in this study because I am a man? I've no idea. The funny thing is that this study does not look at gender or racial issues...but those things are of course always present nevertheless.

Descriptors of participants' majors:

major type	#
fine arts	4
liberal arts	5
sciences	7
TOTAL	16

Note: 6 of the 14 participants were double majors, two of which crossed between different "types" of majors. Thus the total of 16 represented fields by only 14 participants.

Sort of cool to see the variety of majors and such. Not such a bad distribution for a large research university. I'm rather pleased.

OK, it does feel like I've come a long way with this study, now that I see all this laid out here. I am looking forward to when I can concisely respond to the question of, "So Rob, what are you finding as you conduct these interviews?" My thoughts aren't organized enough just yet to share those findings. And I probably won't share the findings on this blog (if you know me, and if you're actually interested in this stuff, then feel free to ask...or not!). That's the point of the data-analysis process. Gotta get through these transcriptions, first. Two and two-halves of the interviews have been transcribed thus far, so only 10 and two halves more to go.

Pardon me while I go type.

Hands getting dirty

I am finally digging into my interview data a bit more. I like saying that..."interview data." It's a nice feeling to have the majority of the data-collection process behind me. Wow, that's different!

The act of transcribing interviews is tedious at times, but after a while of practicing it, the act becomes almost automatic. I can start thinking about what I'm typing as I'm typing it. It's kind of an energetic experience, actually. I find this surprising, as frankly I've been dreading doing these transcriptions. Now that I'm doing them, it's not so bad (you'd think that after all these years of being in school that I'd be able to take on a daunting task without procrastination, but NOOO I still hate just thinking about a big task like that in front of me. Oh well). I'm thankful for the bit of help I'm getting with a few of the transcriptions from a former colleague in SCT. If I can just type up half of the interviews and leave about the other half to Former Colleague, then there's a chance we could be finished with the typing in, say, about three weeks? We shall see.

I'd like to say "After the transcriptions are finished, then it's onto the Data Analysis," but that would be inaccurate. The data analysis has already started; I just need to work to be aware of it and document everything I'm doing. I suppose that's more natural. I mean, do we really ever just do one thing at a time? I think not. The act of being able to think about the participants' responses as I'm typing them up is the first part of the analysis. And for me, as a pretty major extravert, talking about my findings out loud is extremely helpful to my analysis process. My friends and colleagues have been supportive of listening to me and reacting to the things I'm finding, so that's been good. I miss working closer to them in SCT, although I certainly don't miss living there. LOL.

My posts here are getting less frequent. I suspect that will pick up again when I'm in the analysis and writing process some more. Lately I've been conducting interviews (which involves commuting to & from SCT) and doing this minor thing (note my sarcasm) of learning my new job. I'm going to write a separate post later on about the things going on at home with Moose's diet and such (or you can look at Wife's blog for more details). Exhausting, but our lives in general are good. I'm grateful to finally feel some fast motion in the dissertation department again. Yay.

Getting closer

Hi blog. So Interview #11 may not be usable for my study, for a variety of reasons, but it wasn't altogether a bad interview. At least this person showed up! So I still have about four more to go.

But the good news is that my contact at the Honors program panned out. She sent my study invitation out to 15 eligible students, and I've received a decent handful of responses. Suddenly I have five more interviews over the next two Fridays (not counting two days from now). If all of these folks actually show up when they say they will, then I should be all finished with my data collection process on Friday, October 19. Can't WAIT.

Also, I've just hired a former student worker/colleague to help me with transcriptions. This is GREAT news. I hope the data collecting and transcribing processes continue to move onward smoothly. It finally seems like the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. What a nice feeling. I realize I have a TON of work to do with data analysis (I need some advice from EA!) ahead of me, but this feels like a good spot nevertheless.

At work, I ran the second part of a strategic planning retreat this afternoon. Then, I had an appointment near my house over the lunch hour, so I decided to just come home and work from Chesterley the rest of the day. I'm pleased to be wearing a t-shirt and shorts in the mid afternoon on a weekday, and now I'm going to try and focus on work stuff. I'd rather take a nap, but that'll be my reward. :-) I'm very thankful to have the sort of job where it's acceptable to do what I'm doing this afternoon. Perhaps I'll get into some of my own transcribing later tonight.

Bye blog.

