Last blog for the month and for the first time since the spring, I am ahead of schedule! The last time I met with Indi, he made the comment that I might not graduate until summer. Our meeting covered many topics and the comment regarding summer graduation was a minor side conversation in the day's topics. Nevertheless, the idea of graduating in summer is so overwhelmingly unexciting that I am trying my best to do everything within my powers to avoid it. Most of my reasons for disliking the idea of a summer graduation are purely social, but there are negative implications for my academic future as well. Besides wanting to walk with friends with whom I've shared the ups and downs of coursework and dissertating at graduation, a summer defense is harder to coordinate and would delay my recovery. Instead of enjoying a summer holiday in the mountains and on the beach, I'd be stuck in my office beating my head against my desk for unnecessary additional weeks or months.
I would much rather defend in late April, make revisions and submit Geraldine to the graduate school so that I can walk in May, have a party, and relax for a few weeks before transforming Geraldine from a dissertation into articles I can submit for publication in some fancy-pants journal. Plus, it's way cheaper to fly to an exotic location in May than August. :) Besides, defending in summer means that no one else would be around to say congratulations, Dr. Kelsie when Indi finally walks out of the defense room to welcome me back in. That's the moment I'm looking forward to the most, and it's what I find myself fantasizing about when I'm not planning a trip to fantasy island that I'll never be able to afford. I imagine waiting for the outcome of my defense surrounded by friends who are glad they aren't the ones waiting for the decision of pass or fail. A summer defense means the option to walk in the winter graduation ceremony. By that point, I don't think I would care anymore.
So, in order to do whatever I can to avoid a summer defense, I've been writing, writing, writing. 20 pages plus references later, it is with great pleasure that I announce the completion of a full draft of a second chapter: the theoretical background. Oooooh, aaaaaaaaaaaah. Indi wanted complete drafts of the theoretical background and the methods chapters by the end of January. I am two months ahead of schedule. This leaves more time for revisions and a better final product. Time to relax and enjoy the weekend (and a glass of Glühwein). Happy Friday!
Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
On dinosaurs, explanations and intelligibility
There is a Monty Python sketch about theories that I frequently think of when writing academic works. The sketch is a comedic interview with an academic, who has a theory. It takes the academic forever to finally explain what her theory is, as she is very protective of her theory and wants everyone to know that it is hers, she thought of it, and it is good. When she finally reveals her theory, it concerns dinosaurs: they are small at both ends and big in the middle. The sketch is dumb, but it is a good example of poorly communicated research, theories, and the like.
Although Geraldine has nothing to do with dinosaurs, I often have to stop myself and think about my writing. Is it clear? Do my ideas make sense? Are there enough examples? Did I explain why I wrote what I did? Did I choose the right words or is my writing ambiguis? Are my decisions transparent? Can anyone read what I wrote and understand it or do they need to be a linguist? Does it relate to my hypothesis? How does what I'm writing fit into the bigger picture of linguistics, cognition, and the human experience? Most of the time, I find at least one equivalence of "Dinosaurs: small, large, small" in my writing. Thankfully, I usually find these before anyone else sees my writing and am able to improve it quickly. So often I worry about how to start writing something, which word to use, or how many pages can I pound out before my day is over? All of these thoughts are distractions from what I should concern myself with while writing. Page length isn't important, clarity and quality are. Don't worry about sounding too formal or too informal, you can change it later. Write whatever you think of at first and eventually it will turn into something you can use and be proud of. I know all this, but it is nevertheless a circular process each day: Where do I start? What do I need to fix? How much can I write before ______? Does this make any sense? What is this article/chapter/paper about, anyways? Does this flow right as a whole? How should I reorganize everything? Write an introduction. Write a conclusion. Pat yourself on the back and start all over again.
Today I made it to 'What is this chapter about, anyways?' I spent time outlining Geraldine chapter by chapter and came back to a catch phrase of a former German professor of mine: Was ist dein Zweck?! What's your point? We asked authors this question frequently and she told us to ask ourselves this question throughout our writing. Dumbeldore advised us to make at least one point in our papers and build our papers around the point. In attempt to end my day on a productive note, I spelled out the point of each chapter of Geraldine and then sat back and admired my page of notes. Then I outlined the current chapter I'm working on by asking questions about what I need to make clear to my audience, my point, how it fits in to my hypothesis and the bigger picture, what I need to define and so on. Before I knew it, I had another page of notes which I also sat back and admired. I didn't write anything else this afternoon that contributed to my daily page count goals, but I left myself a guide to finish a complete draft of my second chapter first thing when I arrive in my office tomorrow. (And for the record, I wrote another 2 pages before leaving for lunch and spent a good 4 hours on task today)
Writing about writing about writing. Sounds circular, but it helps create a better product (and I still got to include dinosaurs!).
