My son is sleeping and I might have five whole minutes to write this blog. He is wonderful, labor and delivery were positive experiences and I enjoy being a parent. I don't sleep for more than an hour at a time, I am usually still in my pajamas when Hubby comes home from work, I remember to brush my hair and put on deodorant every other day and I am mastering holding a baby with one hand while trying to do everything else life demands with the other.
Besides adjusting to parenting, I'm trying to apply for jobs. Job applications in academia are demanding and no two job announcements have the same requirements. All jobs seem to want a cover letter and a CV. Those are the easy parts. Many require three letters of recommendation. The remaining application materials can include research statements, writing samples, teaching philosophies, copies of student course evaluations, syllabi of past courses taught, and syllabi of courses hoped to be taught in the future. Whether or not these materials are required mostly depends on the size of the university and its status as a research or teaching college. Jobs that are opening right now are more often research oriented, which requires me to send a version of my CV that highlights my research and leaves out most of my teaching background. Although the types of requirements for each job overlap, each document must be tailored for the position.
The first round of job applications will end sometime in December. I don't anticipate being contacted by any of the departments I'm applying to, and will likely choke on whatever I'm eating (or my spit if I'm not eating) if someone does contact me. I don't aim to come across as pessimistic, this is just the reality of applying for tenure track jobs.
The jobs I'm applying for will interview at either the annual Linguistic Society of America or Modern Language Association meetings, which are both the first weekend in January in two different Midwestern cities. After that, interviews involve flying to universities, giving a lecture, teaching classes, and schmoozing with department chairs, deans, professors and students for 24-48 hours. Again, I don't think any department will select me for an interview out of the 100-200 applicants for each position and I won't make it to this later stage this year, but it doesn't hurt to try.
I update my CV regularly and have a few versions of cover letters, but I haven't written a teaching philosophy since teaching high school 8 years ago. I have no idea what to write for a college position, nor if they require the same type of BS that teaching philosophies for K-12 positions do.
I have one writing sample ready. I really should have written another paper over the summer, but somehow I found 30 minutes to start transforming part of Geraldine into a journal paper on Wednesday. I hope that by the time I finish it, it a) won't be too late to apply for the position that requires it and b) it won't be obvious that I am not sleeping. Being that most students don't sleep in graduate school, (b) might not be an issue to worry about.
It's hard not to think about living in a new place with each job description I see. My thoughts tend to evolve from: I could apply for the job but there's no point > Wait, I do actually qualify for that job so I'd better apply > Quick, look up the university town on a map and get an idea of where on earth it is > Calculate how far away that is from anyone that I know > Read about the university and its department, would I even fit in there? > What variety of English would my son acquire if we lived in that area? > Am I a bad person for wanting my child to sound like me and have caught/cot merger instead of like his dad who doesn't have this merger? > Shut up stupid, you don't get to make decisions based on those things if you want a job next year > Crap, when am I going to have time to write an application?
Usually these thoughts come to mind when I'm trying to take a nap or at 7am when I am awake, my son is finally asleep and I have enough energy to eat breakfast. The only thing that shuts these thoughts off is an adorably cute infant who wants to feed for the millionth time, a screaming infant who is mad because I'm changing his diaper or praying the rosary. I swear I've prayed the rosary more times since my son was born than in the last 5 years.
And here I am at the end of my thoughts, my son is still asleep (not for long though), I have dirty dishes to wash, I should get dressed (or at least put on deodorant) before someone from my birthing class stops by in an hour, and I still have a mountain of documents to prepare for job applications. Thankfully, I still have 3 weeks before the first closing date for an application. Maybe before then I'll get to sleep for an hour and 15 minutes at a time.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
On trying to keep my chin up
Writing this blog today points out how little my summer occupations had to do with Geraldine. Has it really been 3 1/2 months since I wrote about my dissertation? Oops. I feel like I worked a lot this summer, but my focus changed from spending 4 hours a day on Geraldine to other projects. I published a paper, turned some of my dissertation findings into a paper for a conference in Germany, rewrote an entire semester's worth of lectures for the online classes that I teach, adopted new course readings and started preparing myself for entering the job market. Meanwhile, I recovered from complete linguistic burnout and enjoyed my first summer in 6 years that didn't include taking classes or teaching summer school. It pleases me to write that I can now talk about linguistics again without feeling a need to go on vacation.
The semester started two weeks ago. The first day left me feeling out of place. As I walked across campus, the incoming students meandering around lost in the crowd seemed very young and I felt old. I couldn't help but wonder, "Why am I still a student, this is supposed to be my first day as a professor." Of course it might not be that surprising that walking across a campus 9 months pregnant in clothes that don't fit anymore while surrounded by clueless 18- and 19-year-olds dressed either for a night in a club or a pajama party would lead me to think that I no longer fit in. None of the other TAs were in their offices, most of the department doors were closed, I had my office to myself and it did not feel like the first day of fall semester.
My online classes are running smoothly and I've tried to be on campus as much as possible, knowing that I won't be there for the remainder of the semester as soon as my body decides to go into labor (I'm due in a week). I'm impatiently waiting for news about my contract, which currently expires in December. I had to reapply as a TA, but was told that my chances of receiving a renewal for the spring were slim because on paper I am too close to graduating. Never mind the obvious facts that all of my committee members were out of the country over the summer and we agreed to wait on final revisions, some of my committee members are still out of the country and it is impossible to defend now, and in a week or two it will be physically impossible for me to show up to a defense. I think the department made a decision regarding my contract yesterday, but no one has informed me of the outcome.
In other news, I started a job search for next year. I've found about 10 jobs I can apply for so far and they all happen to be in the US. I'll probably apply for 50 jobs this year with the hope that I'll be invited to interview for 2 of them. Yesterday I found out that there is a job opening 2 1/2 hours from where I currently live and for which I perfectly qualify. It seems that there's no better way to have my excitement erased than to tell other people. The responses I've received so far include:
"Isn't there anything closer?"
"You're planning on moving?"
"You're applying for jobs? What are you going to do with your baby?"
"What would your husband do if you get a job?"
"I'm not writing letters of recommendations for current students, but good luck"
Perhaps my sarcastic response of writing "Thanks for the encouragement. It's really nice to know that 9 1/2 years spent becoming a specialist, earning competitive scholarships to support my work, taking out student loans, living on food stamps, finding work shoveling animal poo and the like" will explain why I feel discouraged and out of place with wanting to be a professor and a mother. I don't doubt my ability to make it all work out, I just wonder how long I'll feel guilty for wanting both.
The semester started two weeks ago. The first day left me feeling out of place. As I walked across campus, the incoming students meandering around lost in the crowd seemed very young and I felt old. I couldn't help but wonder, "Why am I still a student, this is supposed to be my first day as a professor." Of course it might not be that surprising that walking across a campus 9 months pregnant in clothes that don't fit anymore while surrounded by clueless 18- and 19-year-olds dressed either for a night in a club or a pajama party would lead me to think that I no longer fit in. None of the other TAs were in their offices, most of the department doors were closed, I had my office to myself and it did not feel like the first day of fall semester.
My online classes are running smoothly and I've tried to be on campus as much as possible, knowing that I won't be there for the remainder of the semester as soon as my body decides to go into labor (I'm due in a week). I'm impatiently waiting for news about my contract, which currently expires in December. I had to reapply as a TA, but was told that my chances of receiving a renewal for the spring were slim because on paper I am too close to graduating. Never mind the obvious facts that all of my committee members were out of the country over the summer and we agreed to wait on final revisions, some of my committee members are still out of the country and it is impossible to defend now, and in a week or two it will be physically impossible for me to show up to a defense. I think the department made a decision regarding my contract yesterday, but no one has informed me of the outcome.
In other news, I started a job search for next year. I've found about 10 jobs I can apply for so far and they all happen to be in the US. I'll probably apply for 50 jobs this year with the hope that I'll be invited to interview for 2 of them. Yesterday I found out that there is a job opening 2 1/2 hours from where I currently live and for which I perfectly qualify. It seems that there's no better way to have my excitement erased than to tell other people. The responses I've received so far include:
"Isn't there anything closer?"
"You're planning on moving?"
"You're applying for jobs? What are you going to do with your baby?"
"What would your husband do if you get a job?"
"I'm not writing letters of recommendations for current students, but good luck"
Perhaps my sarcastic response of writing "Thanks for the encouragement. It's really nice to know that 9 1/2 years spent becoming a specialist, earning competitive scholarships to support my work, taking out student loans, living on food stamps, finding work shoveling animal poo and the like" will explain why I feel discouraged and out of place with wanting to be a professor and a mother. I don't doubt my ability to make it all work out, I just wonder how long I'll feel guilty for wanting both.
Friday, May 31, 2013
On revisions
Somehow I managed to coerce myself to work on my linguistics to-do list every day this week. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, as I mostly remember wanting to eat ice cream, doing plyometric exercises so that if I ate ice cream I wouldn't regret it, watching my my ceiling fan, playing card games on the computer and staring off into space.Yesterday I never got around to working on research, but I did work on a syllabus for the upcoming courses I will teach this fall. Despite my extended periods of procrastination, I think I finished revising a paper and will be able to send it to my editors next week.
When I first received the editors' comments, I was surprised that they were helpful, encouraging and supportive of my research. Somehow I expected editors' comments to be very demanding and mean. After reading through the comments and noting the deadline for revisions, I ignored them for two months and concentrated on Geraldine (or more specifically, figuring out what was happening with my defense, graduation, funding and life in general). As I reread the editors' comments on Monday, I felt reassured in my belief in myself to address them, but as the week passed, I had a few moments of despair (pregnancy has suddenly made me understand why all of my pregnant teachers growing up were moody... these hormones shouldn't be underestimated). I sucked it up and made myself keep working anyway and am pleased to write that I have a stronger paper and I like it much more than the draft I originally submitted.
One difficulty of revising my work has been that this paper is not related to Geraldine. Geraldine focuses on historical changes words for body parts. The current paper focuses on sounds in a central Asian language. I haven't done anything with sounds for 2 years. Switching from semantics back to phonology is the linguistics equivalent of Michael Jordan becoming a golf player. I'm rusty on a lot of the vocabulary as well as the language under investigation needed for this paper. In reading it, I wonder how I ever knew enough to write it in the first place. Maybe if I re-read a paper from my BA or MA course work, I'd stop wondering how I was ever that intelligent and wonder how I was ever that clueless. :) Despite thinking that I forgot everything from my 5 phonology seminars, it seems that it is easily retrievable and I could teach phonology at some distant point in my academic future.
In addition to wrapping my head around completely different theoretical work, it has been interesting to note how my writing has changed since starting Geraldine. After reading hundreds of articles, I am no longer a patient reader. I want to know the claims of the study immediately and then I want to be convinced that the claim is the best choice for the rest of the time reading the article. The paper I'm currently revising is left over from my last semester of course work (pre-Geraldine) and didn't get to the point in the way that it should. At first, a few of the comments I received were hard to address because it seemed like I would have to rewrite sections (thus the trigger of my despair and whining), but once I turned off the comments and read the paper, it was really easy to see the flaws, rewrite sections, and delete other information that wasn't immediately related to my claim. Sometimes deleting sections is hard, but I'm finding that if I don't read something for a while, it's a lot easier to get rid of it. I hope it will be this easy when I force myself to re-read Geraldine next week. Convincing myself to re-read 15 pages of text was enough of a challenge, I'm not sure how much ice cream it will take to force myself into reading the 150+ pages of Geraldine....