Just Four More...or so

I completed my tenth interview last Friday, and it went really well. I'm getting a good variety of information from these interviews, which is good. Variety is helpful. Sure, some of the comments go entirely against the direction I see this study going, but a grounded theory is grounded in the data themselves and not in my crazy mind.

I'm hoping for only about four more interviews before I start hearing similar answers again. These all need to be women due to the fact that I've had far too many men in the sample. That sort of made me laugh...normally I'd think I'd have the opposite problem of trying to find male participants, but that's not the case here.

Oh yeah, I may have found a more affordable way to get help with transcribing interviews. When I told a friend about the cost of the estimate I received last week, she suggested another mutual friend we both know who would be perfect. I think she'll be interested in the study as well...were she still in college, she could be one of the participants. We shall see. While in theory I want to do the transcriptions myself to get into the data some more, realistically if I want to finish anytime soon, I really should ask for some help.

This weekend I started writing out descriptions of each participant along with my own reactions to the interviews. These descriptions/reactions should be helpful in the long run for the data-collection process. I figure I can share them with the transcription person, too, so she'll have an idea of what to listen for when typing out the interviews.

I'm looking forward to putting on my swim trunks and getting completely saturated in the data, sorta like jumping into a big lake. Let's hope the lake itself has clear water and not too much seaweed obscuring my view.

I'm back

I've been away from Active Dissertationland for a while. I suppose my visit to Passive Dissertationland was still within the country of Scholar Wannabe, but it's probably on a slower moving creek instead of a faster-flowing river toward Destination Completion...Ah, enough with the BS and colorful descriptions.

After spending some time working, and (frankly) spinning my wheels on, some of the other articles I still need to incorporate into my literature review, I have finally started recruiting participants again for my study. And it's going OK. A few of them were referred to me by a senior colleague who was not certain of their eligibility for the study. About half of them are not eligible, but the other three are. Two of those three have responded as "yes, I'd like to participate," so I'll interview one tomorrow and the other a week from tomorrow. All interviews will take place in SCT, so I need to make sure I have enough fuel in the Jetta tonight. When I'm done writing this post, I'll gather together more tapes, batteries, study information sheets, questionnaires, and interview protocols to get my ass in gear again. After I complete these next two interviews, then I only have about two more left. I still have a few more leads here & there to more participants, so hopefully (fingers crossed while knocking on wood) I'll finish up the data collecting, and trips to SCT, very soon.

Yesterday I spoke with a company that specializes in doing transcriptions of qualitative research interviews. I just may pay them to do some of these transcriptions for me. It'll cost some money, but oh the time that will be saved. We'll see. They're located in SCT, but I hear mail is delivered down there :-) , so perhaps I won't need to travel back and forth too much if I indeed employ their services.

I'm really, REALLY, looking forward to the data analysis of this research. For me, that's the best part about the entire process. It's been frustrating not having much control over when I can conduct the interviews. But once they are completed, then it'll all be about me getting the analysis done on my own. The balance between this work and "work" work will be tough, but the crunch time is temporary. I honestly don't know if I'm more excited about doing the data analysis or the prospect of finishing the dissertation. Perhaps I'm equally excited for both. Seems pretty healthy to me.

Oh yeah, I want to share a funny tidbit. I almost forgot to send an amendment to The Office of The Protection of Human Subjects. Because of our move to Large State Capital, I have to update my address and phone number on the Study Information Sheet and the standardized e-mails I use to recruit participants. Seems silly that I need to complete paperwork, get DC's signature, and send stuff to Human Subjects just to update these sheets that people will hardly read, but I am a rule follower with these things. Study # 07- 11947 will be compliant. Note the mandatory space between the hyphen and the 1. I wouldn't want something as major as a new address and phone number, or a missing space character, to have a negative effect on "the risk:benefit ratio for subjects." I'm not making this up, you know: I truly had to say whether or not the change to my address & phone number would impact this ratio.

Enough. Bottom line, I'm glad to be back to my scholarly journey. Now it's time, once again, to clean the office/prison and to get materials ready for tomorrow's interview.

Senior??

Wife took Chester to the vet today for routine updating of vaccines and the like. We also needed to get refills on his heartworm and anti-flea meds. This is obviously a new vet clinic for us, since we're living in a new town. They did a nice job. Chester is in perfect health and weighs what he should weigh. This was all good news.

