This is how distracted I am...

This week was a reminder that "The Distracted Dissertator" is not just a cute name I came up with for my blog.  After an unsuccessful meeting Tuesday with my adviser, he laid down the law about my not putting enough time and energy into my dissertation writing.  So, we hatched plan for me to work in his office (away from the distractions of my 5-person/friends office) for a few hours everyday.  It was pretty useful...in four hours on Day 1 and three hours on Day 2 (total of 7 hours), I wrote about 13-15 pages of my methods section.  Trying to find time everyday where I have nothing else to concentrate on (no internet, email, etc.) is hard, but worth it.

Wasted Weekend

I am so frustrated with myself for squandering this weekend.  I mean, yes, it is great that we worked on the apartment, cooking, and wedding planning, but my priority should be my dissertation (or at least, grading).  Sigh...

Scheduling a final defense date

I sent out an email today to my committee asking about their summer availability so that I could begin finalizing dates for my oral defense.  I heard back from them and it looks like I have a 4-day span in mid-June (add some days in that span it is like morning-only or afternoon-only) to pick from.  While that is only 9 weeks away, there is something great about feeling ready (well, ready is the wrong word, but maybe feeling motivated) to finally schedule it and then work my butt off to finish a final draft by late May (since I have to submit it to my committee 2 weeks prior to the defense. 

Putting my game face on

Today was an incredibly productive day.  In addition to 4 hours of office hours filled with students, I had meetings with my dissertation adviser and my dissertation committee member/stats genius. My meeting with my adviser went well, but was a pretty scary reminder of my limited timeline.  It looks like I'll need to produce and edit a draft version of my chapters at about 1 week per chapter.  I kick myself when I think that I've let teaching and other priorities get in the way for so long that I now have this killer writing schedule, but there's nothing left to do now but to put on my game face and work.  To think I will have done all of the actual writing for my dissertation in 3 months is a feat I hope to accomplish, but never want to brag about (or have known too widely).

My adviser and my stats member went over my methods chapter specifically and are trying to hard to break my internal self-image of a poor methods person.  Truth be told, I'm actually pretty good at it (esp. compared to a lot of other grad students who aren't at quantitative-or-bust program).  But, my mental block to writing this chapter is just another example of something to overcome.  Besides, I keep trying to remind myself that a draft is called a draft for a reason (funny, I say the same thing to my students but it is so much harder to apply it to myself!).  There will be time for edits and revision, but nothing can happen until I've written the damn thing!

In addition to writing that chapter, I discussed with my stats member a whole load of new/additional statistical models to try, recodes, and an alternative method of creating my key variable (which, if it works will require ALL my models to be redone) etc.  I left him focusing on 3 to-do's that I can get done by Tuesday when I see him again.  But, some of the items that seem minor (moving my dissertation data from one stats program to another) are easy to do but will make my life so much harder (mostly because I do not know the new program as well).  I'm really lucky that in addition to my skills and the guidance of my advisers, I also have a fiance who is super amazing in quantitative methods and knows the new program.  I don't think I could finish this without his support.

(As an aside, this post is longer than I think most of my dissertation progress posts will be in coming months.  I recently read The Happiness Project which suggests at least a 1-sentence journal, so I think I'd prefer that as it encourages daily reflection but in a low-stress format.)

Teaching Award Awards Ceremony

Today I received my award (the physical one, in the mail) AND was honored at the college's award luncheon.  It was an interesting experience.  I sat at a table with a lot of people from my department (and a second table was 1/2 my department too-so we really cleaned up with the awards this year!) and it was odd.  I knew some of the people very well (my dissertation adviser, my teaching supervisor and my fiance), but others (like the department head and the newest emeritus professor) are people I don't know very well at all.  So, when the new people asked about my new job or anything, the close people were hearing a broken record.  And whenever I tried to talk to my close people about other stuff, it felt like we were leaving out the new people.  It was a powerful reminder that collegiality is so important.

Oddly, the format of the ceremony was that your name would be called up and then once you reached the podium, the Dean would start delivering a pre-written (and not as accurate as I would have liked) couple paragraphs long speech about you.  And you're just standing awkwardly in the front of the banquet room trying to keep smiling and looking around.  Because my table was all the way in the back, I had a long way to walk too!

I felt a little bad afterwards for having missed the first awards ceremony (at the university level as it is an university-level award).  But, can't go back and change it now.  It did sort of reiterate my new philosophy...one facet being that you can't sit life out.