When I first received the editors' comments, I was surprised that they were helpful, encouraging and supportive of my research. Somehow I expected editors' comments to be very demanding and mean. After reading through the comments and noting the deadline for revisions, I ignored them for two months and concentrated on Geraldine (or more specifically, figuring out what was happening with my defense, graduation, funding and life in general). As I reread the editors' comments on Monday, I felt reassured in my belief in myself to address them, but as the week passed, I had a few moments of despair (pregnancy has suddenly made me understand why all of my pregnant teachers growing up were moody... these hormones shouldn't be underestimated). I sucked it up and made myself keep working anyway and am pleased to write that I have a stronger paper and I like it much more than the draft I originally submitted.
One difficulty of revising my work has been that this paper is not related to Geraldine. Geraldine focuses on historical changes words for body parts. The current paper focuses on sounds in a central Asian language. I haven't done anything with sounds for 2 years. Switching from semantics back to phonology is the linguistics equivalent of Michael Jordan becoming a golf player. I'm rusty on a lot of the vocabulary as well as the language under investigation needed for this paper. In reading it, I wonder how I ever knew enough to write it in the first place. Maybe if I re-read a paper from my BA or MA course work, I'd stop wondering how I was ever that intelligent and wonder how I was ever that clueless. :) Despite thinking that I forgot everything from my 5 phonology seminars, it seems that it is easily retrievable and I could teach phonology at some distant point in my academic future.
In addition to wrapping my head around completely different theoretical work, it has been interesting to note how my writing has changed since starting Geraldine. After reading hundreds of articles, I am no longer a patient reader. I want to know the claims of the study immediately and then I want to be convinced that the claim is the best choice for the rest of the time reading the article. The paper I'm currently revising is left over from my last semester of course work (pre-Geraldine) and didn't get to the point in the way that it should. At first, a few of the comments I received were hard to address because it seemed like I would have to rewrite sections (thus the trigger of my despair and whining), but once I turned off the comments and read the paper, it was really easy to see the flaws, rewrite sections, and delete other information that wasn't immediately related to my claim. Sometimes deleting sections is hard, but I'm finding that if I don't read something for a while, it's a lot easier to get rid of it. I hope it will be this easy when I force myself to re-read Geraldine next week. Convincing myself to re-read 15 pages of text was enough of a challenge, I'm not sure how much ice cream it will take to force myself into reading the 150+ pages of Geraldine....
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
On reestablishing a daily research routine
For 16 months, I devoted an average of 4 hours a day to working on Geraldine. I took most weekends and major holidays off from my research, but continued to work faithfully up through the final submission to Indi at the end of March. After deciding to delay my defense, I took a break from my daily routine and have since struggled incessantly with forcing myself to reestablish a daily research routine.
One of the problems with being an academic is there are no longer have deadlines. There are no syllabi stating due dates for research proposals, abstracts, rough drafts, presentations or final copies. Although my 3.5 years of graduate coursework certainly prepared me to work on a similar schedule, I'm finding that it becomes increasingly more difficult to discipline myself now that I do not have weekly meetings (classes) with others (professors) who expect me to produce scholarly work (term papers). At first I wondered how some of the smartest people I studied with hadn't started their doctoral research, writing chapters, or had even dropped out of school. I'd read accounts of people who finished their dissertations and just never submitted them to the graduate school. Before I couldn't understand how this was possible, but nowadays I feel like I could live the rest of my life without ever feeling an urge to read another linguistics paper. Suddenly, I understand why so many people progress so far into a PhD program only to never finish.
Sometimes I am surprised that I even wrote a dissertation. In the last month and a half, I think two or three people have asked me about my dissertation research. Each time this happens, I quickly explain my research questions, methodology and results. Those asking about my work seem interested and impressed with the amount of effort required for my research, yet whenever these conversations occur, I feel like I am having an out of body experience. I see and hear myself explaining my research but feel like I am observing myself from across the room. Who is that smart person who conducted that work? I could never do that! And then it occurs to me that I am the person talking, I did the research, and it's not that big of a deal. I certainly don't feel any smarter than I was at any other time in my life. Even talking about my accomplishments makes me feel like I'm violating unspoken modesty rules.I feel very unaccomplished until I force myself back into the world of academia and 5+ years of training kicks in. Someone asks my opinion about linguistics in pop media and I automatically critique the claims. I hear someone talk and subconsciously start to analyze the speaker's regional roots, contact with other languages and socioeconomic status. I read a research paper and find myself forming an opinion before I even finish the abstract. Even if I've become lazy and temporarily detached from my research, my intellect will still get the best of me once activated. Sometimes I'd rather have a super power, like being able to teleport, but I guess being an academic isn't that bad (most of the time).
A week ago I made a summer research to-do list and have been forcing myself to check off tasks. It seems ridiculous to have to include "e-mail X and ask about Y" on my list, but checking it off motivates me to do more work. I remember hearing somewhere that it takes 28 days to break or make a habit. I guess taking more than 28 days off broke my habit of daily research and it will take at least another 28 days to reestablish it and feel motivated to do so. I have no idea when I'll have more than a month at a time to do research again, but in the meantime I'll keep chipping away at my to-do list and hope that some sort of divine light beam of brilliant motivation with strike my intellect and it will make a difference in my academic career.
One of the problems with being an academic is there are no longer have deadlines. There are no syllabi stating due dates for research proposals, abstracts, rough drafts, presentations or final copies. Although my 3.5 years of graduate coursework certainly prepared me to work on a similar schedule, I'm finding that it becomes increasingly more difficult to discipline myself now that I do not have weekly meetings (classes) with others (professors) who expect me to produce scholarly work (term papers). At first I wondered how some of the smartest people I studied with hadn't started their doctoral research, writing chapters, or had even dropped out of school. I'd read accounts of people who finished their dissertations and just never submitted them to the graduate school. Before I couldn't understand how this was possible, but nowadays I feel like I could live the rest of my life without ever feeling an urge to read another linguistics paper. Suddenly, I understand why so many people progress so far into a PhD program only to never finish.
Sometimes I am surprised that I even wrote a dissertation. In the last month and a half, I think two or three people have asked me about my dissertation research. Each time this happens, I quickly explain my research questions, methodology and results. Those asking about my work seem interested and impressed with the amount of effort required for my research, yet whenever these conversations occur, I feel like I am having an out of body experience. I see and hear myself explaining my research but feel like I am observing myself from across the room. Who is that smart person who conducted that work? I could never do that! And then it occurs to me that I am the person talking, I did the research, and it's not that big of a deal. I certainly don't feel any smarter than I was at any other time in my life. Even talking about my accomplishments makes me feel like I'm violating unspoken modesty rules.I feel very unaccomplished until I force myself back into the world of academia and 5+ years of training kicks in. Someone asks my opinion about linguistics in pop media and I automatically critique the claims. I hear someone talk and subconsciously start to analyze the speaker's regional roots, contact with other languages and socioeconomic status. I read a research paper and find myself forming an opinion before I even finish the abstract. Even if I've become lazy and temporarily detached from my research, my intellect will still get the best of me once activated. Sometimes I'd rather have a super power, like being able to teleport, but I guess being an academic isn't that bad (most of the time).
A week ago I made a summer research to-do list and have been forcing myself to check off tasks. It seems ridiculous to have to include "e-mail X and ask about Y" on my list, but checking it off motivates me to do more work. I remember hearing somewhere that it takes 28 days to break or make a habit. I guess taking more than 28 days off broke my habit of daily research and it will take at least another 28 days to reestablish it and feel motivated to do so. I have no idea when I'll have more than a month at a time to do research again, but in the meantime I'll keep chipping away at my to-do list and hope that some sort of divine light beam of brilliant motivation with strike my intellect and it will make a difference in my academic career.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
On not graduating
I finished grading exams for another set of students. Usually I would be happy that my teaching obligations are done for another term, but my lack of excitement saturates all of my current feelings regarding school. I've taken a month off from research and told myself that I'd have to start again as soon as my students' finals were graded. That means I have to resume research today, but I don't have a strong desire to do it. I know many people who defend then submit their work to the graduate school never to look at their dissertation research again. I don't think that I'm that person, nor do I think it's unusual to be completely burnt out after completing a dissertation, but I sure wish I had a stronger drive to pursue my research. Luckily, I have a lot of deadlines this summer that will force me to work regardless of my desire to do so.
In my month away from researching, I've been able to enjoy a few hobbies (wow, I have hobbies?!?). I started cooking again and knit a bunch of stuff for the baby. Meanwhile I've been trying to figure out how I can both be a top linguist in my field and a great mom. The two seem diametrically opposed and I've spent the last few months trying to convince myself that my pregnancy isn't an academic shot in the foot. There is more to think about then I thought there would be before becoming pregnant. Suddenly moving to Europe for a post doc in the next year sounds overwhelming. Then again, so do labor and breast feeding. At least I stopped having dissertation-related nightmares.
I thought that delaying graduation would leave me feeling left out, but it hasn't. I happily delete all e-mails concerning cap and gowns and ignore anything else having to do with graduation. What I didn't expect is the mountain of paperwork I've been shifting through due to the fact that I'm staying on for another semester. Because I applied for graduation, no offices on campus planned for me to return. Teaching contracts came out last week (which is about a month later than normal) and even though my department told me I would come back in the fall fully funded, it seems that no one else was informed of this decision. Among other things, paper work has included:
notifying human resources that I am returning so that my insurance isn't dropped (3xs)
notifying the graduate school that I am returning so that I can enroll in classes (4xs)
notifying my loan companies that I am still in school and my loans should still be in deferment (2xs)
requesting permission numbers so that I can enroll
signing weird documents with information about my marital statues and husband's contact information so that I can enroll
paying a $40 graduation fee so that I can enroll in classes again (1x only, few!)
owing $600 to human resources to make up for the health insurance deductions that weren't taken from my paycheck this semester (better only be 1x or they might as well fire me)
Other things that have been awkward include receiving mail addressed to Dr. Kelsie, taking a graduation trip without having graduated, receiving a really awesome camera for graduating without actually graduating, and not knowing what to tell people when they ask about school, which at the moment usually sounds like this: "How's the dissertation going?"
"Fine. Everything is done."
"Great! When are you graduating?"
"I don't know."
"Why not?"
"I'm pregnant so my committee delayed my defense until later notice. I'll let you know when I receive later notice."
"Oh, you're pregnant, I couldn't tell. Congratulations."
to myself: "Give me a break, I look like I swallowed a basketball. Geraldine couldn't have made me look this huge."
At this point, I'm convinced it would have been easier to go through with the defense and graduate. Oh well.
In my month away from researching, I've been able to enjoy a few hobbies (wow, I have hobbies?!?). I started cooking again and knit a bunch of stuff for the baby. Meanwhile I've been trying to figure out how I can both be a top linguist in my field and a great mom. The two seem diametrically opposed and I've spent the last few months trying to convince myself that my pregnancy isn't an academic shot in the foot. There is more to think about then I thought there would be before becoming pregnant. Suddenly moving to Europe for a post doc in the next year sounds overwhelming. Then again, so do labor and breast feeding. At least I stopped having dissertation-related nightmares.