It's his age that I found surprising. According to the report we received from the vet, Chester is now a "senior" patient. Excuse me? Senior? Wha'? He's 8. He's not a day over being middle aged!

Senior, my ass.

Settling in

Oh yeah, my blog. I forgot about this thing. Hi. Getting settled in here in terms of a few different areas:

First, the house. We live here now. It's really our place. We actually spent much of the holiday weekend finishing up the unpacking process, at long last. We got the garage to a state where we can fit both cars inside, which is fantastic. We drove the cars inside, which was very exciting, but then the garage door opener decided to malfunction...again. Fuck. Fortunately it turned out to be that one of us (probably me) had knocked the sensor loose (but the sensor lights were ON and functioning, I tell you!), and it was fixed up pretty quickly this morning.

And then we looked closely at the walls: Prior Owners painted the walls BLUE. Blue?? Yes, blue like highlighter blue. And there's also wood paneling up about four feet from the floor. Wha'? Not my choice in a GARAGE, but to each his or her own.

After some discussion, we decided that we needed to spend the time now to get rid of the blue. I'm in the process of painting it white (not the paneling, just the drywall). I know, I know: in an earlier post I said I was hanging up my paint brush for a while. I had painted four bedrooms in a row and had enough. However, Wife and I both knew that if we didn't paint out the blue now, then we'd get our stuff settled into the garage and the painting would never get done. And neither of us really want to live with a blue garage. I mean, it GLOWS! Also, I will need to paint the ceiling, because it, too, is blue. Ugh. It's going OK...I'm just about done trimming in the primer coat. Hopefully it won't spatter too much as I paint the ceiling. I keep saying...it's JUST the garage. Doesn't need to be perfect...just done.

Speaking of just needing to be done...dissertation data collection is moving along OK. I conducted another interview last week. Not sure it's going to be usable data, but we shall see. Just four more to go. I need to recruit the last four people as soon as I can so I can ramp up my data analysis efforts. I think once the interviews are completed and transcribed, then the light in the tunnel will brighten up significantly and it'll kick my ass to get the study completed. Hard to believe I'm moving right along OK after all this time.

The new job is good, and I really like working with my colleagues a great deal. I'm slowly getting back into the full-time working routine. I do think it suits me well...I find the structure of The Work Day to be helpful on many levels.

Moose seems to be enjoying kindergarten. It's not like he's running home and telling me what he learned each day. Perhaps those conversations will happen someday, and I'll look forward to that. Till then, we're just thankful we're able to live where there are decent schools. One thing is for certain: the special education situation here is FAR better than what we had in SCT. So glad we're here now.

Wife's sorting out her career stuff. The likelihood of finding voice students here is much better than in SCT, so we'll hope for the best.

Bedtime. Bye.

First Tooth - GONE!

Moose lost his first tooth! Click on the picture below to see three shots of him being all funny with the camera.

first tooth

Long Live the Witch Doctor

I haven't taken the time to post a lot lately, till today with my third post of the day.

A long while ago I wrote that Moose and I both saw a Craniosacral therapist. I like referring to her as his Witch Doctor, in that it was tough to tell exactly what she did. From just figuring out where to lay her hands, she did some amazing things including helping me recover from a pulled muscle, draining my sinuses (I'm serious), and helping Moose become more focused and alert. Over time she, Norma, became a good friend of the family, regularly working on Moose, less frequently working on me, and even taking numerous voice lessons from Wife. It seemed she and Moose had a deeper connection than we did with her. He knew she was there to help him feel better. Hell, it was her job to make everyone else just feel better, but somehow the two of them were connected, mentally.

It's unfortunate that no one was able to help her feel better. On August 9 she died after a five-year long battle with breast cancer. Wife wrote about her at the beginning of this month. We only just learned of her death last weekend, since she went to a different state to die with her family nearby. Anyway, soon after we met in 2005, she already had Stage 4 cancer (i.e. it was advanced) and had prognosis of about five months to live. She held it at bay WITHOUT chemotherapy for a handful for years and led a good, healthy, active life. The disease became too much for her in a matter of just a few short weeks.

