August 13, 2007

Someone just gave me a fortune cookie, and the fortune reads:

"To be mature is to accept imperfections."

I think I will put that on a t-shirt and wear it to my dissertation defense.

August 9, 2007

Momentary freak out over. Everything will work out. I just wish time would stand still for a little while.

August 7, 2007

Am I crazy for considering applying for an academic job in South Carolina? Is it true that committee members won't write a letter of recommendation unless they've seen a draft of your dissertation? What if the deadline for applying is before they will see a draft? I thought they didn't want to be bothered with seeing a draft before they absolutely have to. Who knows the answers to these questions? I really need to stop reading the message boards at the Chronicle of Higher Education because they give me heartburn.

I am cycling through my tri-monthly phase of thinking I could be perfectly content doing research as a professor somewhere (if someplace would have me). Truthfully, I have actually enjoyed the dissertation process once I got the hang of it, and it's made me think I could actually be good at this stuff. But then I think I would get bored and miss the glamorous life of social program evaluation. And could I really function productively without deadlines and clients? A survey of sociology PhDs found that non-academic jobs pay more and have less hours, but that they weren't as happy. Great. But I'm going to assume they had some crappy government job somewhere and really wanted to be a professor instead.

Oh, what to do.

August 2, 2007

I know I can be territorial and controlling (ya don't say!), but here's a situation that really has me fuming. We live in a duplex, and there is a shared storage building in the backyard that has a washer and dryer in it. The utilities that run the washer and dryer go to our side of the duplex, hence, whatever usage that happens is paid for by us. It's impossible to know exactly how much of our water, electricity, and gas bills come from the washer and dryer each month. We've just thought as long as the neighbors aren't excessive about it, we'll just deal rather than ask them for $5 a month or whatever (seems petty). But our neighbors have people stay with them every so often and these people use the machines too. It pisses me off that I'm subsidizing their laundry. Our neighbors have never asked who pays for those utilities and we haven't told them. M. doesn't want to be petty (cause he's a nice guy) and I loathe confrontation but this is getting under my skin.

August 1, 2007

Sent my advisor a revised Chapter 4 on Sunday. He finished editing it and I need to go pick it up today. It was 41 pages! I'm trying to get Chapter 5 worked out before the week is up: It's the chapter on the conditioning effects of depression and self-efficacy on strain, and how different levels of those variables affect the different kinds of outcomes I'm studying. The findings are interesting -- depression amplifies the effect of strain on outcomes like running away and suicidal behavior, but buffers the effect of strain on more externalized outcomes like aggressive delinquent acts and shoplifting. Those are the findings for girls. There are a couple of similarities in the boys' findings, but generally they don't hold for them. Self-efficacy seems to act as a buffer for both girls and boys, but more so for girls. Fascinating.

I had to re-run the interaction models because the first time I ran them (months ago) I didn't "mean center" the variables involved in the interaction. Apparently this is what you're supposed to do. I think it's kind of optional, but customary. It doesn't affect the results, just the interpretation of the results, and it also reduces multicollinearity between the interaction term and the variables that are multiplied together to create the interaction term. My adviser didn't think this was necessary, but I'm anticipating the comments from the rest of my committee. Anyway, so I created the new mean-centered variables for the girls and re-ran the analysis, updated the tables. Tonight I will do the same for the boys' sample, and then I can start augmenting Chapter 5 with some exposition about the findings. I need to get this DONE this week so I can focus on the conclusion -- what are the big findings, why, what do they mean, so what, etc. I will soon be going from "serious" mode into "Red Alert" mode (stole that from the blog Reassigned Time). Which means no more staying up until 1am watching non-stop episodes of "24."

July 25, 2007

I wonder what Ph.D. program would let somebody back in after 33 years?

Queen Guitarist to Complete Doctorate

LONDON — Brian May is completing his doctorate in astrophysics, more than 30 years after he abandoned his studies to form the rock group Queen. ...more

July 23, 2007

I didn't get crap done this weekend because I was busy reading Harry Potter #7 since Saturday afternoon. I'm almost done, and I'm just sitting here at work thinking about how I can't wait until I get home to finish it. I don't want it to go by so fast, but at the same time it's impossible for me to read it slowly. I've already cried at one part, I'm such a sap.

