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
That is an impressive list of accomplishments for the year. Just compiling the list of accomplishments is an accomplishment in itself!
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