It has been a week and a half since my prospectus defense. The first few days following my defense left me feeling down in the dumps. There is so much work to do and I don't know where to start.
Professor "Jolly Green Giant" (he's almost 7 feet tall) is supposed to help me with the theoretical direction of Geraldine, but he is in Russia for the next month while his wife researches in the national archives. I started reading again last week. I think I am headed in the right direction, but it is still too early to tell. Once I have a few solid ideas, I will send them to Prof. "Green" for comments. I'm also supposed to be working on Indo-European etymologies (history of words from languages like English), but haven't made it that far yet either. It feels silly to look up terms when I don't know what I'm trying to show yet.
Indi told me that I need to find a new program for my database. My committee suggested a program, but it won't work for storing interrelated data from 160 languages. I spent about a week looking at other computer programs. Knowing next to nothing about computers, programs and the like, I felt overwhelmed and ate a lot of whipped cream instead of downloading programs.
Winning the library fellowship certainly helped my mood and I have now spent 1/5th of the funds for computer training at a linguistics institute to be held in Kansas at the end of the month. I went to the same institute two years ago in Oregon and had a good time. This time should be more fun because I know people that will be at the institute, I know exactly what I need from the workshops, and someone else is paying for it. I'll be in Kansas for two exciting weeks of linguistics, linguists, and people who speak cool languages the rest of the world has never heard of. I hope to leave with my database completely converted into a new program that will look more appealing than the Excell version I have now. After all, I need to impress my committee and the library people that gave me the money. This change in events has led me to switch from canned whipped cream to Klondike Bars. Sadly, I told myself that I am only allowed one Klondike Bar a week and now I have to wait until Monday to eat another one. :(
The aftermath of winning the library funding has been interesting. I suddenly feel famous. Librarians have been e-mailing me non-stop about taking my picture, writing an article about my research, scheduling the mandatory presentation of my dissertation and setting up the award. There has been no talk about when or how I will receive the funding, if I have to submit receipts for how I spend the funding, when I will get my study carrel in the library, or any of the non-financial research support that I was promised when I applied for the award. So basically, there are a lot of librarians fussing about the PR-side of the award but not the research aid-side. Oh well.
I haven't accomplished anything else in the last two weeks. Yesterday I went hiking and swimming in a state forest. I plan to read outside in my new hammock (as soon as I figure out how to hang it) until I have to go downtown to revoke a parking ticket that, for once, I am NOT guilty of. Hubby just started an 8-week long intensive Latin course and I am hoping that his schedule will also motivate me to have one as well. We'll see how that goes...
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