I thought that delaying graduation would leave me feeling left out, but it hasn't. I happily delete all e-mails concerning cap and gowns and ignore anything else having to do with graduation. What I didn't expect is the mountain of paperwork I've been shifting through due to the fact that I'm staying on for another semester. Because I applied for graduation, no offices on campus planned for me to return. Teaching contracts came out last week (which is about a month later than normal) and even though my department told me I would come back in the fall fully funded, it seems that no one else was informed of this decision. Among other things, paper work has included:
notifying human resources that I am returning so that my insurance isn't dropped (3xs)
notifying the graduate school that I am returning so that I can enroll in classes (4xs)
notifying my loan companies that I am still in school and my loans should still be in deferment (2xs)
requesting permission numbers so that I can enroll
signing weird documents with information about my marital statues and husband's contact information so that I can enroll
paying a $40 graduation fee so that I can enroll in classes again (1x only, few!)
owing $600 to human resources to make up for the health insurance deductions that weren't taken from my paycheck this semester (better only be 1x or they might as well fire me)
Other things that have been awkward include receiving mail addressed to Dr. Kelsie, taking a graduation trip without having graduated, receiving a really awesome camera for graduating without actually graduating, and not knowing what to tell people when they ask about school, which at the moment usually sounds like this: "How's the dissertation going?"
"Fine. Everything is done."
"Great! When are you graduating?"
"I don't know."
"Why not?"
"I'm pregnant so my committee delayed my defense until later notice. I'll let you know when I receive later notice."
"Oh, you're pregnant, I couldn't tell. Congratulations."
to myself: "Give me a break, I look like I swallowed a basketball. Geraldine couldn't have made me look this huge."
At this point, I'm convinced it would have been easier to go through with the defense and graduate. Oh well.
Friday, April 5, 2013
On delaying graduation
Throughout my doctoral program, there has been a reoccurring push to finish my PhD as quickly as possible. As completing my dissertation has become more of a reality, it has become clear that by setting high goals to finish early has resulted in fewer occasions to refine my research. A week ago, I met with Indi to discuss the final weeks of this semester. He talked me through the submission of my dissertation to committee members, my defense, and final revisions, and then we planned graduation. After half an hour or so of discussing the final details leading up to the declaration of "Dr. Kelsie," he said "why are you graduating this semester? I think it would be better if we delay it." And with that, my defense has been postponed and I will not graduate this term.
On one hand, delaying graduation relieves many headaches related to my personal life. I've been at ease this last week knowing that by far the bulk of my work is done, but the guilt of having an unfinished project remains. I still have a mountain of revisions waiting for me. I have more to read. I won't get a mental break over the summer, which means no reading for pleasure or free time activities that don't result in a guilty feeling that I should be working. My stress levels have lowered and my physical health is better because of it. But since I am not graduating this semester, I most likely will not be attending a graduation ceremony when I do finish.
Despite my mixed feelings of delaying graduation, it is a positive development. My committee will have more time to devote to my research. To date, Indi is the only person who has read the entire draft. Only one of my other committee members has read any of my dissertation since my proposal defense a year ago. Because everyone on my committee has other dissertation and master's defenses scheduled this semester, they do not have enough time to read my work and give me the feedback I need to compete in the job market for typology. Furthermore, in looking at the current job market, it has been decided that I need to publish before I graduate in order to secure a job down the road. Geraldine is at a point in which I can start to turn smaller chunks into articles for journal submissions and my committee members have agreed that it is in my best interest to submit items for publication before I graduate.
So, with that, my official end date of April 26th is scratched and has been replaced by something much more ambiguous. Someday I will become Dr. Kelsie, but that day is no longer 3 weeks away.
On one hand, delaying graduation relieves many headaches related to my personal life. I've been at ease this last week knowing that by far the bulk of my work is done, but the guilt of having an unfinished project remains. I still have a mountain of revisions waiting for me. I have more to read. I won't get a mental break over the summer, which means no reading for pleasure or free time activities that don't result in a guilty feeling that I should be working. My stress levels have lowered and my physical health is better because of it. But since I am not graduating this semester, I most likely will not be attending a graduation ceremony when I do finish.
Despite my mixed feelings of delaying graduation, it is a positive development. My committee will have more time to devote to my research. To date, Indi is the only person who has read the entire draft. Only one of my other committee members has read any of my dissertation since my proposal defense a year ago. Because everyone on my committee has other dissertation and master's defenses scheduled this semester, they do not have enough time to read my work and give me the feedback I need to compete in the job market for typology. Furthermore, in looking at the current job market, it has been decided that I need to publish before I graduate in order to secure a job down the road. Geraldine is at a point in which I can start to turn smaller chunks into articles for journal submissions and my committee members have agreed that it is in my best interest to submit items for publication before I graduate.
So, with that, my official end date of April 26th is scratched and has been replaced by something much more ambiguous. Someday I will become Dr. Kelsie, but that day is no longer 3 weeks away.
Monday, March 25, 2013
How I actually made the first full draft
Making a full draft of the dissertation is time consuming and requires attention to many details. I found that one way to approach this milestone was to break up the tasks. Go through the entire document and check for consistency in headings: chapter titles, section titles, numbering. Next, check every table: are they uniform? Are they numbered correctly? Does every table have a title? Did I consistently capitalize 'Table' in both the text and in the title under each table? Then, read the whole document and check to flow. Is anything choppy? Anything missing? Did I spell something wrong? It is always embarrassing to receive edited copies of my drafts and to find corrected spelling mistakes. In the past round of revisions, I had to correct my spelling of 'Ottawa' and 'capital.' Oops.
Once all of that was done (and it took over 4 hours), I double checked my references. I included a references section for each chapter as I wrote it. Combining these references into one document was also very time consuming. I have a program that automatically creates bibliographies for me, but it doesn't use the formatting I need for Geraldine. I painstakingly changed the placement of the date, italics and other bibliographic information to match the style guide used by the top journals in my field. Some day, I will thank myself for doing such a menial task. Today is not that day. There were many copy and paste commands involved in making a document I was happy with. At the end, I had to check everything again for consistency. There are probably still errors, but I hope a committee member will draw my attention to them (and I luckily have committee members that will do such a thing). Finishing the references section took about 3 hours.
But wait, there's more?!? Dissertations also require a bunch of pedantically formatted pages at the beginning prior to chapter 1. This is called 'front matter.' The front matter must be numbered with Roman numerals which appear at the bottom of the page, whereas each chapter must be numbered with Arabic numerals in the upper right hand corner. I haven't figured out how to tell Word that I need two different systems, so for the time being, the front matter is a separate document. Ugh. So what goes in the front matter? A title page, an abstract, a copyright page, a dedication (optional), acknowledgements, a table of contents, a list of tables, a list of figures, signature lines for the dissertation chair and graduate school to sign off that everything is official and I might be able to go on vacation after graduation... I hate making tables of content. It is a very tedious task. To my joy, I discovered that I have no figures in Geraldine, and therefore do not need to make a list of figures. My table of contents is 3 pages long. Again, at some point I will be glad that I already took care of these things, but right now the only thing I can think of is having to change the page numbers in the table of contents after I finish revising the chapters. BUT, Indi wanted a table of contents with the full draft, so he got one.
What else needs to go in a dissertation? Thankfully, not much. I have two appendices in Geraldine. I have a few corrections to enter into my database, but after I do so, generating the appendices will not take long. They will be formatted neatly and should please the committee members who have seen earlier drafts of messy data. I also have to include my CV at the end, and Indi must sign that as well. I don't know why this is required. Maybe to communicate "I am the committee chair and I did read (at least part of) the last page?"
Because my raw data is so big and it's the part of my dissertation typologists will actually want to read, the end matter will be over 100 pages.
I think my department will need to order more paper before April. Assuming my committee members will each print copies of my dissertation, it will take about 4 reams of paper. Considering the other doctoral candidates who hope to defend this spring, the department will likely need 3 extra boxes of paper. This does not include any MA students who will defend their theses this spring. Do departments work this into their budgets?
On piecing it all together
My big accomplishment of the weekend was piecing all 8 chapters of Geraldine together. Until now, each chapter had a separate file. Actually, each chapter has a separate folder on my computer and there are multiple files for each different version, data, etc. for each chapter. Creating one document in which all chapters appear in linear order should be easy, as it mostly includes copying the entire chapter and then pasting it to a new document. That part was easy, but checking the document for consistency, errors, citations, labels and so one is very time consuming.
For anyone who's interested in what exactly I had to do to to create a complete draft, I explain it in the next blog entry. For those who are just interested in reading about how I feel, reading this paragraph will suffice. While creating a single document for everything in the dissertation, a rush of positive encouragement came through me. For the first time, Geraldine started to look like a dissertation. I started to realize just how much work I've accomplished in the last 15 months. I can't believe how much data I've collected, sorted through and analyzed, nor how much I've learned through this process. In addition to becoming a true expert in my research topic, I've learned a lot about myself. My views of graduate education, professors, academia, and other graduate students have changed. Despite every time I've felt guilty for not working on Geraldine or felt overwhelmed with data and demands, having a complete draft helps me see that my work actually created something and it isn't a load of crap. The process demanded many sleepless nights, nightmares, frustrations, tears, angry words, snack breaks, isolation, and other sacrifices (including the innocent destruction of pencils) and finally, it has resulted in a substantial piece of research that contributes to linguistics, typology, lexical typology, and scientific knowledge in general. And I created it. It is mine. After May 19th, people will have to reference my work and each time they do, they will recognize my efforts, expertise, and short comings and I might even receive a royalty check of $18 every two years! The best part? I did all of this before Holy Week started and might be able to think about something else for a few days before the next major round of revisions starts. :0)
For anyone who's interested in what exactly I had to do to to create a complete draft, I explain it in the next blog entry. For those who are just interested in reading about how I feel, reading this paragraph will suffice. While creating a single document for everything in the dissertation, a rush of positive encouragement came through me. For the first time, Geraldine started to look like a dissertation. I started to realize just how much work I've accomplished in the last 15 months. I can't believe how much data I've collected, sorted through and analyzed, nor how much I've learned through this process. In addition to becoming a true expert in my research topic, I've learned a lot about myself. My views of graduate education, professors, academia, and other graduate students have changed. Despite every time I've felt guilty for not working on Geraldine or felt overwhelmed with data and demands, having a complete draft helps me see that my work actually created something and it isn't a load of crap. The process demanded many sleepless nights, nightmares, frustrations, tears, angry words, snack breaks, isolation, and other sacrifices (including the innocent destruction of pencils) and finally, it has resulted in a substantial piece of research that contributes to linguistics, typology, lexical typology, and scientific knowledge in general. And I created it. It is mine. After May 19th, people will have to reference my work and each time they do, they will recognize my efforts, expertise, and short comings and I might even receive a royalty check of $18 every two years! The best part? I did all of this before Holy Week started and might be able to think about something else for a few days before the next major round of revisions starts. :0)
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
On dreams that don't make any sense
It's 2:40am and I can't sleep. For the last month or so, I've developed the habit of waking up at around 2 or 3 and having trouble falling back asleep. Tonight I woke up after having a very uncomfortable dream about my defense. In my dream, one of my committee members came half hour late, everyone except me drank a ton of coffee, and slowly the attendees of the defense starting picking apart my dissertation. So far, this description probably isn't that far off from how things will really unfold when my defense happens. But, as dreams and nightmares go, things started to get weird.