Although Geraldine has nothing to do with dinosaurs, I often have to stop myself and think about my writing. Is it clear? Do my ideas make sense? Are there enough examples? Did I explain why I wrote what I did? Did I choose the right words or is my writing ambiguis? Are my decisions transparent? Can anyone read what I wrote and understand it or do they need to be a linguist? Does it relate to my hypothesis? How does what I'm writing fit into the bigger picture of linguistics, cognition, and the human experience? Most of the time, I find at least one equivalence of "Dinosaurs: small, large, small" in my writing. Thankfully, I usually find these before anyone else sees my writing and am able to improve it quickly. So often I worry about how to start writing something, which word to use, or how many pages can I pound out before my day is over? All of these thoughts are distractions from what I should concern myself with while writing. Page length isn't important, clarity and quality are. Don't worry about sounding too formal or too informal, you can change it later. Write whatever you think of at first and eventually it will turn into something you can use and be proud of. I know all this, but it is nevertheless a circular process each day: Where do I start? What do I need to fix? How much can I write before ______? Does this make any sense? What is this article/chapter/paper about, anyways? Does this flow right as a whole? How should I reorganize everything? Write an introduction. Write a conclusion. Pat yourself on the back and start all over again.
Today I made it to 'What is this chapter about, anyways?' I spent time outlining Geraldine chapter by chapter and came back to a catch phrase of a former German professor of mine: Was ist dein Zweck?! What's your point? We asked authors this question frequently and she told us to ask ourselves this question throughout our writing. Dumbeldore advised us to make at least one point in our papers and build our papers around the point. In attempt to end my day on a productive note, I spelled out the point of each chapter of Geraldine and then sat back and admired my page of notes. Then I outlined the current chapter I'm working on by asking questions about what I need to make clear to my audience, my point, how it fits in to my hypothesis and the bigger picture, what I need to define and so on. Before I knew it, I had another page of notes which I also sat back and admired. I didn't write anything else this afternoon that contributed to my daily page count goals, but I left myself a guide to finish a complete draft of my second chapter first thing when I arrive in my office tomorrow. (And for the record, I wrote another 2 pages before leaving for lunch and spent a good 4 hours on task today)
Writing about writing about writing. Sounds circular, but it helps create a better product (and I still got to include dinosaurs!).
Sunday, November 25, 2012
On Moments of Dissertation Enlightenment
I think I should feel guilty this month, but I don't. It's the end of another month and usually I would panic at this point, but I'm not. Maybe it's the weekly acupuncture treatment, the extra herbal tea I drink now that it's cold outside, the daily workout, or the wonder-supplement flax seed oil I take with each meal. Or maybe I just have a grip on my dissertation for once. It's probably the having-a-grip bit, but I think the other proposals above contribute to my general sense of balance and well-being. The end of November hasn't sent me into moments of heightend anxiety and it's a great feeling.
In my last post, I wrote about taking time off. With a holiday weekend, I took advantage of time to myself for relaxation and hobbies. I spent hours spinning yarn (I have bags of sheep, alpaca and camel fiber in my attic) and have enjoyed relearning how to spin. It gives me a sensation of connection to hunter-gatherers and agricultural societies who have spun animal and plant fiber in this manner for centuries. I also spent some time knitting, cleaning, baking and canning (pickles and jam). I baked cookies for the first time in at least 6 months on Wednesday and have even been able to avoid eating them. I also played with bunnies, spent lots of time with Hubby and talked to friends. And last, but certainly not least, I worked on Geraldine (but more about that later). Perhaps the biggest change is I stayed home for 5 days in a row. I haven't done that in at least 6 months either. A few days ago I felt anxious about having to return to the office, but tonight it's no big deal. That sense of balance and well-being is key.