Friday was an all-day session of consulting on the Gates project with my colleagues from Seattle. It was totally exhausting. I was so not in my right mind that when I got home I impulsively bought a domain name and webhosting without really knowing why or how I was going to do anything with it. I wonder if I can cancel it -- there's really no need in my life for more distraction.

The Nordstrom sale on Saturday was kind of disappointing. I don't know if it's because we have such a small store and they choose to carry stuff that doesn't happen to appeal to me, or if the clothes are just boring this year. I ended up buying two tops that were on the clearance racks (not the anniversary sale) and one at regular price which I'm going to return because it's too big. All in all a bit of a let down.

My new obsession:

July 18, 2007

So not to jinx anything, but I've been making more progress on chapter 4. I'm figuring out what I need to do to move forward: it involves wasting a lot of paper and printing out a version of the chapter, sitting on the couch with a pencil, and making hand-written revisions on the page. Then I go back to the computer and make all the revisions. For some reason, I can see more clearly what needs to be done that way. I also managed to sit down and work on it in the evening hours last night...the shock! It's the only way - I have to find more hours to do this, so breaking my habit of no-work-in-the-evening is one way. I am definitely more tired, but I've never known of anyone who was well-rested and fresh as a daisy while trying to meet their dissertation deadlines, right? Sheesh.

I also tried re-visiting an old standby last Friday: a certain coffee shop with large tables and a library-like atmosphere. The change of scenery worked pretty well, though it still took me about 3 hours to write one paragraph (which is more than I was doing at home). Sometimes it's just excruciating to get that first bit down, but then you've broken the ice and it flows better from there.

July 13, 2007

If it's not apparent from some of my posts, I am really really frustrated with myself and my inability to be as productive as I need to be at this stage of the dissertation game. I am constantly worried and anxious coupled with cycles of low energy and gloom. I have a great support person in Reluctant Texan, who totally understands. But I did not expect to find additional validation and understanding from my dad.

He occasionally asks me how it's going with with writing, and I explain my tortured process of fits and starts, getting bogged down and overwhelmed, etc. He then says he completely understands, and that he's going through the same thing with his ongoing restoration of a 1935 Ford 4-door Touring Sedan that used to belong to his Aunt. This is what one looks like when it's all gussied up (his is actually midnight blue):



He goes 10 days without working on it, then feels it hanging over his head, starts again, gets bogged down, gives up for awhile, the whole thing. I have to say I found this pretty comforting, and it was nice to have his empathy.

Okay, time to get to work.

July 10, 2007

So the other night I was watching What Not To Wear until 2:00 in the morning. I watched the opening sequence over and over, glassy-eyed and bored. The next day, the not-so-subliminal messages of the show started to sink in. [must-be-feminine-must-be-feminine-must-be-feminine]. No, not that one. I, stuckupgirl, have only 8 more weeks to legally wear a miniskirt according Stacy and Clinton. Though by some measures I perhaps am already too late. What does "no miniskirts after 35" mean? M. thinks it means you can still wear them while 35. I jest, of course. This show is all about teaching women patriarchal norms about their bodies and how to be properly feminine (wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable by not being able to identify the oppressed sex class). But yet sometimes it's hard to look away.

On another note, I have about 6 weeks to finish a complete draft of the diss. This means finishing the results chapters, writing the discussion, and beefing up the literature review. In the meantime I have to write 30 pages of an article for publication for the professor I work for (said professor, by the way, is not nearly as impressed with me as I think he should be, which is annoying). But friends and family are buying plane tickets to come see me graduate in December, so I guess I better pull something out of my you-know-what so as not to disappoint them.

Oh and I have insomnia too. Lovely.

P.S. Dad turns 73 today.

June 24, 2007

Back to reality. Here are the highlights of my last two weeks.

My 16-day journey began with a day in Seattle (an unintentional 6-hour layover), the only documentation of which is a picture of a cheesecake stand at the Market. Each is the size of a cupcake.



Next was Anchorage to hang out with my pseudo-nephew and godson Kenton, and my best friend and her hubby. We have known each other now going on 26 years! Kenton was awesome and wanted to follow me everywhere.



On a hike near Girdwood, AK. The rushing water behind us was way more interesting than posing for the camera.