First, it was another student from the department that did most of the talking in my dream, not my committee members. This student pointed out problems in the text and asked for clarification of certain passages. Other than the fact that it was a student asking all of the questions, it's still not that weird... except for the fact that the passages of my dissertation had strange quotes from Matthew Broderick movies that don't exist. In my dream, I tried defending these passages and pointed to the repetition of I-statements as examples of Grice's Maxims. Broderick was clearly flaunting the maxims of quality and quantity (something that has absolutely nothing to do with my dissertation research whatsoever). In feeling that I was failing miserably, I started singing songs from the made up Broderick hit in order to persuade my committee. It didn't work. Instead they asked me why I submitted total crap. As I flipped through the pages of my dissertation as submitted, I repeatedly saw charts that didn't print right, problems with unicode, copies of magazine articles in the margins and horrible spelling and grammatical errors. It looked like I had never even read the damn thing, and I certainly hadn't made any adjustments based on the comments my committee members had made to previous drafts. Meanwhile, I tried to prove my mastery of linguistic analysis by discussion Hungarian weather terms. After all, the Hungarian term for 'it' in expressions such as "it's raining" makes much more sense than in any language from the Germanic or Italic branch of the Indo-European family (again, this has absolutely nothing to do with my dissertation). Somewhere around this point I woke up, struggled to sit up and make it out of bed so that I could use the bathroom, realized it was just a dream, and completely lost any amount of self esteem I had left inside of me.
Even though I know that it was just a nightmare and my defense will be nothing like this dream (other than the coffee that will be in the room and a committee member might show up late), it doesn't make me want to graduate. I'm trying my hardest to finish writing my last chapters, but I'm not satisfied with my ideas. Today's biggest challenge was keeping myself together emotionally so that I could write an extra inch of text between outbursts. I've yearned to finish a PhD for nearly 10 years and now that it's finally within grasp, I don't know why I want it. On the day of my graduation, I will officially be unemployed. A week later, the medical insurance I obtain for my family will run out. Because my paycheck is technically considered a stipend, I am ineligible for unemployment. Every year of graduate school has resulted in trying to figure out how to pay bills for 3 months without a pay check. This year it's more overwhelming because I have no idea when another paycheck will come, when I will be able to apply for jobs, or when a university might pick me out of 200 other applicants for a job. On top of that, I keep puking and everything around me still has a very unpleasant aroma. Between writing paragraphs to my discussion chapter, I had a phone interview with a county social worker. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that becoming "Dr. Kelsie" doesn't matter much this week. I also shouldn't be surprised that crazy dissertation defense nightmares involving Matthew Broderick and Hungarian lexical patterns make me cry in the middle of the night. Maybe this is just part of earning a PhD and it will soon be replaced by another equally exhausting factor common to the PhD experience. Either way,sleep is much more appealing than having others address me as "Doctor."
First, it was another student from the department that did most of the talking in my dream, not my committee members. This student pointed out problems in the text and asked for clarification of certain passages. Other than the fact that it was a student asking all of the questions, it's still not that weird... except for the fact that the passages of my dissertation had strange quotes from Matthew Broderick movies that don't exist. In my dream, I tried defending these passages and pointed to the repetition of I-statements as examples of Grice's Maxims. Broderick was clearly flaunting the maxims of quality and quantity (something that has absolutely nothing to do with my dissertation research whatsoever). In feeling that I was failing miserably, I started singing songs from the made up Broderick hit in order to persuade my committee. It didn't work. Instead they asked me why I submitted total crap. As I flipped through the pages of my dissertation as submitted, I repeatedly saw charts that didn't print right, problems with unicode, copies of magazine articles in the margins and horrible spelling and grammatical errors. It looked like I had never even read the damn thing, and I certainly hadn't made any adjustments based on the comments my committee members had made to previous drafts. Meanwhile, I tried to prove my mastery of linguistic analysis by discussion Hungarian weather terms. After all, the Hungarian term for 'it' in expressions such as "it's raining" makes much more sense than in any language from the Germanic or Italic branch of the Indo-European family (again, this has absolutely nothing to do with my dissertation). Somewhere around this point I woke up, struggled to sit up and make it out of bed so that I could use the bathroom, realized it was just a dream, and completely lost any amount of self esteem I had left inside of me.
Even though I know that it was just a nightmare and my defense will be nothing like this dream (other than the coffee that will be in the room and a committee member might show up late), it doesn't make me want to graduate. I'm trying my hardest to finish writing my last chapters, but I'm not satisfied with my ideas. Today's biggest challenge was keeping myself together emotionally so that I could write an extra inch of text between outbursts. I've yearned to finish a PhD for nearly 10 years and now that it's finally within grasp, I don't know why I want it. On the day of my graduation, I will officially be unemployed. A week later, the medical insurance I obtain for my family will run out. Because my paycheck is technically considered a stipend, I am ineligible for unemployment. Every year of graduate school has resulted in trying to figure out how to pay bills for 3 months without a pay check. This year it's more overwhelming because I have no idea when another paycheck will come, when I will be able to apply for jobs, or when a university might pick me out of 200 other applicants for a job. On top of that, I keep puking and everything around me still has a very unpleasant aroma. Between writing paragraphs to my discussion chapter, I had a phone interview with a county social worker. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that becoming "Dr. Kelsie" doesn't matter much this week. I also shouldn't be surprised that crazy dissertation defense nightmares involving Matthew Broderick and Hungarian lexical patterns make me cry in the middle of the night. Maybe this is just part of earning a PhD and it will soon be replaced by another equally exhausting factor common to the PhD experience. Either way,sleep is much more appealing than having others address me as "Doctor."
It's 3:30am. I just finished writing a blog about the nightmare that woke me up. It involved Matthew Broderick, Hungarian lexical patterns, Grice's Maxims, too much coffee, disgruntled committee members, and a student who thinks s/he knows more than everyone else in the department. The blog entry was entertaining. When I checked my spelling, the whole entry disappeared into cyber space.
I had a difficult day. I am overwhelmed and sleep deprived. This is what happens when you become a doctoral candidate. Don't get a PhD; it's really not that cool.
I had a difficult day. I am overwhelmed and sleep deprived. This is what happens when you become a doctoral candidate. Don't get a PhD; it's really not that cool.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
On making it to the home stretch
It's been nearly a month since my last blog post. I keep meaning to write part 2 of "On becoming a linguist," I just haven't gotten around to doing it lately. This isn't much different than anything else happening in dissertation land. I keep meaning to do something, and then I get distracted. I've learned that there are always distractions when working on a project, but I allow some to take me away from my work more than others.
By far, the biggest distraction this semester has been finding out that Geraldine is no longer an only child. By some miracle, my reproductive system decided to overlook its flaws and decided that being renamed "Dr. Kelsie" in May isn't enough, someone should call me "mom" in September as well. Between nausea, extreme hunger, napping, grouchiness and the daily panic of realizing that I am now completely responsible for another person, I haven't felt like writing the remaining chapters of my dissertation. Furthermore, really lame video games have become way more entertaining than analyzing etymologies, re-reading my drafts for the eleventybillionth time or hunting down various members of my dissertation committee. At one point I was convinced that I wouldn't graduate this semester, but after receiving a surprisingly uplifting pep talk from Indi, I kept working when I could and wrote two more chapters. I removed the lame video games from my life, and I started becoming more productive. After I completed chapter 6, I realized I only had a little bit more work to do, and yes, it's looking like I'll submit the final copy to my committee in April and defend my dissertation on April 26th at 10 am. Mark your calendars, I expect you to be there. No one on my committee would fail a pregnant lady with a room full of fans.
My discussion chapter is going smoothly. I read a few other dissertations to get a general idea of what must be included, wrote a detailed outline and started composing what will be one of the most important chapters of my dissertation (the other most important ones being the parts in which I explicitly stated what I was doing and what I was not doing with this study.) The discussion chapter's main reason for existing is to tell the reader what matters, why, and what it means. So far, so good.
I also received comments back from two committee members on a big chunk of Geraldine. It helped to see 100 or so pages of my work with comments sitting in my department mailbox. It also helped to know that I'd written another chapter since the 100 pages were printed, and the finished product will include about 200 other pages (my indices are HUGE). The comments are helpful and will not be very time consuming to incorporate. Reading through them resulted in another boost of encouragement that I am in the home stretch, I will defend this semester, and I will officially become Dr. Kelsie on May 19th at about 9:30am (I don't expect you to be there though, because graduations are super dull... only my awesome wizard costume will be exciting).
I have exactly 8 days to finish the entire draft of each chapter and send it to Indi. If I continue to feel normal for the next few days, this shouldn't be a problem. The whole dissertation: front matter, appendices, and all, should be ready for review by the end of March. Phew!
By far, the biggest distraction this semester has been finding out that Geraldine is no longer an only child. By some miracle, my reproductive system decided to overlook its flaws and decided that being renamed "Dr. Kelsie" in May isn't enough, someone should call me "mom" in September as well. Between nausea, extreme hunger, napping, grouchiness and the daily panic of realizing that I am now completely responsible for another person, I haven't felt like writing the remaining chapters of my dissertation. Furthermore, really lame video games have become way more entertaining than analyzing etymologies, re-reading my drafts for the eleventybillionth time or hunting down various members of my dissertation committee. At one point I was convinced that I wouldn't graduate this semester, but after receiving a surprisingly uplifting pep talk from Indi, I kept working when I could and wrote two more chapters. I removed the lame video games from my life, and I started becoming more productive. After I completed chapter 6, I realized I only had a little bit more work to do, and yes, it's looking like I'll submit the final copy to my committee in April and defend my dissertation on April 26th at 10 am. Mark your calendars, I expect you to be there. No one on my committee would fail a pregnant lady with a room full of fans.
My discussion chapter is going smoothly. I read a few other dissertations to get a general idea of what must be included, wrote a detailed outline and started composing what will be one of the most important chapters of my dissertation (the other most important ones being the parts in which I explicitly stated what I was doing and what I was not doing with this study.) The discussion chapter's main reason for existing is to tell the reader what matters, why, and what it means. So far, so good.
I also received comments back from two committee members on a big chunk of Geraldine. It helped to see 100 or so pages of my work with comments sitting in my department mailbox. It also helped to know that I'd written another chapter since the 100 pages were printed, and the finished product will include about 200 other pages (my indices are HUGE). The comments are helpful and will not be very time consuming to incorporate. Reading through them resulted in another boost of encouragement that I am in the home stretch, I will defend this semester, and I will officially become Dr. Kelsie on May 19th at about 9:30am (I don't expect you to be there though, because graduations are super dull... only my awesome wizard costume will be exciting).
I have exactly 8 days to finish the entire draft of each chapter and send it to Indi. If I continue to feel normal for the next few days, this shouldn't be a problem. The whole dissertation: front matter, appendices, and all, should be ready for review by the end of March. Phew!
Sunday, February 17, 2013
On becoming a linguist, part one
One of the best conversation starters I've learned in graduate school is to ask people how they chose their career paths. Contrary to my previous assumptions, most people don't grow up knowing exactly what they want to be when they grow up. As I've asked people about what shaped their decisions to study their particular fields, very few people have answered "I just always wanted to be an X." Instead, I hear about people who played an important role in decision making, life circumstances, convenience and the discovery of an unknown interest. When consulting with most academics on this topic, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "I became a professor because it was convenient." Certainly earning a doctorate is not convenient. The convinience response tends to come more from my students who are coming back to school to switch careers or from people who stuck with their college jobs after graduation and didn't persue finding work related to their major.