There are three more weeks of instruction until finals week for fall semester. When I realized this last week, I wondered how I would manage to finish everything. Yestserday I decided to take a friendly professor's advice and to challenge myself to work on Geraldine for 45 minutes every day. When I started dissertating, I worked on Geraldine for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. Now that I teach face-to-face again, I haven't come close to that amount of time on task working on Geraldine. Mondays and Wednesdays are teaching days, and I don't have time for Geraldine. I always take Sundays off, and Fridays tend to fill up with other tasks- reading groups, meetings, etc. If I push myself to work for 45 mintutes every day, I think I'll get a lot done, and feel a sense of accomplishment. It's working for me this weekend, and I think it will work for me until I go into ulitmate panic mode in mid-March.
The way I see it, there are 5 stages to being a dissertator. Stage 1 is preparing for the proposal. In this stage, it took 4 hours each day to collect materials, read and sort through it, and collect data from 160 languages. Stage 1 lasted 5 months. In general, I felt good about myself and confident about my progress. Stage 2 was recovering from my proposal defense. My committee asked me to change my theoretical framework and collect more data. Both came as a surprise, and I felt lousy about myself and my progress. Professor Jolly Green Giant told me that Stage 2 was the incubator phase of writing a dissertation, and it was normal to feel lost and confused after a proposal defense. I think Stage 2 lasted 4 months and it was the time to clean up all of my mistakes. I still managed to work every day, but I never felt like I was making progress. Eventually, I understood enough of the new theoretical framework to start talking about it, and I finished collecting data. Onto Stage 3! Stage 3 was organizing data and pre-writing chapters. Luckily, that only lasted 2 months and it was relatively easy. And now, I am in State 4: writing my chapters! I anticipate this lasting until mid-March, when (I think) Stage 5 will come: super-ultra-stay-up-late-every-night-and-have-no-time-to-do-anything-else-panic-mode (AKA proving to your committee chair that you`re ready to defend).
I thought that writing the chapters would be the hard part, but so far it`s not that bad. I write in blocks, then work on something else for a few days. I need time between writing and reading my work. If I have to write for more than 1 day in a row, I have to discipline myself not to read what I wrote before. If I start reading, I start editing, and then I don`t really accomplish anything. Therefore, I have to leave myself to-do lists for the next work day and outlines on what to work on next. So far, it`s working for me. I used to be scared about submitting chapters because that`s when others would start to critique my work. I also felt like that`s when Geraldine would stop being mine, but then I realized that was a stupid thought.
Today I took a day off from writing and worked on my database, which led to huge moments of dissertation enlightenment. The biggest realization is that the problems I thought I had to fix in my database aren`t problems at all. I just thought about the data the wrong way. For example, the computer already does things for me, so instead of trying to stop it from doing so, I just have to stop myself from doing the same work. (analogy: if you put a penny into a gumball machine and twist the lever, the gumball comes out. You don`t have to reach through the hole and try to extract a gumball by your own secret awesomeness). Also, I don`t need a graduate school margin friendly version of every report from my database queries. I`m the only one who actually needs to see my queries, because it would be stupid to have a chart appear in a chapter for every time the word for `hand`is the same for 'arm'. I just need a chart that lists 'hand is same as arm' and the number of times it occurs, and I can do that in Word, just like I have for every paper I've written in graduate school. Duh. There were many smaller moments of enlightenment today as well, so I decided to write them down in a log before I forgot about them. Ahhh, feelings of pure genius. I will relish in the moment because I know they will be replaces with feelings of failure in a day or two. :0)
As for the best feeling of enlightenment from today's epiphanies? All I have to do now is write. Finally!
In my last post, I wrote about taking time off. With a holiday weekend, I took advantage of time to myself for relaxation and hobbies. I spent hours spinning yarn (I have bags of sheep, alpaca and camel fiber in my attic) and have enjoyed relearning how to spin. It gives me a sensation of connection to hunter-gatherers and agricultural societies who have spun animal and plant fiber in this manner for centuries. I also spent some time knitting, cleaning, baking and canning (pickles and jam). I baked cookies for the first time in at least 6 months on Wednesday and have even been able to avoid eating them. I also played with bunnies, spent lots of time with Hubby and talked to friends. And last, but certainly not least, I worked on Geraldine (but more about that later). Perhaps the biggest change is I stayed home for 5 days in a row. I haven't done that in at least 6 months either. A few days ago I felt anxious about having to return to the office, but tonight it's no big deal. That sense of balance and well-being is key.