It's hard to believe she's gone. She died less than two months after our move away from SCT, so there are several friends we've not seen since the move. We don't actively "miss" her any more than we miss our other SCT friends since we no longer were going to see her regularly. Still, it's odd knowing she's gone. She's sorely missed. Moose is still saying "night night Norma" at least once per day, so I wonder if he's aware of her passing. I'm not sure, but I bet somehow he knows.

Sometimes I find death depressing, but this time I'm more at peace. It's not that I'm at all happy Norma is gone, but in her case I'm relieved that she's no longer battling cancer. I do think it's just wrong that a fifty-something woman who did nothing but help others her entire life had to be consumed by that disease. Just doesn't seem fair to me.

I know, I know: Life ain't fair. Perhaps death is, though? Hell, I dunno.

Regardless of your own view on life and death, please keep Norma and her family in your thoughts for the next day or two.

Toothy Moose

Be sure to take a look at Wife's post earlier this evening about Moose losing his first tooth!

Fall is here?

Even though I'm not certain where in the world the month of July went, I'm in a particularly good mood today because I'm excited for the autumn. It's odd to say this, I realize, especially since my last post was about spending summers on our screen porch. However, I'm ready for the summer to be over. Summer was a time of transition, upheaval, and HEAT. OK, heat is nice in certainly places and situations, haha, but I'm looking forward to the weather, AND MY LIFE, cooling off just a bit. I'm getting settled into the job best I can for now, and our house is feeling like home.

Also, I'm excited to finally get back into finishing up these interviews for my dissertation. The data I have thus far is very interesting, and I'm looking forward to filling out the sample and moving onward more heavily into the data analysis. I have another interview Thursday back in SCT, so that should be good. I hope it leads to just 3 or 4 more interviews, and then I just may be done. We shall see, though...all part of a larger iterative process of analyzing data and building a theory from the ground up. It'll be good to get my "scholar" hat back on my head. I've had enough of the life transition stuff for a while, (though I certainly don't begrudge the reasons for the move!).

K, bye.

Summer on the Porch

This isn't the greatest picture photographically, but this happens to be a shot of my point of view right now. This picture was taken in July, though (note the patriotic decorations). I'm presently sitting on our screened porch, reading an article on creativity, writing this blog post, while watching Moose playing in the pool (kiddie pool). One of the many things that sold us on this house was this porch. We've already sat out here for numerous meals at various times of day. It's just fantastic, I must say. Well OK, it's hotter then HELL right now, but I'm enjoying the outdoors nevertheless.

(it's good to have the wireless Internet access set up too...glad it extends out here to the porch!)

Wife is inside teaching a voice lesson right now, if you can believe it, which is the reason why us "boys" were banished outside. One of her students from SCT was nearby visiting her grandmother, so she called yesterday to see if she could take a lesson today. I do hope, for Wife's sake, that this is just the first of many, MANY lessons that will be taught in the living room of New Chesterley. We're hoping that the move to Large State Capital will bring about a new, and more prolific, group of students for Wife's at-home studio.

Ah, a breeze just came through. Sigh.

I've had a decent couple of days working on the diss. Status report: I have stopped trying to find participants at this point. The professors aren't even around, let alone any students working on senior projects. This isn't really a surprise to me, though I had hoped to have all interviews completed prior to the move. Oh well. I'll have to extend the interviewing out a month or two into the fall semester.

The good thing is that now I have time to do the edits my committee wanted me to do on the proposal/first half of the diss. I am SO glad that DC had me write the first three chapters as the proposal itself. It's a big relief to have half of the writing completed already. So, I don't mind the editing for now, though I do look forward to having the interviews completed so I don't have to depend on anyone else but myself to get the work done. I still plan to finish sometime this fall.

OK, that's about it. I'll try to publish some more pictures of the house when I can. Bye.

Moose is going to be Houdini

Take a look at this post over at Wife's blog. Great Scott!

Garage Door

We've had a comedy of errors with our garage door, and it finally all came to a head last night. The blow by blow:

When we had the house inspected prior to closing, it was brought to my attention that the garage door opener was connected by two modified extension cords, and it was not very safe. I could picture Moose pulling the cords apart and frying his hands, or worse. So, I knew the thing was going to need a little work before we signed on the line. Looks like it had been installed by the Prior Owner, and he wasn't necessarily an electrician, bless his heart, may he rest in peace. Also, the security eye beams that usually sit near the bottom of the door tracks to keep it from closing on, say, your SON or your DOG, were installed at the ceiling, right next to the opener, pointing at each other about six inches apart, entirely useless!!! Clearly, Prior late Owner, wanted the door to work quickly, so he slapped the eye beams up at the ceiling and didn't bother worrying about the extra wiring it would have taken to make those beams function as they were designed. Ugh. Oy. More electrical work. Fine. I can accept that.