Most days I am still surprised at myself for becoming a linguist and earning a PhD. I never wanted to go to college. I have clear memories of my classmates talking about their future college plans while dressing for gym class in middle school. Someone eventually asked me where I wanted to go to college and I said "I'm not going to college." I think everyone in the locker room stopped putting deoderant on and stared at me. I took all honors classes with the same group of girls. Not going to college? What are you going to do? Apparently I was the only person in my class who thought the normal thing to do was graduate from high school and then get married. Clearly it was far more acceptable to go to college and choose a career, or at least that was the message in my early 90s gym class preparations that day.
I must have kept my mouth shut about my aspirations to become a housewife throughout the rest of my teenage years. I remember the topic of future careers coming up now and then in high school. Once I told a classmate that I was thinking about becoming a physical therapist. She laughed at me and said I wasn't smart enough to do that. As my classmates started applying for colleges, I tried to figure out how to leave the country. Eventually my mom told me I had to either get a job or go to college. I tried to get a job, but when that failed, I enrolled in the automotive program at my local community college. I liked working on cars and had completed 2 years' worth of training. (I had also just won a state competition for my automotive skills and was on my way to compete at nationals) One of the only things holding me back was my autoshop teacher. He told everyone to become a mechanic except me. He told me, "Kelsie, I don't know what you're supposed to become, but it's not a mechanic." That hurt me even though I knew he thought I was a good mechanic. Apparently he thought that if I became a mechanic I would be wasting all of my other skills.
When I started taking college classes, I decided to take general education courses before the mechanic classes. I took math, English composition and psychology that term. I think I got a C in psychology. I wasn't sure I wanted to go to college anymore, but I'd paid for a parking pass that was good for the whole year. I decided to stay for another quarter and figure it out. Eventually, someone approached me about taking an independent study course for German and then I gave up my mechanic plans.
Most days I am still surprised at myself for becoming a linguist and earning a PhD. I never wanted to go to college. I have clear memories of my classmates talking about their future college plans while dressing for gym class in middle school. Someone eventually asked me where I wanted to go to college and I said "I'm not going to college." I think everyone in the locker room stopped putting deoderant on and stared at me. I took all honors classes with the same group of girls. Not going to college? What are you going to do? Apparently I was the only person in my class who thought the normal thing to do was graduate from high school and then get married. Clearly it was far more acceptable to go to college and choose a career, or at least that was the message in my early 90s gym class preparations that day.
I must have kept my mouth shut about my aspirations to become a housewife throughout the rest of my teenage years. I remember the topic of future careers coming up now and then in high school. Once I told a classmate that I was thinking about becoming a physical therapist. She laughed at me and said I wasn't smart enough to do that. As my classmates started applying for colleges, I tried to figure out how to leave the country. Eventually my mom told me I had to either get a job or go to college. I tried to get a job, but when that failed, I enrolled in the automotive program at my local community college. I liked working on cars and had completed 2 years' worth of training. (I had also just won a state competition for my automotive skills and was on my way to compete at nationals) One of the only things holding me back was my autoshop teacher. He told everyone to become a mechanic except me. He told me, "Kelsie, I don't know what you're supposed to become, but it's not a mechanic." That hurt me even though I knew he thought I was a good mechanic. Apparently he thought that if I became a mechanic I would be wasting all of my other skills.
When I started taking college classes, I decided to take general education courses before the mechanic classes. I took math, English composition and psychology that term. I think I got a C in psychology. I wasn't sure I wanted to go to college anymore, but I'd paid for a parking pass that was good for the whole year. I decided to stay for another quarter and figure it out. Eventually, someone approached me about taking an independent study course for German and then I gave up my mechanic plans.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
On writing notes to myself
I tend to work on a lot of different tasks at the same time. On any given day, it's not unusual for me to be in the middle of 5 books, have 4 different knitting projects started, or a big to-do list for the day. In some ways, this helps me have something interesting to do (or a good excuse for a distraction) at any moment. On the other hand, it makes me seem incredibly scatter-brained. To help me remember what I'm supposed to do next, I often leave myself notes.
I use a lot of sticky notes. I leave myself notes on my computer monitor, on the walls surrounding my desk, in my notebooks for the classes I teach and in my mail box. I also send myself e-mails so that I don't forget to do something really important. It's not that I'm forgetful, I'm just easily distracted by things like bunnies, cake and a good conversation.
In working on Geraldine, I've found that I tend to write myself a lot of notes in the drafts of each of my chapters. It would be easy to use the comment feature of Word for leaving myself notes, but it requires me to click too many things and messes up my margins (which messes up my page count and the satisfaction that comes with writing another paragraph, page, or section). Instead, I write myself messages in bold throughout my chapter. What kinds of notes do I write to myself?
Things like:
- add more data here
- this sounds like crap, fix it later
- add an example from the green sticky note on my office wall here
- citation?
- dude, are you mental? That's not convincing...
- year?
- check spelling
- did that make any sense?
- do I need this?
Whenever I take a break from working on a chapter, the notes to myself are usually a big help. I also tend to leave myself an outline of what to work on next, such as explain x, y, and z. Sometimes my notes are very sarcastic, and they make me laugh. Other times, they require me to do more work than I feel like doing and they stick around for a long time. Since I put everything in bold, it's easy to find my notes and delete them before I give a copy to anyone for review.
With the exception of a few notes to myself, such as add a crap load of data from crazy Irish finger names here, I am finally done with chapter 5: Indo-European historical data. It`s been a pain to write, but I finally have a full draft to send off to Indy. THANK GOD! I also wrote the intro chapter. I hope Indy likes Valentine`s Day, because he`s about to receive an e-mail with a ton of files, including a complete draft of chapters 1-5. Perhaps the next note to myself should be: eat a cupcake.
I use a lot of sticky notes. I leave myself notes on my computer monitor, on the walls surrounding my desk, in my notebooks for the classes I teach and in my mail box. I also send myself e-mails so that I don't forget to do something really important. It's not that I'm forgetful, I'm just easily distracted by things like bunnies, cake and a good conversation.
In working on Geraldine, I've found that I tend to write myself a lot of notes in the drafts of each of my chapters. It would be easy to use the comment feature of Word for leaving myself notes, but it requires me to click too many things and messes up my margins (which messes up my page count and the satisfaction that comes with writing another paragraph, page, or section). Instead, I write myself messages in bold throughout my chapter. What kinds of notes do I write to myself?
Things like:
- add more data here
- this sounds like crap, fix it later
- add an example from the green sticky note on my office wall here
- citation?
- dude, are you mental? That's not convincing...
- year?
- check spelling
- did that make any sense?
- do I need this?
Whenever I take a break from working on a chapter, the notes to myself are usually a big help. I also tend to leave myself an outline of what to work on next, such as explain x, y, and z. Sometimes my notes are very sarcastic, and they make me laugh. Other times, they require me to do more work than I feel like doing and they stick around for a long time. Since I put everything in bold, it's easy to find my notes and delete them before I give a copy to anyone for review.
With the exception of a few notes to myself, such as add a crap load of data from crazy Irish finger names here, I am finally done with chapter 5: Indo-European historical data. It`s been a pain to write, but I finally have a full draft to send off to Indy. THANK GOD! I also wrote the intro chapter. I hope Indy likes Valentine`s Day, because he`s about to receive an e-mail with a ton of files, including a complete draft of chapters 1-5. Perhaps the next note to myself should be: eat a cupcake.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
On the light at the end of the tunnel
Ugh, 23 pages later and I finally have the majority of the data needed for my chapter on Indo-European historical developments completed. I have two more sections to write and a lot of editing, but the end is in sight and I am starting to feel relieved. I should be able to complete the rest of the chapter tomorrow and have a clean, clear chapter to send to Indy by Monday. Phew! To celebrate, I think I'm going to write my introduction chapter and get it out of the way.
Depending on how things go this weekend, I should have 5 of 8 chapter completed as of Monday. Who knew the best Valentine's Day gift this year would be completing more than half of the dissertation?
January was a rough month for me and February hasn't been that much better. It's already the end of the 3rd week of the semester and I am about a month behind where I wanted to be. A lot has been happening in my personal life over the last month and it has placed working on my dissertation at the bottom of my to-do list. I know that this is bad for my progress toward becoming Dr. Kelsie, but my mental and physical health during the last month have prevented me from sitting at the computer for hours on end. Once I got over the overwhelming urge to hide in bed for the whole day, I finally started to talk to my committee members about my progress (or lack there of). So far, everyone has been very supportive and helpful. One of my committee members, who studied under a famous guy named Krashen, told me that since "binge writing" (Krashen's term) is no longer working for me, try to add a few lines each day. It won't produce the same satisfaction of accomplishing tons of work, but it will complete my dissertation. I'm finding that if I start working first thing in the morning, I can manage to work for about 2 hours before my body decides it is time to stop for the day.
Surprisingly, Indy's support has been the best. He has been incredibly friendly and encouraging and my last conversations with him relieved a lot of my anxiety. The goal is still to graduate this semester, but if that doesn't happen, we'll work it out.
I applied for graduation last week and still hope that I'll have a complete rough draft by the end of spring break. If I finish my historical chapter and intro this weekend, I'll have 6 weeks to write 3 more chapters (including the conclusion, which should only take a day to write). Keep your fingers crossed that I can do it!
Depending on how things go this weekend, I should have 5 of 8 chapter completed as of Monday. Who knew the best Valentine's Day gift this year would be completing more than half of the dissertation?
January was a rough month for me and February hasn't been that much better. It's already the end of the 3rd week of the semester and I am about a month behind where I wanted to be. A lot has been happening in my personal life over the last month and it has placed working on my dissertation at the bottom of my to-do list. I know that this is bad for my progress toward becoming Dr. Kelsie, but my mental and physical health during the last month have prevented me from sitting at the computer for hours on end. Once I got over the overwhelming urge to hide in bed for the whole day, I finally started to talk to my committee members about my progress (or lack there of). So far, everyone has been very supportive and helpful. One of my committee members, who studied under a famous guy named Krashen, told me that since "binge writing" (Krashen's term) is no longer working for me, try to add a few lines each day. It won't produce the same satisfaction of accomplishing tons of work, but it will complete my dissertation. I'm finding that if I start working first thing in the morning, I can manage to work for about 2 hours before my body decides it is time to stop for the day.
Surprisingly, Indy's support has been the best. He has been incredibly friendly and encouraging and my last conversations with him relieved a lot of my anxiety. The goal is still to graduate this semester, but if that doesn't happen, we'll work it out.
I applied for graduation last week and still hope that I'll have a complete rough draft by the end of spring break. If I finish my historical chapter and intro this weekend, I'll have 6 weeks to write 3 more chapters (including the conclusion, which should only take a day to write). Keep your fingers crossed that I can do it!
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
On the Typical Daily Events of a PhD Student
Many people want to start graduate school and like to talk to me about it. Others wonder why I study something that doesn't have much a real world practicality. Sometimes I wonder why I thought graduate school would be fulfilling, but since starting my PhD, I've never had a moment that caused me to doubt my decision to return to school. I consider myself very lucky to have confidence in that decision. While working on my MA, I constantly doubted my choice to return to school. I think most of that was because I gave up a great job with good pay for an okay job with lousy pay in a state really far away from home. I took a year off before starting my PhD and once classes started, I had adjusted to where I live and was eagerly looking forward to having a different job.