There are three more weeks of instruction until finals week for fall semester. When I realized this last week, I wondered how I would manage to finish everything. Yestserday I decided to take a friendly professor's advice and to challenge myself to work on Geraldine for 45 minutes every day. When I started dissertating, I worked on Geraldine for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. Now that I teach face-to-face again, I haven't come close to that amount of time on task working on Geraldine. Mondays and Wednesdays are teaching days, and I don't have time for Geraldine. I always take Sundays off, and Fridays tend to fill up with other tasks- reading groups, meetings, etc. If I push myself to work for 45 mintutes every day, I think I'll get a lot done, and feel a sense of accomplishment. It's working for me this weekend, and I think it will work for me until I go into ulitmate panic mode in mid-March.
The way I see it, there are 5 stages to being a dissertator. Stage 1 is preparing for the proposal. In this stage, it took 4 hours each day to collect materials, read and sort through it, and collect data from 160 languages. Stage 1 lasted 5 months. In general, I felt good about myself and confident about my progress. Stage 2 was recovering from my proposal defense. My committee asked me to change my theoretical framework and collect more data. Both came as a surprise, and I felt lousy about myself and my progress. Professor Jolly Green Giant told me that Stage 2 was the incubator phase of writing a dissertation, and it was normal to feel lost and confused after a proposal defense. I think Stage 2 lasted 4 months and it was the time to clean up all of my mistakes. I still managed to work every day, but I never felt like I was making progress. Eventually, I understood enough of the new theoretical framework to start talking about it, and I finished collecting data. Onto Stage 3! Stage 3 was organizing data and pre-writing chapters. Luckily, that only lasted 2 months and it was relatively easy. And now, I am in State 4: writing my chapters! I anticipate this lasting until mid-March, when (I think) Stage 5 will come: super-ultra-stay-up-late-every-night-and-have-no-time-to-do-anything-else-panic-mode (AKA proving to your committee chair that you`re ready to defend).
I thought that writing the chapters would be the hard part, but so far it`s not that bad. I write in blocks, then work on something else for a few days. I need time between writing and reading my work. If I have to write for more than 1 day in a row, I have to discipline myself not to read what I wrote before. If I start reading, I start editing, and then I don`t really accomplish anything. Therefore, I have to leave myself to-do lists for the next work day and outlines on what to work on next. So far, it`s working for me. I used to be scared about submitting chapters because that`s when others would start to critique my work. I also felt like that`s when Geraldine would stop being mine, but then I realized that was a stupid thought.
Today I took a day off from writing and worked on my database, which led to huge moments of dissertation enlightenment. The biggest realization is that the problems I thought I had to fix in my database aren`t problems at all. I just thought about the data the wrong way. For example, the computer already does things for me, so instead of trying to stop it from doing so, I just have to stop myself from doing the same work. (analogy: if you put a penny into a gumball machine and twist the lever, the gumball comes out. You don`t have to reach through the hole and try to extract a gumball by your own secret awesomeness). Also, I don`t need a graduate school margin friendly version of every report from my database queries. I`m the only one who actually needs to see my queries, because it would be stupid to have a chart appear in a chapter for every time the word for `hand`is the same for 'arm'. I just need a chart that lists 'hand is same as arm' and the number of times it occurs, and I can do that in Word, just like I have for every paper I've written in graduate school. Duh. There were many smaller moments of enlightenment today as well, so I decided to write them down in a log before I forgot about them. Ahhh, feelings of pure genius. I will relish in the moment because I know they will be replaces with feelings of failure in a day or two. :0)
As for the best feeling of enlightenment from today's epiphanies? All I have to do now is write. Finally!
Friday, November 23, 2012
On saying thank you
I look forward to Thanksgiving all semester each fall term. It has always been a much needed time to write term papers, catch up on reading, take a break from teaching and even fit in a day to relax. This year's holiday hasn't been as productive as years past. Last week, I had food poisoning and spent a lot of time in bed. Returning to work was difficult and I lacked motivation all week. Usually I watch movies, drink tea and knit when I'm sick, but this time, I couldn't even sit up. It seems that my subconscience is telling me that I missed out on a few days of relaxation and it would be better to sit around knitting and baking than dissertating. That's great for my subconscience, but not for my dissertation progress. Especially since the last time I met with Indy, he said we need to start thinking about a summer graduation instead of a spring one. Well, I thought about it, and I don't like the idea, so work, work, work I must. But how do I ignore the ingredients in my pantry that I bought in the pre-Thanksgiving grocery sales?!?! And how do I ignore the cute, fluffy bunnies running around my house? (We're bunny-sitting for the weekend). The short answer is, I don't. But that doesn't mean I can't make progress either.
