Lately I fell stressed. Even when I am doing something relaxing, I can feel an underlying tension that I don't think will go away until after I defend.
Some days, I get to my office all wound up and excited to get to work. But it's like anxiously waiting to start a race, hearing the gun, and then running in circles instead of following the course towards the finish.
Other days are much, much better. On those days, I get a lot accomplished, enjoy my work, and have a good time with my coworkers.
As I get down to the wire, the good days need to far outweigh the bad. I want to finish in the fall term, and I have a lot of work left to do. I guess there is a chance I could take another semester. That's unappealing -- I've already done that more than once and really, I think this thing will just expand to fill the time I give it.
So when I look in the mirror these days, I see someone bound and determined to finish her dissertation. I revisited the Dissertation Coach's advice the other day and made a timeline for the work I need to do, week by week. It's tight, but I think if I focus I can stay on schedule and finish without panicking towards the end. Every day needs to count; every day I need to arrive at work knowing specifically what I need to do. I see a person who will pull this off and not write a sloppy dissertation that was finished in a hurry*. My committee may have questions about my research, but it's not going to be because I wrote a crappy dissertation**.
*yes, I know no one else will read my dissertation, but each chapter will eventually get published as an independent paper, so I don't want it to suck.
**it will be because of the very limited replication in my experimental design.
scientiae-carnival
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
The missing piece
You may recall that I am writing each of my chapters as separate, stand-alone papers that will be compiled into a dissertation by the addition of an introductory chapter and a synthetic conclusion chapter. Anyhow, I have been working on the Chapter 3 Paper and feeling kind of blah about it. The results are solid and will be valuable down the line for modelers, but by itself this paper was seeming kind of confirmatory. That's okay, I guess, since I'm planning to submit it to a specialist journal, but I was hoping for more out of this study.
Last night I obtained some supplementary data from a colleague. That allowed me to do some extra calculations and then bust out a figure that shows some very cool relationships among my results. This is the piece that was missing, the thing that will help tie everything together. What's more, it will better anchor my findings to the recent literature. I think the paper will be much more interesting now. yay.
Last night I obtained some supplementary data from a colleague. That allowed me to do some extra calculations and then bust out a figure that shows some very cool relationships among my results. This is the piece that was missing, the thing that will help tie everything together. What's more, it will better anchor my findings to the recent literature. I think the paper will be much more interesting now. yay.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
nom nom nom
EGM's friends came to visit a few weeks ago, and they came bearing many packages of delicious sweets from Far Off Land. There were some lollies candies and whole load of biscuits cookies. EGM has been saying forever that American cookies* suck compared to the ones from Far Off Land, with Oreos as his primary example. I've tried to explain that Oreos conjure many comforting childhood memories rather than being high-brow treats, but he doesn't get it. Anyway, I sampled the cookies if FOL when I went there a few years ago, but I didn't try the variety that we've had lately. Wow! They're great! The best is this one kind that's like a Twix but with a better texture and nicer chocolate. I think I have to concede that FOL cookies are indeed better than the U.S. ones. Perhaps we should think about that as we consider potential postdoc locations...
*I'd like to note that we're only talking about relatively inexpensive supermarket cookies, not fancy gourmet ones.
*I'd like to note that we're only talking about relatively inexpensive supermarket cookies, not fancy gourmet ones.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Sigh...
I've been pretty quiet lately. Things have been busy. We had friends visiting from Far Off Land for a couple of weeks, went to an out-of-town wedding, and have been working later recently. I could have made time to blog, but I just haven't felt compelled to write. Each evening I feel more interested in reading other blogs than in writing my own. Anyway, I thought I'd check in at least. I have some posts in mind - maybe I'll get them written soon.
I think my posting hiatus started with the realization of how little time I have left to finish my dissertation. I panicked a little bit, then worked out a timeline for completing each chapter. That helped, but I need to stay focused and crank up the hours to get it all done. Between deadline fears and cessation of carpooling, I've been really productive, but that has left little bandwidth at the end of the day for blogging. I'd like to let you know, though, that I am working on the last of my lab work which should be mostly done in the next 2 (or maybe 3) weeks; I completed the revisions on my revise and resubmit and am waiting for my advisors to comment (have been waiting for >4 weeks); I have rewritten big chunks of the next paper; and finally, I have written the methods section for the paper that will come from the current lab work. So I've been doing lots of things, just not blogging.
All this has made me very tense, however. I think the venting I do on blog helps that, so I will try to get back in the habit.
I think my posting hiatus started with the realization of how little time I have left to finish my dissertation. I panicked a little bit, then worked out a timeline for completing each chapter. That helped, but I need to stay focused and crank up the hours to get it all done. Between deadline fears and cessation of carpooling, I've been really productive, but that has left little bandwidth at the end of the day for blogging. I'd like to let you know, though, that I am working on the last of my lab work which should be mostly done in the next 2 (or maybe 3) weeks; I completed the revisions on my revise and resubmit and am waiting for my advisors to comment (have been waiting for >4 weeks); I have rewritten big chunks of the next paper; and finally, I have written the methods section for the paper that will come from the current lab work. So I've been doing lots of things, just not blogging.
All this has made me very tense, however. I think the venting I do on blog helps that, so I will try to get back in the habit.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Yum
A while back, I commented at Sciencegirl's place that we wanted to learn to cook Indian food. EGM has become obsessed really into it, and we have been practicing curries and such for the past several weeks. This chicken korma is currently simmering on our stove. It smells awesome. Too bad it's nearly 11 pm...
UPDATE: We had a taste and it was incredible! Holy crap!
UPDATE: We had a taste and it was incredible! Holy crap!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
NYR Update
First, let me just say that EGM got poison ivy and was scratching all night. I'm tired! And if it happens again tonight, one of us is going to the couch. Aren't I nice, sensitive, and empathetic?
Now that that's out of the way, I think I should report on my new years' resolutions. I have performed mediumly on both of them. I've sent birthday cards for almost all of the family birthdays so far, but several of them have gone out late. But, I have the next ones all ready to send. As for being more eco-conscience, there has been progress and setbacks. I kind of gave up on the paper recycling after the pile got so big that EGM finally threw it away -- I just kept putting off dropping it at the recycling place. We also decided not to do the CSA after all because we're not sure we'll actually use that much produce. On the other hand, the garden is going well. The seeds I started indoors are starting to look like plants and the things I planted outside are starting to take. Also, we started a compost pile near the garden. I have been bringing our kitchen scraps to work to compost, which gives me warm fuzzies. I'll post some photos soon.
Now that that's out of the way, I think I should report on my new years' resolutions. I have performed mediumly on both of them. I've sent birthday cards for almost all of the family birthdays so far, but several of them have gone out late. But, I have the next ones all ready to send. As for being more eco-conscience, there has been progress and setbacks. I kind of gave up on the paper recycling after the pile got so big that EGM finally threw it away -- I just kept putting off dropping it at the recycling place. We also decided not to do the CSA after all because we're not sure we'll actually use that much produce. On the other hand, the garden is going well. The seeds I started indoors are starting to look like plants and the things I planted outside are starting to take. Also, we started a compost pile near the garden. I have been bringing our kitchen scraps to work to compost, which gives me warm fuzzies. I'll post some photos soon.
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