My typical daily thoughts have changed slightly since starting this degree. In the beginning, I worried about things like finishing course work, having professors support my work, continued funding and whether or not my program would still exist by the time I defended my dissertation. By being patient with my department, most of these problems took care of themselves. The last year has brought on new worries, dilemnas and crazy thoughts. I thought it might be fun to give you a taste of what goes through my head on a regular basis on a typical day while writing my dissertation.
I check my e-mail every morning as soon as I get out of bed. This usually results in:
- reading a student e-mail
-feeling annoyed by student's e-mail
-finding out that my student fixed his/her own problems before I read the first e-mail
- feeling relieved that I don't have to do anything extra
- reading a job announcement
-considering moving to another continent
-reading about rabbit importation policies in other countries
-wondering if I even have time to apply for an academic job
-worrying about my CV and lack of publications
-reminding myself that I am not supposed to be applying for jobs
-feeling better
-reading about conference announcements
-reminding myself that it's time to work on Geraldine
-if nothing needs my immediate attention, I start working on Geraldine
Then, I go to my office. This usually results in:
-running into someone who asks me about my job hunt while walking to my office or the bathroom
-feeling frusterated about not having a job lined up
-feeling anxious about being unemployed as of June 1st, knowing that I do not qualify for unemployment
-figuring out how much money I need to set aside in order to pay my bills
-realizing that I don't make enough money to set aside anything extra to pay my bills
-30 minutes of panic mode
-reality check and reminder to calm down and work
-running across campus to teach a class
-meeting with a committee member
-feeling confident or completely clueless, depending on the committee member
-going to the library
-fighting with a librarian
-seeing a student on my way back to my office
-helping a student feel better
-reading, taking notes, and feeling productive
-writing for the next 4 hours
-realizing it's getting dark and time to go home
Then I usually talk to a friend or relative. They usually ask me about:
-my job hunt
-my family plans
-my committee members
-my progress on my dissertation
-a desire to drink lots of alcohol
Except for the alcohol, all of those topics result in 30 minutes of panic mode. Unfortunately consuming alcohol keeps me up at night, and then I go back into panic mode and I think about:
-I am going to be unemployed soon
-no one will hire me because I have no skills for regular jobs/ only have farm and teaching experience and I am over-educated
-I will never be able to have children
-if by some miracle I do ever have children, I will never earn tenure
-I still have to work on my dissertation
-when can I go on vacation?
As you can tell, it has been an overwhelming day. On productive days I feel confident and forget about everything else. Other days, I just want to go back to bed. My greatest comfort at this point is knowing that it will all be over soon. I also know that tomorrow will take care of itself, but it hasn't stopped me from going into panic mode daily for the last week or so. Ugh. Is it bedtime yet?
My typical daily thoughts have changed slightly since starting this degree. In the beginning, I worried about things like finishing course work, having professors support my work, continued funding and whether or not my program would still exist by the time I defended my dissertation. By being patient with my department, most of these problems took care of themselves. The last year has brought on new worries, dilemnas and crazy thoughts. I thought it might be fun to give you a taste of what goes through my head on a regular basis on a typical day while writing my dissertation.
I check my e-mail every morning as soon as I get out of bed. This usually results in:
- reading a student e-mail
-feeling annoyed by student's e-mail
-finding out that my student fixed his/her own problems before I read the first e-mail
- feeling relieved that I don't have to do anything extra
- reading a job announcement
-considering moving to another continent
-reading about rabbit importation policies in other countries
-wondering if I even have time to apply for an academic job
-worrying about my CV and lack of publications
-reminding myself that I am not supposed to be applying for jobs
-feeling better
-reading about conference announcements
-reminding myself that it's time to work on Geraldine
-if nothing needs my immediate attention, I start working on Geraldine
Then, I go to my office. This usually results in:
-running into someone who asks me about my job hunt while walking to my office or the bathroom
-feeling frusterated about not having a job lined up
-feeling anxious about being unemployed as of June 1st, knowing that I do not qualify for unemployment
-figuring out how much money I need to set aside in order to pay my bills
-realizing that I don't make enough money to set aside anything extra to pay my bills
-30 minutes of panic mode
-reality check and reminder to calm down and work
-running across campus to teach a class
-meeting with a committee member
-feeling confident or completely clueless, depending on the committee member
-going to the library
-fighting with a librarian
-seeing a student on my way back to my office
-helping a student feel better
-reading, taking notes, and feeling productive
-writing for the next 4 hours
-realizing it's getting dark and time to go home
Then I usually talk to a friend or relative. They usually ask me about:
-my job hunt
-my family plans
-my committee members
-my progress on my dissertation
-a desire to drink lots of alcohol
Except for the alcohol, all of those topics result in 30 minutes of panic mode. Unfortunately consuming alcohol keeps me up at night, and then I go back into panic mode and I think about:
-I am going to be unemployed soon
-no one will hire me because I have no skills for regular jobs/ only have farm and teaching experience and I am over-educated
-I will never be able to have children
-if by some miracle I do ever have children, I will never earn tenure
-I still have to work on my dissertation
-when can I go on vacation?
As you can tell, it has been an overwhelming day. On productive days I feel confident and forget about everything else. Other days, I just want to go back to bed. My greatest comfort at this point is knowing that it will all be over soon. I also know that tomorrow will take care of itself, but it hasn't stopped me from going into panic mode daily for the last week or so. Ugh. Is it bedtime yet?
Saturday, January 26, 2013
On Lacking Motivation
It's the end of January and for the last two weeks or so, I've found myself feeling a loss of words, ideas, and desire to write. I keep trying to force myself to write something, but each time I sit at the computer, I just stare at it. I end up either reading bogus articles online that don't help my anxiety or watching episodes of Monk. I've tried to disable my internet so that I can't look at junk online, but whenever I open my current chapter to try to write something, (anything really) I can't. I get overwhelmed by my data and can't figure out what to do. I'd like to blame it on other things, such as not wanting to leave my house because it's -3 degrees outside, I'm sick and don't want to change out of my yoga pants, I don't feel like packing a lunch to go to my office, and so on and so forth. The truth is this chapter is just really boring and I don't have motivation to write it. My data is difficult and I can't work on any other aspect of my dissertation until I finish this darn chapter.
I shouldn't be surprised that this current chapter is difficult to write. I spent all summer copying entries from dictionaries onto note cards to find patterns. It was the most tedious part of my life as a graduate student. The miserable summer weather kept me from being motivated to work quicker so that I could get past the boring part of data collection. Now I am writing the chapter that presents the same data and once again, the weather sucks and my task seems incredibly dull.
After speaking to one of my committee members about my trouble explaining my data, he told me to just write the facts. The nice thing about data is that even when it is confusing, there is always something to explain. I grouped my data into patterns months ago, but until a few days ago, I couldn't seem to write anything about it. So I followed my committee member's advice and just started writing the facts. I now have roughly 9 pages of languages A, B, and C show strong examples of the change from terms meaning 'bone' to 'leg'. Language D possibly shows it and language E does not. I got through describing the first major pattern in my data and have three more to explain. This chapter is going to take forever to write and I only have until Thursday to finish it. Ugh.
The last time I met with Indy, we scheduled my defense date: April 26th at 10:00am. Indy wanted it to be in the afternoon, but I said that I didn't want to spend the whole day waiting for my defense. 10:00 it is (unless the other committee members have a conflict). I have to apply for graduation before February 5th and that means needing to finalize Geraldine's title. Again, I have no motivation to think of one. I need to give a complete draft of my dissertation to Indy by the end of spring break, which means I have 2 months to write 4 chapters and make my appendix user-friendly. It's crunch time and the only thing I feel like doing is sitting on my couch so that I can stare off into space.
Motivation, where have you gone? Please come back, I need you!
I shouldn't be surprised that this current chapter is difficult to write. I spent all summer copying entries from dictionaries onto note cards to find patterns. It was the most tedious part of my life as a graduate student. The miserable summer weather kept me from being motivated to work quicker so that I could get past the boring part of data collection. Now I am writing the chapter that presents the same data and once again, the weather sucks and my task seems incredibly dull.
After speaking to one of my committee members about my trouble explaining my data, he told me to just write the facts. The nice thing about data is that even when it is confusing, there is always something to explain. I grouped my data into patterns months ago, but until a few days ago, I couldn't seem to write anything about it. So I followed my committee member's advice and just started writing the facts. I now have roughly 9 pages of languages A, B, and C show strong examples of the change from terms meaning 'bone' to 'leg'. Language D possibly shows it and language E does not. I got through describing the first major pattern in my data and have three more to explain. This chapter is going to take forever to write and I only have until Thursday to finish it. Ugh.
The last time I met with Indy, we scheduled my defense date: April 26th at 10:00am. Indy wanted it to be in the afternoon, but I said that I didn't want to spend the whole day waiting for my defense. 10:00 it is (unless the other committee members have a conflict). I have to apply for graduation before February 5th and that means needing to finalize Geraldine's title. Again, I have no motivation to think of one. I need to give a complete draft of my dissertation to Indy by the end of spring break, which means I have 2 months to write 4 chapters and make my appendix user-friendly. It's crunch time and the only thing I feel like doing is sitting on my couch so that I can stare off into space.
Motivation, where have you gone? Please come back, I need you!
Friday, January 11, 2013
On the Glorious Magic of Bibliographic Software
My week wasn't much fun, but it was productive. Since last writing, I contacted the Australian linguist with whom my work overlaps and received a friendly e-mail back with scanned copies of his 1981 BA thesis. Wow. I don't have copies of any papers I wrote as an undergrad, nor would I want anyone to read them! Turns out he's friendly and appreciated the trip down research memory lane. He also answered my questions. To say thank you, I sent him two chapters of Geraldine and a copy of my prelim paper so he could see what kind of loony work I'm up to.
I have overcome the disappointment of discovering my dissertation is no longer unique. I read the 1981 thesis (which was more than 250 pages long not including references) and was amazed by the conclusions. Pure genius (and not just because they're the same conclusions I've been making for the last 5 years). Great explanations, great examples, and great data. My research methods differ and I have slightly different research goals. It turns out I won't have to change that much after all, and I have someone else's work to help establish mine as a legit, and valid piece of linguistic research. Phew!
I completely re-wrote my abstract for a third time and ultimately decided to present a different aspect of my data. We'll see what happens.
I had a typical short encounter with Indi that resulted with me feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated and full of questions. What else is new. Some exciting phrases he threw out to me were "research slave", "waste of time" and "it will eventually bore you." To top it off, he griped about teaching a short-term class that any TA in my department would have been happy to teach had we been given the chance. And he's using my materials to teach it. Thanks Indi, I love you too.
Despite the roller coaster ride from stress hell this week provided, it's ending on a positive note. I worked in my office last night until 8:30 before coming home only to enjoy dollar tacos and $2 beer at a neighborhood bar with Hubby. I woke up refreshed and determined to start writing my literature review chapter. I've been working non-stop for 8 hours and wrote 7 pages from scratch. I also outlined the rest of the chapter and think I will finish a complete draft by Monday night. I just might make my writing goal for the month after all, but it's going to take a lot of 12+ hour work days. The biggest help in writing this chapter has been my large collection of abstracts that I wrote about every article I read last winter and spring. My annotated bibliography is about 80 pages long and it made it easy to find what I needed to write the chapter. Likewise, the hours I spent entering data into my bibliographic software made it super easy to create the full bibliographic references for the chapter. Since it's a lit review chapter, there are a lot of references. I literally only had to click a button and the program inserted my references for me AND sorted them alphabetically. I still have to proof read it all and make small changes, but it save me a lot of time. What can I say? It pays to be organized and anal. So far, my references make up 4 pages at the end of the chapter. At one point this evening when pressing the button for another reference to magically appear in my Word document, I exclaimed to Hubby, "this is fun!". He didn't respond, but he must have been thinking "Man, you need a life!" Don't worry, Hubby. It's the weekend and I might have some free time for something more exciting, such as riding a Thoroughbred tomorrow morning.