With all the talk of being grateful and giving thanks, I decided to write my acknowledgements section today. It seemed early, since I still don't have a 5th member on my committee and I'm sure that more people will help me as I continue to work on Geraldine, but I'm glad I worked on it today. It's tough to write a thank you that's big enough to express how I really feel and doesn't give away too much personal information. After all, I do hope that a lot of people will read Geraldine, not just my committee members. It took about an hour, but I mangaged to write an acknowledgements section under two pages, and I think I thanked everyone I needed to. If not, I have a list in my office with names and reasons that I started over the summer, knowing that I would forget someone. Boy am I glad I got that out of the way now instead of waiting until April or May.
I re-read my methods chapter and am still pleased with what I wrote two weeks ago. I added to it and started thinking about whether or not I will need to run statistical analyses of my data. Good thing there's someone on my committee that works with stats. Indy said that I should be done with my methods and theoretical background sections by the start of spring semester (end of January). I aim to be done with both by the end of fall semester (in three weeks). I opened my rough draft of the theoretical background chapter on Wednesday, but I haven't read it yet.... :0( Good thing there are still 2 more days to go before Monday. I also spent time working on my database this week. So far, the appendices for Geraldine are 139 pages. That might be longer than the content of all the chapters.
Now that I think about it, I did a lot this week. Time to stop feeling guilty and start playing with bunnies.
With all the talk of being grateful and giving thanks, I decided to write my acknowledgements section today. It seemed early, since I still don't have a 5th member on my committee and I'm sure that more people will help me as I continue to work on Geraldine, but I'm glad I worked on it today. It's tough to write a thank you that's big enough to express how I really feel and doesn't give away too much personal information. After all, I do hope that a lot of people will read Geraldine, not just my committee members. It took about an hour, but I mangaged to write an acknowledgements section under two pages, and I think I thanked everyone I needed to. If not, I have a list in my office with names and reasons that I started over the summer, knowing that I would forget someone. Boy am I glad I got that out of the way now instead of waiting until April or May.
I re-read my methods chapter and am still pleased with what I wrote two weeks ago. I added to it and started thinking about whether or not I will need to run statistical analyses of my data. Good thing there's someone on my committee that works with stats. Indy said that I should be done with my methods and theoretical background sections by the start of spring semester (end of January). I aim to be done with both by the end of fall semester (in three weeks). I opened my rough draft of the theoretical background chapter on Wednesday, but I haven't read it yet.... :0( Good thing there are still 2 more days to go before Monday. I also spent time working on my database this week. So far, the appendices for Geraldine are 139 pages. That might be longer than the content of all the chapters.
Now that I think about it, I did a lot this week. Time to stop feeling guilty and start playing with bunnies.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
5 months, 20 days and counting
I realized today that my defense is less than 6 months away. That means that I have been a dissertator for 10 months and I'm almost 2/3rds of the way through this process of becoming Dr. Kelsie. I even think I could celebrate that idea right now, as I feel confident with my progress, my committee and Geraldine. I think Indy was right, after the data collection, checking and re-checking nightmare ends, writing the damn thing isn't that bad.
I just finished my first complete draft of a chapter and I am very satisfied with it. ( Oh, thank you, but you don't have to applaud). There were many times that I thought this moment would never come, but it has, and it feels great. I've been working on my methods chapter for the past two weeks or so. As I am presenting my dissertation research to a big group of scholars tomorrow in the library (part of my library fellowship), I figured the methods chapter would compliment my presentation preparations. I've spent time balancing preparing slides for tomorrow's presentation and writing sections for my chapter and it has been going well.
