On Databases

Okay, so I totally failed at blog compositions this month. This failure generally corresponds to my feelings regarding progress on Geraldine this month as well. Until tonight, I felt like I had made no progress on my dissertation since driving 10 long hot hours back from Kansas without air conditioning. Rather then lament about my lack of achievement, I'll write about what I've really been up to for the last 3 weeks. As a side note, don't worry, there will be a post for Kansas Part 2. I just haven't written it yet.

Before I left for Kansas, I had wild fantasies of learning about databases and potential database programs. I thought that within two weeks, I would have uploaded my database into a new program, clicked a few buttons and viola! had a fancy schmancy database with which I could generate ooooooohs and aaaaaaaaaaahs from my dissertation committee. Much to my dismay, I discovered that I committed the number one mortal sin of database design: Thou shallt not enter more than one piece of information in a database field. This error in database design meant that I did not have a working new relational database before I left Kansas. *sigh*

Now that you have each read my public confession, know that I have spent the last three weeks serving database penance. Dividing my data into more cells has taken about 100 hours full of the computer commands: CNTRL = r, CNTRL+X, CNTRL+C and CNTRL+V. With the most menial tasks aside, I had to assign everything a numeric language code as well as a semantic code so that the new database program would recognize it. I finally finished this penance today and uploaded my data into one of the two new programs. To my surprise, this was lightening fast! Now all of my data is stored in a new program and the old program. AND it's backed up on an external hard drive. There was only a slight problem. The data doesn't show up in the second new program. I must have missed a step. Oh well, I'll figure it out another day.

Despite feeling like I have accomplished nothing during the last three weeks, the two committee members I've met with are pleased with my progress. They were happy to hear that I went to Kansas to fix my eye-sore of a database and are even more pleased that I will have a working program before I defend in the spring. My new fantasy is to have a working database in the new programs from which I can run queries and impressive reports so that it looks like I've actually done something before the semester starts in a month and a half. I hope this is a more practical fantasy. If not, I guess that's why I'm calling it a fantasy.

As I mentioned above, I had two meetings with members of my dissertation committee. The first meeting was a week ago with Indiana. He started the meeting by opening his office door for me and greeting me with my name. This is a common way for him to start meetings. Sometimes I wonder if he just doesn't know what to say, others I wonder if he's trying to remember who I am. How could he forget me? He said I'm the golden child of the department! Well, he called me Kelly not Kelsie but at least he made up for it by being complementary of my work during the rest of the meeting...

*Side Note: I'm not sure why people never get my name right, but the number of times that people have referred to me as Chelsea or Kelly when they meet me outnumbers those who get it right with Kelsie. On top of that, most people don`t pronounce my last name correctly when they meet me, and no one can spell either of them. I never correct people, I just wait for them to figure it out on their own. I think being in classes with 4 Kelseys and a Chelsea for three years of middle school made me impartial to correcting people.

...(now that the tangent is out of the way) Indi pulled out notes from my prospectus defense. It was much easier to listen to the information with a month and a half since the proposal defense. None of the comments were surprising this time and I had questions other than a blank stare. In short, Indi still thinks my work is good, he sees no problems with my timeline and he expects me to kick some serious ass with this Geraldine.

Since last week's meeting with Indi, I'm happy to announce that I have 5 HUGE Indo-European historical reference books. They make excellent weights for tricep workouts between linguistic geek-out sessions at the dining room table and on the living room floor.

On Monday, I met with Professor Jolly Green Giant. He was also complementary of my database work and cleared up a lot of issues I've had regarding definitions with the material he assigned me to read for the summer. Now I have a much better idea about the direction in which my dissertation is heading. *Phew!* Further, Prof. Jolly told me that the "incubation period" I've been in since my prospectus defense is completely normal and that I am managing my time well.

Now that this database drab is out of the way, maybe I'll finally get around to figuring out what it is exactly that I want to say with Geraldine. I plan to start writing by Mid-August. Here's to hoping that the next month is more interesting that July.