When we closed on the house, we were only given one garage door opener by owner (the widow of the garage motor installer). I should have asked about it at the time, but she and her late husband were the original owners, she's in her 80s, and I figured they only had one car at the time they moved out. OK, OK, one more thing to repair with the garage door. Deep breath, it's just not a major deal.

Very soon after we moved in, we had the door opener hard-wired by a licensed electrician. Not cheap, but they did a fine job, and they also did a lot of other work on the house that came up in the inspection as well. They did not have the ability to get me a new remote for my car, however.

So, I went to Sears to find a replacement remote. It's a Craftsman door opener, and those are sold by Sears, so I expected it would be pretty easy. Low & behold, I found a remote identical to the one we already have for just under $40. Cheaper than an new opener, I thought, so I bought it.

Got it home, and I couldn't get the remote to mate with the opener. One of the "high-tech" things that generates a new security code each time you press the button. OK, OK, guess I need to find another option, I thought. Then I got busy with the new job and unpacking and such. Finally went back to Sears last night and got a different remote. And it worked!

And then the gear on the #$%^ motor died!!! I couldn't believe it. So I can operate the motor from my car, but the motor neither raises or lowers the door. DAMN. I had to release the door by pulling the rope thing, and then I did a sort of ballet dance to get the door to lower before it popped back up to the open position and locked again. I finally got the thing to go down, and BAM it closed with a rather loud crash. Nothing was damaged, fortunately. But geez, that's a heavy, solid wood, 43-year-old garage door! Today the garage door doctor, or whatever the hell they're called, is coming to fix the motor. I just hope we don't need a new one, because the remote I got at Sears will have been all for naught. If I weren't bald already, I'd be pulling out my hair.

It's getting Money Pit out. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, though!

UPDATE: wow, within 30 minutes the thing was fixed! Chain came off the track. Guess we're not getting into Money Pitt-edness after all Whew!

New Cafe in A New town

Finally, it feels like we're settling into Large State Capital (Capitol? No, I think it's Capital, right Jason?) to the point where I'm taking a day to work on the dissertation. Believe it or not, my new employer is giving me time away to get this thing done. Lots of pressure to produce, therefore, since I'm literally being paid to finish up this project. This will be good pressure!

I've found a couple of cafes near New Chesterley that have wireless Internet access, so here I sit replicating my productivity from when I lived in Small College Town. Today I'm going to try contacting a couple of folks I know back in SCT to see if I can recruit the few more participants I need for the study. Then, I'm going to continue what I started earlier today...some edits to the proposal. If I can get just a lot done on my dissertation days (D-Days, as a colleague called it yesterday), and a bit more over the weekends, then I will hopefully finish things up this fall. Imagine that! The minute my new boss told me to take the time I needed this fall, I finally became able actually to imagine finishing. Remarkable.

Mid-afternoon today just about my entire extended family will come to town to celebrate Moose's sixth birthday this weekend. Should be much fun. It required getting a few more boxes unpacked so my two nephews can crash on sleeping bags/Aerobeds in my office/prison. I hope they find it comfy. Perhaps I'll post a few pictures at the end of the weekend.

No More Painting, Please!

Hi Blog,

Last night I finally finished with the initial round of painting I had hoped to do early on in the tenure of our residence at New Chesterley. I painted two bedrooms prior to when we moved in: ours and Moose's. As of last night I finished the other two bedrooms, which wife and I will use as office space and will eventually have places for guests to stay as well. If Moose were fortunate enough to ever have a sibling, then we'd easily turn one of those office/guest rooms into a nursery. I'll probably post some pictures sometime soon.

I have enjoyed the process of painting, and, darn it, I think I'm pretty good at it, too. I didn't need any of that painter's tape or anything. I've done this enough that I was able to keep the brush under control, usually. haha. There was the occasional drip that I needed to clean up (especially last night on the last room...ugh!), but that wasn't so bad. The house has good baseboards varnished an "oak" color, wood floors, and solid wood doors on the rooms and closets which are also varnished to match the baseboards. I'm thankful I only needed to paint one color in each room and not have to also paint the trim separately!

