On Time...

It's October! My student informed me of this today when he e-mailed me a picture titled "Octobear." It was a drawing of an octopus with a bear head, and it will be the perfect example of how to analyze morphemes next week in class. We'll see how many students still think that 'catsup' has something to do with 'cats' after seeing that picture...

Anyways, it's October! How did September (and August, July and June) fly by so quickly? I re-read my dissertation proposal last night and laughed at my timeline. At the end of my proposal I wrote that I would write chapters 4, 5 and 6 in June, July, and August. Ha! Before September ended I made myself start a new introduction (chapter 1). I made it to three pages. *insert sarcastic cheer here* In May I thought I would have completed 2/3 of my dissertation by now and I have written a mere 3 pages. And more than likely, nothing I wrote will even make it in to the final copy. It's probably a good thing I didn't know back in May that I'd only have 3 pages written come October. Even if I had known it then, I wouldn't have believed it. So what have I been doing if it wasn't writing chapters 4, 5 and 6?

A LOT! If you want to know the details, keep reading. If you want to skip to the next paragraph, do so. I learned two new computer programs to store my database. I then had to separate the information in each cell of my Excell spreadsheet so that it would be computer (and committee and general user) friendly. That consisted of pressing Cntrl = ENTER about 10,000 times, along with cut, copy and paste. Then I read all about metaphor, metonymy, semantic and pragmatic theory and read about computer language stuff so that I would be able to use my database. After that, I read 10 etymological dictionaries and took notes on every entry remotely related to my dissertation topic. About 300 note cards later, I re-read the theoretical stuff on metaphor, metonymy, semantics and pragmatics (and that time I took very, very good notes, which I apparently didn't do the first time around, I just wrote comments to myself all over the library books). After grasping all the theoretical stuff and being able to explain it in 5 sentences or so, I organized those 300 note cards and made tables matching what Linguist A and Linguist B (and C, D, E, etc.) had to say about the history of the Lithuanian word for 'fishing hook' and the like. Then I looked for patterns, highlighting like a mad woman, and writing myself more notes (but this time not in library books). Since then, I have identified many patterns in the historical development of the Indo-European languages' words for body parts and grouped them into 5 categories explained by metonymy. I also somehow managed to turn the hideous spreadsheets from my dissertation proposal into a massive, searchable database that will knock the socks off of my committee.

Until yesterday, I felt lousy about my progress. Since last night when I could finally start searching my database, I have felt incredibly awesome. My database works and it is fantastic. I am pleased. My committee will be pleased. I have a working hypothesis. I have testable data. I have an excellent theoretical background. Everything that sucked about my dissertation proposal has been fixed and what I have now is better than anything I ever thought I could come up with. I suddenly love my committee and hope they all get a raise.

Tomorrow morning I meet with Indi. Let's hope my enthusiasm and self-assurance lasts for at least the first30 minutes of our 90 minute meeting.