I have overcome the disappointment of discovering my dissertation is no longer unique. I read the 1981 thesis (which was more than 250 pages long not including references) and was amazed by the conclusions. Pure genius (and not just because they're the same conclusions I've been making for the last 5 years). Great explanations, great examples, and great data. My research methods differ and I have slightly different research goals. It turns out I won't have to change that much after all, and I have someone else's work to help establish mine as a legit, and valid piece of linguistic research. Phew!
I completely re-wrote my abstract for a third time and ultimately decided to present a different aspect of my data. We'll see what happens.
I had a typical short encounter with Indi that resulted with me feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated and full of questions. What else is new. Some exciting phrases he threw out to me were "research slave", "waste of time" and "it will eventually bore you." To top it off, he griped about teaching a short-term class that any TA in my department would have been happy to teach had we been given the chance. And he's using my materials to teach it. Thanks Indi, I love you too.
Despite the roller coaster ride from stress hell this week provided, it's ending on a positive note. I worked in my office last night until 8:30 before coming home only to enjoy dollar tacos and $2 beer at a neighborhood bar with Hubby. I woke up refreshed and determined to start writing my literature review chapter. I've been working non-stop for 8 hours and wrote 7 pages from scratch. I also outlined the rest of the chapter and think I will finish a complete draft by Monday night. I just might make my writing goal for the month after all, but it's going to take a lot of 12+ hour work days. The biggest help in writing this chapter has been my large collection of abstracts that I wrote about every article I read last winter and spring. My annotated bibliography is about 80 pages long and it made it easy to find what I needed to write the chapter. Likewise, the hours I spent entering data into my bibliographic software made it super easy to create the full bibliographic references for the chapter. Since it's a lit review chapter, there are a lot of references. I literally only had to click a button and the program inserted my references for me AND sorted them alphabetically. I still have to proof read it all and make small changes, but it save me a lot of time. What can I say? It pays to be organized and anal. So far, my references make up 4 pages at the end of the chapter. At one point this evening when pressing the button for another reference to magically appear in my Word document, I exclaimed to Hubby, "this is fun!". He didn't respond, but he must have been thinking "Man, you need a life!" Don't worry, Hubby. It's the weekend and I might have some free time for something more exciting, such as riding a Thoroughbred tomorrow morning.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
On things looking better in the morning
I woke up angry this morning. Angry that someone else did the same research as me. Angry that I didn't find out about it sooner. Angry that I had to read another thesis before writing anything. Angry that I have to start teaching again in 2 weeks but I still have 2 chapters to write if I want to meet my goal. Angry that I have to rewrite my abstract again, and angry that I'm not going to meet my chapter goal. And then I got over it (riding a horse and an acupuncture appointment helped).
I checked in with a librarian today to help me find the 1981 thesis. It turns out that no library in the world has a copy of it because it was never published. This means I'm not in the dog house for not knowing about this research. Instead, I get to write about this other guy's work and explain how mine is similar, but still contributes more to the general discussion of lexical typology and semantic change (my research topics). The library gave me the e-mail address for the researcher who has been causing me grief for the last 24 hours. At first, I thought I wouldn't e-mail him because I didn't want to read another thesis. If it wasn't published, I'm not responsible for it, right? And then I got over myself and decided I had a few questions about the chapter I read last night, so I e-mailed him anyways. I introduced myself, explained my research, and asked a bunch of questions. This is exactly why I didn't want to become an academic when I started graduate school: the fear that some day someone would contact me with questions about something I wrote 20+ years ago. Now that I own a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, my opinion has changed. Go ahead, ask me questions. I certainly will contact you and ask you questions if you wrote something that's not clear. I do it all the time (and sometimes I get responses). This is almost like sending fan mail to a movie star. Only in academia we don't get autographed headshots. Instead, we get to cite someone in our paper with "personal correspondence". With any luck I will get a response by this weekend and still have time to change my abstract before submitting it on Monday.
In general, I feel better about my dissertation than I did last night. It is not as gloom and doom as I thought it would be. There are plenty of differences between my work and this other guy's, and now I have someone else to cite and blame my ideas on. (It's always nice to be able to blame someone else for one's own ideas when another questions them.)
To get my mind off of the additional work I have ahead of me, I read my e-mail. My friend sent me a call for applications to a program called Breath of Life. Some of my friends have participated in this program in the past and it sounds like a lot of fun, so I applied. If selected, I'll spend 2 weeks in DC working with American Indians on a language revitalization project. At first, the application looked really short and it didn't require references, so I decided to apply today. Then, after selecting "linguist" instead of "American Indian", the application became longer and I had to provide more information (included references). I should have stopped there and talked to my references first, but I just wrote down the contact information for two of my committee members and e-mailed them after the fact. I'm not sure how they'll feel about that, but oh well. I decided to be impulsive for once. Maybe I'll have something fun to do after defending my dissertation this spring and add another line to my CV before applying for jobs. (PS, one of my references just e-mailed me and wrote "what a great opportunity!" I guess she doesn't mind)
I checked in with a librarian today to help me find the 1981 thesis. It turns out that no library in the world has a copy of it because it was never published. This means I'm not in the dog house for not knowing about this research. Instead, I get to write about this other guy's work and explain how mine is similar, but still contributes more to the general discussion of lexical typology and semantic change (my research topics). The library gave me the e-mail address for the researcher who has been causing me grief for the last 24 hours. At first, I thought I wouldn't e-mail him because I didn't want to read another thesis. If it wasn't published, I'm not responsible for it, right? And then I got over myself and decided I had a few questions about the chapter I read last night, so I e-mailed him anyways. I introduced myself, explained my research, and asked a bunch of questions. This is exactly why I didn't want to become an academic when I started graduate school: the fear that some day someone would contact me with questions about something I wrote 20+ years ago. Now that I own a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, my opinion has changed. Go ahead, ask me questions. I certainly will contact you and ask you questions if you wrote something that's not clear. I do it all the time (and sometimes I get responses). This is almost like sending fan mail to a movie star. Only in academia we don't get autographed headshots. Instead, we get to cite someone in our paper with "personal correspondence". With any luck I will get a response by this weekend and still have time to change my abstract before submitting it on Monday.
In general, I feel better about my dissertation than I did last night. It is not as gloom and doom as I thought it would be. There are plenty of differences between my work and this other guy's, and now I have someone else to cite and blame my ideas on. (It's always nice to be able to blame someone else for one's own ideas when another questions them.)
To get my mind off of the additional work I have ahead of me, I read my e-mail. My friend sent me a call for applications to a program called Breath of Life. Some of my friends have participated in this program in the past and it sounds like a lot of fun, so I applied. If selected, I'll spend 2 weeks in DC working with American Indians on a language revitalization project. At first, the application looked really short and it didn't require references, so I decided to apply today. Then, after selecting "linguist" instead of "American Indian", the application became longer and I had to provide more information (included references). I should have stopped there and talked to my references first, but I just wrote down the contact information for two of my committee members and e-mailed them after the fact. I'm not sure how they'll feel about that, but oh well. I decided to be impulsive for once. Maybe I'll have something fun to do after defending my dissertation this spring and add another line to my CV before applying for jobs. (PS, one of my references just e-mailed me and wrote "what a great opportunity!" I guess she doesn't mind)
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
On fighting the urge to bang my head against the wall
With my abstract pending and a to-do list consisting of a lit
review and a historical linguistic data chapter to write before my semester
break ends, I decided to read a few articles that have been sitting in a file
on my laptop for who-knows-how-long. Perhaps I should have made it more of a
priority to read these articles earlier. I came across a reference in one of
those articles that sounded very close to my research. The reference was a
chapter in book that I fortunately found in the university library this
afternoon. Instead of reading the chapter immediately in my study carrel, I
socialized with my friends who were also on campus.
Deciding that I needed to accomplish more dissertation tasks
than knitting a second sock, I picked up the chapter. Despite years of spending
the entire day reading, knitting a second sock is more exciting than a 40-page
chapter. But read I did, and behold, some smart lame-o in Australia wrote an
honors thesis on half of what my dissertation focuses on... in 1981. His work
is older than me! And why didn’t I read about it until today? Because he used
the phrase “parts of a person” rather than “body parts”, so his work never
showed up in any of my searches for literature. How many other papers are there
out there on parts of a person that I
don’t know about?!? Ugh. And his conclusions are eerily similar to what I have
been claiming all along. Double ugh! And
he used historical data from 4 language families when my data only come from
one (and he used the same one). Luckily he doesn’t have a cross-linguistic
database with more than 150 languages in it too, or I’d really be screwed.
The good news is I found out about this work now and not
after defending my dissertation. The bad news is I have a lot more reading,
searching and data analyzing to do than I thought. AND I think I’ll have to rewrite my abstract.... again.
Time to find a wall against which I can bang my head. Ugh.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Revisions, Take One
I received comments on my abstract yesterday and spent the morning revising. That ultimately meant rewriting the entire thing. One would think that writing a page would be easier than writing a chapter, but it's not. Once again I am satisfied with the resulting version of my abstract, but the revision process was ugly.
Problem 1: The comments I received sounded much better than my writing. I couldn't come up with something new without using the same words my reviewer sent me. I managed to create my own version, but only with a constant temptation to just copy and paste what Dumbeldore wrote. Ugh. As an undergrad, other people's work always sounded better than mine, so why should it be any surprising when my mentor, who has 40 years' more experience in this field than me, describes my work and it sounds better than when I do it? Even if it`s not surprising, it's still annoying to try to come up with another way to describe the exact same thing.
Problem 2: Hubby's sub assignment for the day was cancelled. There was a glitch in the computer system, and two people were assigned the same sub job. The error was not in Hubby's favor, so he came home 7 hours before I expected him to. I should have gone to my office to work today, but since I thought I'd have the house to myself, I stayed home. Wrong choice. Instead of focusing on my abstract revisions, I blamed my lack of progress on every noise that Hubby made: opening doors, closing doors, jump roping outside, eating broccoli in the other room, and so on. Now I understand why he hated studying at home. Once Hubby finally left the house, I finished my abstract revisions.
Problem 3: Constantly changing the language settings on my computer. To type in special characters for linguistics (called IPA), I change the language setting on my computer to Icelandic. I'm not actually typing with an Icelandic keyboard, but my program for typing in IPA is set to Icelandic. This is not a problem. The problem is that whenever I switch back to English (which makes typing in English easier), I keep hitting a mysterious shortcut that switches my language setting to Canadian French. I never notice that it changes until I try to type single quotes, which end up looking European instead of English. Today I had to switch language settings at least 50 times. Not really that big of a problem, but annoying just the same.