I'm going to hang up my paint brush for a while, even though there's a white entry hall and second floor hall that call out to me each day: "Rob, please paint me something other than white!" A neighbor told us those hallways used to have green fuzzy wallpaper as recent as last winter!!! I guess white is a good alternative, but sometime in the next couple of years we'll probably change that. Sort of fun.

But sort of exhausting to think about now, so I'm not gonna. K, bye.

Approaching Normalcy

Well, I really do laugh in the general direction of normalcy. After all, "My kid's autistic...what's you're excuse?" (that quote from a really funny series of t-shirts my sister-in-law found).

But what I mean is this: I'm now officially one week into working full-time, and I actually didn't fall asleep at my desk even once! haha (after not having an 8-5 job for five years, I was a bit worried about making it through the day in one building. Well wait a sec. I suppose I did that most Saturdays for the past year as I wrung the first half of the dissertation out of me like trying to obtain water from a dry sponge, but for some reason a full-time post feels different). Things are coming together quite well. I spent these past few years as one of about 25 researchers, all with slightly different views of conducting research and sharing the results. All part of the academic process, I suppose, and the argumentation was "fun" in an odd sort of way. Now I've entered a division of practitioners whom I respect a great deal, but researchers they are not. Suddenly, that's "my" job to assess things and help them improve. I went from being one of many to being one of, like, TWO. Fortunately the other researcher type appears like he'll be a good colleague. He gave me a good reality check the other day. I suppose it will be a good change to be one of just a few instead of one of many. Suffice it to say the transition is going just fine. Almost feels like "normal."

The other part of finding normalcy is that I've finally started back in on the dissertation after about a month away for the move and finishing up the GAship. I communicated via e-mail with My Committee about where things stood prior to the move. DC provided some more advice on how to recruit more participants. Oh yeah: funny thing happened. I was hoping to interview between 8 and 12 participants. I was able to find 9 pretty easily. All but one showed up for the interviews, which was pleasantly surprising. After the initial rush of interviews I looked more closely at the demographic breakdown of my participants. Hello...SEVEN of the eight are men?? And I didn't notice this before because...? Ugh. If this were a study of men, I'd be set. But if I don't find more women participants, then I'll be chucked in the student development gender oppression trash can with the rest of the higher education theorists from the 60s and 70s. Not a good way to start off as a researcher, eh? So, my goal is to recruit about four or five more women who qualify for the study and are willing to talk to me about college for about an hour. Not an impossible task, right? How the hell did this happen when there are far more women in higher education than men? Oh well, I could have worse problems than this. And I feel better now that My Committee is aware of the situation and hasn't fallen over in complete disbelief.

Related note: Pink successfully defended her dissertation last week! Congrats to her! Very inspirational to the rest of us.

Normal has not been achieved on all counts just yet. Moving to a new town is challenging for Wife and Moose...they have no built-in way of meeting people the way I do at work. Not easy. Today Wife is attending a nearby church to check it out for us. We can't all go, since Moose needs to be either in the nursery or with the other kids his age accompanied by an aid. We are the natural aids for him in this situation, but then one or the other of us cannot attend the service. Normally church nurseries are for kids up to age 4, and he's almost 6, so we can't just walk into any church cold without having made prior plans. Again, "my kid's autistic, what's you're excuse?" Normal is different for us. I am not complaining or asking for sympathy. Rather, I'm just stating the facts. Wife will go to church today solo and will let me know how things go. Seems like a pretty interesting and progressive place, according to their Web site, so we shall see. If she likes it, then we'll phone the minister next week and see if we can make arrangements for Moose to hang in the nursery with the toddlers. We're hoping to find some family normalcy pretty soon, but we know it takes a while.

Settling in slowly but surely

Hi Blog,

I'm now in day two of the new job, and it's going just fine. I won't discuss the details here, but suffice it to say I'll be working with friendly talented people, and my work will be cut out for me. The first day was a bit slow, with meeting a few people and mostly having my head buried in my predecessor's files. Today should pick up with my first meeting with my new boss and hopefully getting a better feel for what projects I'll be working on. Nice preposition at the end of that sentence. You can tell I've been away from my writing for a few weeks.

