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?
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
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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