I finally finished revisions, grabbed Indi's comments about my chapters, and ran out the door for an indoor plant conservatory. Entrance is free for county residents on Mondays as long as it's before 12:00. I arrived at 11:58 and the person manning the front desk still let me in for free. Yay! I sat in a humid, tropical world until my frustrations levels went down enough to read Indi's comments. 50 pages of text later, I felt relaxed and pleased to know that Indi's set of revisions for my chapters were much easier than Dumbledore's revisions for my abstract. Now to just take care of them so I can start Geraldine Chapter 3 tomorrow.
Problem 1: The comments I received sounded much better than my writing. I couldn't come up with something new without using the same words my reviewer sent me. I managed to create my own version, but only with a constant temptation to just copy and paste what Dumbeldore wrote. Ugh. As an undergrad, other people's work always sounded better than mine, so why should it be any surprising when my mentor, who has 40 years' more experience in this field than me, describes my work and it sounds better than when I do it? Even if it`s not surprising, it's still annoying to try to come up with another way to describe the exact same thing.
Problem 2: Hubby's sub assignment for the day was cancelled. There was a glitch in the computer system, and two people were assigned the same sub job. The error was not in Hubby's favor, so he came home 7 hours before I expected him to. I should have gone to my office to work today, but since I thought I'd have the house to myself, I stayed home. Wrong choice. Instead of focusing on my abstract revisions, I blamed my lack of progress on every noise that Hubby made: opening doors, closing doors, jump roping outside, eating broccoli in the other room, and so on. Now I understand why he hated studying at home. Once Hubby finally left the house, I finished my abstract revisions.
Problem 3: Constantly changing the language settings on my computer. To type in special characters for linguistics (called IPA), I change the language setting on my computer to Icelandic. I'm not actually typing with an Icelandic keyboard, but my program for typing in IPA is set to Icelandic. This is not a problem. The problem is that whenever I switch back to English (which makes typing in English easier), I keep hitting a mysterious shortcut that switches my language setting to Canadian French. I never notice that it changes until I try to type single quotes, which end up looking European instead of English. Today I had to switch language settings at least 50 times. Not really that big of a problem, but annoying just the same.
I finally finished revisions, grabbed Indi's comments about my chapters, and ran out the door for an indoor plant conservatory. Entrance is free for county residents on Mondays as long as it's before 12:00. I arrived at 11:58 and the person manning the front desk still let me in for free. Yay! I sat in a humid, tropical world until my frustrations levels went down enough to read Indi's comments. 50 pages of text later, I felt relaxed and pleased to know that Indi's set of revisions for my chapters were much easier than Dumbledore's revisions for my abstract. Now to just take care of them so I can start Geraldine Chapter 3 tomorrow.
Friday, January 4, 2013
On Writing Another Abstract
My linguistic subfield has a really big conference every two years. This year it is in Germany whereas last time it was in Hong Kong. I submitted an abstract two years ago and it was rejected. :-( Instead of moping, I enjoyed a 10-week intensive language program paid for by the US government. This summer I plan to enjoy a long vacation and am determined to have my abstract accepted so that the long vacation will take place overseas instead of in my parents' backyard. I also plan to tour the conference facilities and make a positive impression on a huge hosting institute that I would like to work for at some point in my career.
In the past, I wrote my abstracts quickly, reviewed them a few days later, then submitted them before I could change my mind. Most of the time this method has worked just fine, but after a few rejections, I've learned to take more time and think about every word included in the abstract. Today's struggles mostly consisted of writing a persuading description of my work and looking for good examples. After I finished the darn thing, I then had to shorten it because the call for papers description limits the abstract to 500 words or one page. Hmmm... does that mean I can have either more than one page if it's under 500 words or more than 500 words as long as it fits on one page?
With references, I failed both requirements (and that has never been a problem in the past when writing abstracts). I read past accepted abstracts for this conference and found there is a lot of variation. Some people use a really small font size and others flirt with danger and ignore the specifications. Some leave out references and others include them. Most calls specify preferences for references and data. Sometimes these are included in the page/word counts, and other times they aren't. Hmmm... In the end, I kept my references and shortened my text so that everything, including the title, is 498 words. My references make up a second page. One would think that it wouldn't really matter, but the conference is in Germany, so it might matter... I read a previous abstract by the current conference organizer. He included a word count (499) in his abstract. I figured I should have one word less than him. :-)
My call deadline is in 10 days. I will send my abstract by the 11th, but am waiting to hear feedback from a few others before I take the final risk and click 'send', then keep my fingers crossed until Feb. 28th. At least I can cross this task off of my to-do list and resume chapter writing and take a break from thinking about a summer filled with Fanta and Doener Kabobs (but oh how I would like to taste Knoblauchsosse once again...).
In the past, I wrote my abstracts quickly, reviewed them a few days later, then submitted them before I could change my mind. Most of the time this method has worked just fine, but after a few rejections, I've learned to take more time and think about every word included in the abstract. Today's struggles mostly consisted of writing a persuading description of my work and looking for good examples. After I finished the darn thing, I then had to shorten it because the call for papers description limits the abstract to 500 words or one page. Hmmm... does that mean I can have either more than one page if it's under 500 words or more than 500 words as long as it fits on one page?
With references, I failed both requirements (and that has never been a problem in the past when writing abstracts). I read past accepted abstracts for this conference and found there is a lot of variation. Some people use a really small font size and others flirt with danger and ignore the specifications. Some leave out references and others include them. Most calls specify preferences for references and data. Sometimes these are included in the page/word counts, and other times they aren't. Hmmm... In the end, I kept my references and shortened my text so that everything, including the title, is 498 words. My references make up a second page. One would think that it wouldn't really matter, but the conference is in Germany, so it might matter... I read a previous abstract by the current conference organizer. He included a word count (499) in his abstract. I figured I should have one word less than him. :-)
My call deadline is in 10 days. I will send my abstract by the 11th, but am waiting to hear feedback from a few others before I take the final risk and click 'send', then keep my fingers crossed until Feb. 28th. At least I can cross this task off of my to-do list and resume chapter writing and take a break from thinking about a summer filled with Fanta and Doener Kabobs (but oh how I would like to taste Knoblauchsosse once again...).
Thursday, January 3, 2013
On the First Bits of Feedback
I usually don't post twice in a day, but I just saw this e-mail and decided to share. I've been waiting for it for a month. My first bit of feedback regarding my theoretical background and methods chapters are positive. Woohoo!
Kelsie,When I saw that I had an e-mail, I thought I might avoid it. But then I took a deep breath and am pleased that I read it. I think I'll rest easy tonight and enjoy carrying out my plans for the month. Yay for positive feedback!
I put your first two chapters in your mailbox today. There are many small comments. The main concern I have is that you might want to supply a few more examples as you move along. Also, I have some minor questions about your data. We can talk whenever. All in all, I think it looks pretty good.
Best,
Indi
Happy Birthday, Geraldine!
Geraldine's a whole year old (or at least, my daily committment to my dissertation has lasted a whole year). Since I started collecting data for this project in 2007, the year old part isn't exactly valid. But with any luck, Geraldine won't make it to two years old without being signed, sealed and delivered (signed by my committee members, sealed in a bound book and delivered to the graduate school, the library special collections and my personal bookshelf.) After a year of research ups and downs, I'm relieved to be able to say happy birthday, Geraldine!
I took a week and a half off from touching my dissertation between Christmas and New Year's. It was very difficult at times not to open a file related to Geraldine, but I managed to avoid the temptation to work. Of course that didn't prevent me from thinking about Geraldine, feeling guilty, or planning my next moves... but I successfully abstained from work for 10 days. Opening my files again yesterday was a relief, although the 10 days off meant that I had to relocate files and figure out how I'd named everything. I suppose this is another example of why file naming and metadata conventions are so important. Way to not follow the rules, Kelsie. Oops.
My two work days this week have been fruitful. I finished sorting through a huge chunk of data and have solid notes. I managed to complete the necessary background work for two tasks at once and I think I'm well on my way to having another chapter outlined in giant stickynotes. Soon my notes will contribute to my slow but steady take over my office walls and my office will closely resemble a scene from a detective series. Remind me to take pictures once that happens. I already took over the wall next to my desk and am out of room, so it's time to expand to another wall. I think I'll attack the bulletin board next. Good thing my office mates will be out until the end of the month.
Tomorrow I'll head back to my office. I worked from home yesterday and today. With notes in hand, I'm ready to complete my coveted abstract and then start writing my literature review. Up to now, I didn't think I'd meet my goals for break. But, as it always seems to go, once I finished looking at individual cases for my data and was able to see the large picture, everything fell into place and what I thought would be problematic isn't. (I love when that happens.) By the end of the month I expect to have completed drafts of two more chapters, a detailed outline of a third chapter, and an abstract or two submitted to summer conferences in Europe. That will result in having 2/3 of the dissertation completed.
But enough planning for the month ahead of me, now it's time to reflect on what I've done in a year. Since Jan. 2 2012, I:
I took a week and a half off from touching my dissertation between Christmas and New Year's. It was very difficult at times not to open a file related to Geraldine, but I managed to avoid the temptation to work. Of course that didn't prevent me from thinking about Geraldine, feeling guilty, or planning my next moves... but I successfully abstained from work for 10 days. Opening my files again yesterday was a relief, although the 10 days off meant that I had to relocate files and figure out how I'd named everything. I suppose this is another example of why file naming and metadata conventions are so important. Way to not follow the rules, Kelsie. Oops.
My two work days this week have been fruitful. I finished sorting through a huge chunk of data and have solid notes. I managed to complete the necessary background work for two tasks at once and I think I'm well on my way to having another chapter outlined in giant stickynotes. Soon my notes will contribute to my slow but steady take over my office walls and my office will closely resemble a scene from a detective series. Remind me to take pictures once that happens. I already took over the wall next to my desk and am out of room, so it's time to expand to another wall. I think I'll attack the bulletin board next. Good thing my office mates will be out until the end of the month.
Tomorrow I'll head back to my office. I worked from home yesterday and today. With notes in hand, I'm ready to complete my coveted abstract and then start writing my literature review. Up to now, I didn't think I'd meet my goals for break. But, as it always seems to go, once I finished looking at individual cases for my data and was able to see the large picture, everything fell into place and what I thought would be problematic isn't. (I love when that happens.) By the end of the month I expect to have completed drafts of two more chapters, a detailed outline of a third chapter, and an abstract or two submitted to summer conferences in Europe. That will result in having 2/3 of the dissertation completed.
But enough planning for the month ahead of me, now it's time to reflect on what I've done in a year. Since Jan. 2 2012, I:
- expanded my database from 38 to 160 languages
- read about 300 chapters/articles for background research
- lost all of my files associated with those 300 chapters/articles
- recovered most of my files associated with those 300 chapters/articles
- survived 3 computer crashes
- presented at two conferences, a colloquium, and a lecture series
- competed for and won the university's dissertation award
- wrote and successfully defended my dissertation proposal
- learned enough about pragmatics and semantics to convince other linguists that I actually had training in these two subfields
- reworked the entire theoretical framwork of my dissertation
- gained weight
- learned two new computer programs for database design and maintenance
- completely reprogramed my database from scratch
- read about 300 dictionaries
- learned to read Greek
- hand copied near a thousand etymologies onto note cards
- fought with the library about a hundred times
- lost the weight I gained (I think it was the food poisoning that helped with that one)
- taught two new classes
- used about a million sticky notes
- wrote two chapters, front matter and back matter of the dissertation
- suvived the emotional turmoil of a year of dissertation status without giving up, even when everything seemed really, really hopeless
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