As I don't want to brag and would prefer to let everyone reading this feel better about themselves, let me know describe my organizational routine for writing this chapter. I wrote a lot and came up with new sections as I went along. That's no surprise though, that's how these things usually work. After I was nearly done writing everything I thought I needed to write, I read the methods chapters from three dissertations from previous PhD graduates from my university. I figure if they passed, I can just copy their organization. I realized that my chapter needed to have more "I will talk about this, then this, then that, then this and then I will tell you what I told you about" material to it. So I fixed that, and then realized that I had to re-order most of the sections of my chapter. First I printed everything out with department resources, then I started cutting and taping things together in a new order. Because everything in my chapter was numbered, moving it around was tricky. So instead of cutting, pasting and then forgetting what goes where, I opened a new document and changed the color of the font for each section. Section 1 was dark red, section 2 was red-orange, 3 was orange, and so on until I got to section 10 and used black. Not only was my chapter in a better order, it was pretty too! But then I changed all of the numbers in headings and tables and quickly changed the font back to black before anyone could walk into my office and make fun of my for my technicolored font fun. Yep, I'm still a dork.
As far as preparing for my library presentation, I gave a practice run-through to both of my classes on Monday. In the first class, half of the students seemed interested and the other half were falling asleep or texting. I then retaliated by giving the sleeper/texters an F for participation for the day and changed my slides before my night class. My night students seemed much more interested in my work, but after the first 15 minutes, their attention started to fade and I could see that I was losing them one by one. How to remedy the situation before tomorrow's talk?! I reworked my slides again and added more data, keeping Dumbledore's sage advice close to heart: talk about things that someone will want to share at a cocktail party. Help people feel smarter after listening to your presentation, even though I am the expert and they are not. Good advice, Dumbledore, thanks.
So, wish me luck tomorrow. I hope my audience doesn't resort to playing solitaire on their mobile phones during tomorrow's presentation. I'll re-read my chapter next week and e-mail it off for review afterwards. And in case you're wondering, the acupuncture is doing wonders for my stress levels, back pain and I've even been able to work out for 4 of the last 5 days. (Gotta look good under that big doctoral robe and hood after all). Over and out!
I just finished my first complete draft of a chapter and I am very satisfied with it. ( Oh, thank you, but you don't have to applaud). There were many times that I thought this moment would never come, but it has, and it feels great. I've been working on my methods chapter for the past two weeks or so. As I am presenting my dissertation research to a big group of scholars tomorrow in the library (part of my library fellowship), I figured the methods chapter would compliment my presentation preparations. I've spent time balancing preparing slides for tomorrow's presentation and writing sections for my chapter and it has been going well.
As I don't want to brag and would prefer to let everyone reading this feel better about themselves, let me know describe my organizational routine for writing this chapter. I wrote a lot and came up with new sections as I went along. That's no surprise though, that's how these things usually work. After I was nearly done writing everything I thought I needed to write, I read the methods chapters from three dissertations from previous PhD graduates from my university. I figure if they passed, I can just copy their organization. I realized that my chapter needed to have more "I will talk about this, then this, then that, then this and then I will tell you what I told you about" material to it. So I fixed that, and then realized that I had to re-order most of the sections of my chapter. First I printed everything out with department resources, then I started cutting and taping things together in a new order. Because everything in my chapter was numbered, moving it around was tricky. So instead of cutting, pasting and then forgetting what goes where, I opened a new document and changed the color of the font for each section. Section 1 was dark red, section 2 was red-orange, 3 was orange, and so on until I got to section 10 and used black. Not only was my chapter in a better order, it was pretty too! But then I changed all of the numbers in headings and tables and quickly changed the font back to black before anyone could walk into my office and make fun of my for my technicolored font fun. Yep, I'm still a dork.
As far as preparing for my library presentation, I gave a practice run-through to both of my classes on Monday. In the first class, half of the students seemed interested and the other half were falling asleep or texting. I then retaliated by giving the sleeper/texters an F for participation for the day and changed my slides before my night class. My night students seemed much more interested in my work, but after the first 15 minutes, their attention started to fade and I could see that I was losing them one by one. How to remedy the situation before tomorrow's talk?! I reworked my slides again and added more data, keeping Dumbledore's sage advice close to heart: talk about things that someone will want to share at a cocktail party. Help people feel smarter after listening to your presentation, even though I am the expert and they are not. Good advice, Dumbledore, thanks.
So, wish me luck tomorrow. I hope my audience doesn't resort to playing solitaire on their mobile phones during tomorrow's presentation. I'll re-read my chapter next week and e-mail it off for review afterwards. And in case you're wondering, the acupuncture is doing wonders for my stress levels, back pain and I've even been able to work out for 4 of the last 5 days. (Gotta look good under that big doctoral robe and hood after all). Over and out!
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