The new house is fantastic, and we're getting used to things pretty quickly. We've been living on our screened-in porch overlooking the back yard. The weather has been nice, but even when it's not we're still out there. Ah. Something I've always wanted...a porch! We also just got a trampoline for Moose, and yesterday he spent much of the afternoon bouncing and laughing. He just loves it. It's good to see him so happy. Of the three of us, I think he's adjusted the most quickly to the new house. He has slept through the night from the first day in the new house. Wife and I are still getting used to Chester's toenails clicking on the wood floors ... it can be difficult to sleep!

Oh yeah, the move was just fine. No real complaints...just one minor bump in the road where the local moving company had to go back to the old place the following day to get the stuff that didn't fit in the truck initially. Oh well. We lived.

Dissertation. Yeah, I should get on that. Just lemme finish unpacking boxes. I was lucky to have found my box of shoes yesterday morning when scrambling around my house getting ready to leave at 7:15 AM for the first time in about five years.

Paint in the Fingernails

I have been painting lately, so much, in fact, that I'm seriously considering borrowing some of Wife's nail polish remover to remove the stuff from my hands. We closed on New Chesterley last Monday, and I've been trying to get a couple of rooms ready prior to when we move in. It's been slow and rather tedious work, but it's worth it now since it's DONE. And movers will be here in about 8 hours. Obviously I've not packed my computer or wireless router, etc. However, other than the electronics and the crap that always manages to appear without a logical home box during a move, we're pretty much ready to go. Also, we still have Chesterley for a few more days, so having the backup time is comforting. Man I'm tired. Today was indeed the longest day of the year. Time for bed. I think this is one of the first moves where I didn't feel a need to stay up all night packing things up. We are VERY thankful for the five gazillion friends who were here last Saturday and earlier this evening to help us pack. I honestly don't know what we would have done without these good friends. We will miss you all!

Dragons in the Garage

Wife and I spent the greater part of yesterday afternoon slaying dragons in our garage. Let me 'splain. Our current house has no unfinished basement or attic areas. This gives us very workable interior spaces, but absolutely no proper storage. The silly thing is, the garage has a pitched roof, but it was never "finished." I mean, it's "complete," but the interior has no walls, insulation, or ceiling. Only exposed beams and rafters. There SO could have been a sweet attic up there, but that never happened for a reason completely unknown to us. Fortunately there are plywood boards on the "ceiling," so we have had boxes and packing material stored up there these five years. It's hotter than hell in there, though.

Our respite-care worker came over yesterday and took Moose on an excursion to the local children's museum, which he LOVES. This gave us three solid hours to battle the garage. I think we won yesterday's initial battle, and I don't know what we would have done without the help. All of the boxes, etc. are now down and off the rafters. We saved many more boxes than we remembered, and this will be helpful. Wife did a great job of organizing where the packed boxes should go, where the "box with a specific purpose" should be kept (e.g. the computer boxes), and finally where the random empty boxes are. I need a lot of direction in this kind of thing...my mind wanders too much when packing. Must focus and kill dragons!

I am coming across things I haven't seen in about five years. This is bad. These indeed are my dragons. That's the stuff I hate dealing with: stuff from my past that I think I want to keep, but it seems strange to do so when I literally haven't opened the box during the time we lived here (many of these boxes came to me just after we moved in... "Rob, now that you have a house, get this stuff out of my basement!"). Although, I think I'm painting a worse picture than it is. When push comes to shove, there are only about 6-8 boxes out there that I need to deal with. They are sorta big, but I guess that's not so bad. It'll be far easier than writing a dissertation proposal, that's for sure.

The other thing we desperately need to do is organize things like tools, etc. These home-improvement materials are stored in two rather cluttered sections of the garage. This is another dragon I must slay (sleigh? slae? sleh?). I'm thankful for the built-in workbench and storage that we'll have in the new garage. I am also looking forward to having time to actually DO home-improvement projects more frequently. Perhaps just the act of doing those regularly will keep the place organized? Nah.

Anyhow, yesterday ended up being very successful, and I think we're winning the battles against the dragons in the garage.

Oh yeah, I have dissertation data to collect. Gosh...almost forgot about that. Oh, so THAT's the heavy weight on my back right now...oh YEEAAAH.