CC hauling herself across the gulch in the hand tram on the Girdwood hike.


Hanging out at Westchester Lagoon in Anchorage with my best friend eating chocolate, drinking coffee, and admiring my new clogs bought without sales tax and a $25 off coupon. The little things in life that keep me going.


The other little thing in life we love:


My first night in Missoula - taken from parent's back deck. For anyone who wonders why it's called Big Sky Country.


Artificial rapids designed for whitewater kayakers to practice on the Clark Fork River in downtown Missoula, MT.


Ye old alma mater. Main Hall with the "M" and Mt. Sentinel in the background. It's always weird to walk around one's old college campus.


My mom on our hike to the Blodgett Canyon overlook. Bitterroot Valley below.


Blodgett Canyon, Bitterroot Mountains, MT.


My future retirement castle? Where I should have written my dissertation from - I'd be done by now.



The HobNob Cafe on Missoula's so-called "Hip Strip."


And finally, the Missoula Osprey (rookie team for the AZ Diamondbacks) on opening night at their new stadium. That's Chance Wheeless, who was in the juvenile delinquency class I TA'd last Fall, playing first base.

May 31, 2007

Welp, I squandered another perfectly good day I had set aside to work on revisions. After lots of pacing, working on other projects, obsessively checking blogs, and a mid-afternoon sojourn to El Sol y La Luna for a dissatisfying huevos rancheros and funny-tasting tortilla chips, I currently have a headache, am hot, stiff, and due at Lovejoy's in an hour to listen to loud music.

In the crossing-things-off-lists department, I finished up my scope of work on a consulting contract I had, and let them know I wouldn't be available for further work. Yayhoo! But, wouldn't you know it, about three weeks ago another consulting opportunity came my way that I couldn't pass up, so I now have two other jobs besides finishing my dissertation. This new job has me working for the firm I worked for in Seattle. They are consultants on a project here in Austin, and brought me in as an independent to help out. It's a really interesting project, funded by the Gates Foundation, to engage the community in high school redesign efforts.

To add to the many self-inflicted barriers to finishing, I leave next week on a 16-day trip. Aagh! Maybe I need a new kitten.

May 24, 2007

I have had this complete and total aversion to writing lately, as illustrated by my heavy use of photos and images in my blog entries. And lengthy quotations from Supreme Court justices. This probably has something to do with the fact that I am deep into the writing phase on my dissertation. After months of labored statistical analysis, or as we like to say, "running models," I finally have to face my 13 tables of regression coefficients and describe what it all means in English.

I finished a first draft of this results chapter, and it was painful technical writing. I felt like something really heavy was sitting on me. Today I met with my adviser to get some help in figuring out where to go from here, and I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I kind of know what I need to do to get it to where I want it, but I always have that niggling fear and self-doubt that I won't be able to do it. Like this time, I have just reached my limit and it's not going to happen. How did I become so fearful and lazy? That is a bad combination - the fear and the lazy. My adviser occasionally asks me, "what else have you been doing, besides this?" That question lays bare the hard reality that I have become a very poor manager of time.

May 23, 2007

R.I.P. Veronica Mars

May 16, 2007

A little guy that M. recently drew, and I call "Milo."

April 29, 2007

From the Jo's Easter Pet Parade and Costume Contest, my favorite contestants:


Hot Dog


Bjork Dog


Denim Jo's Dog

April 20, 2007

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, April 18, 2007:

The Court further pretends that its decision protects women. Women might come to regret their physician-counseled choice of an intact D&E and suffer from “[s]evere depression and loss of esteem,” the Court worries. Notably, the solution the Court approves is not to require doctors to inform women adequately of the different procedures they might choose, and the risks each entails. Instead, the Court shields women by denying them any choice in the matter. This way of protecting women recalls ancient notions about women’s place in society and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited.

Although today’s opinion does not go so far as to discard Roe or Casey, the Court — differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation — is hardly faithful to Casey’s invocations of “the rule of law” and the “principles of stare decisis.”

In candor, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and the Court’s defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives. A decision of the character the Court makes today should not have staying power.

April 10, 2007

Happy Birthday Okazaki Fragment! On March 31, O.F. turned 12 years old. Thanks for being my familiar, and for keeping my lap warm all these years.