September 22, 2007

JT tagged me to share eight random things about myself and pass along the task to others.

Here’s how this is supposed to work:
1. Post these rules before you give your facts
2. List 8 random facts about yourself
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
4. Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

Stuff about me:
1. There is a whole side of my family (my mom's) that lives in Argentina, most of whom I have never met. They are there because my grandparents fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s after Kristallnacht.
2. I came in 32nd in the Alaska State High School Cross-Country Running Championship in 1985. That was the height of my athletic career, though I kept at it through my junior year of college.
3. I have a possibly unhealthy attachment to characters from The Muppet Show.
4. I think Catherine MacKinnon is perhaps the greatest legal and feminist scholar of our time.
5. Used to play jazz saxophone.
6. Went 7 years without shaving my legs. It was great to thumb my nose at Western feminine beauty norms and confront people's discomfort.
7. Am known to get belligerent if I've had too much to drink and find myself surrounded by sexist apathetic privileged lunk-heads. And sexist crap hanging on the walls in public spaces.
8. Totally admire all the women in my life but they probably don't know it.

I am tagging:
Rockabilachica
Return of the Silver Zephyr

September 16, 2007

You must do the things you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

September 9, 2007

Last night I realized that there is now no part of my dissertation that has not been drafted. I finished the last section that had to be written "from scratch" last night! The last major thing to do is go back and revamp the introduction and literature review chapters, but at least those have already been written - albeit two years ago and rather thinly, I might add. Anyway, this realization last night was the first time this whole PhD thing actually seemed possible. Like in a real, achievable, concrete way. It made me kind of giddy.

September 4, 2007

36 feels pretty much like 35. But occasionally I am struck by that "there must be some mistake!" feeling. How did I get to be a 36-year-old woman? But anyway, I'm off to get a facial and then have a beer. Onward!

August 30, 2007

The best show on television, Friday Night Lights, is starting its second season on Oct. 5. Austin narrowly avoided losing the filming of this show to New Mexico or Louisiana, and the show itself almost didn't get renewed. I think this show is consistently better than Weeds, The Closer, and Lost, with perhaps a tie with Heroes. I love watching it not just for the superb acting and plot lines, but for the glimpses of familiar sights around Austin in the background.

This is all to preface my latest FNL sighting of one Taylor Kitsch, who plays hunky bad-boy Tim Riggins on the show.
He came in to South Congress Cafe today and waited for a table behind us (we were eating in the bar area). Prior to this I have scoped out Kyle Chandler three different times, who plays Coach Taylor (also seen recently on Grey's Anatomy as the bomb specialist guy who gets blown up, and in the 1990's as the lead on Early Edition). He walks his Jack Russell Terrier around the area and lives in the State House Apartments on S. Congress.

August 29, 2007

Last day of work at my part-time research fellow job today. The professor who was never sufficiently impressed with me was finally impressed with the paper I wrote (yay!). Hopefully he'll write his sections and we can submit it for publication. I'll need to keep on him about that.

I'm now solely supported by my consulting income. It's scary but liberating, and I feel more adult-like somehow. Job prospects, as in a permanent full-time job, are scattered and disparate and I'm unsure how to "package" myself. I'm looking at both applied/practice and academic positions. One came up today at a Foundation in Los Angeles. Aren't houses that would be $250k here like a million dollars there? Geez. But it's an awesome position and they actually want someone with a PhD.

Not quite done with the dissertation yet -- give me two more weeks for a full draft (of crap, but a full draft o' crap).

August 21, 2007

My out of state driver's license, which I have stubbornly held on to for the last five years, is going to expire in about two weeks. I held on to it as incentive to get back to the place I came from before it expired, and well, that didn't happen. So now I have to get a stinky ole Texas driver's license, but I don't want to surrender my old one, because I like to keep stuff like that for the historical record I hold in various boxes in the back of my closet. Apparently it is against the law to have two valid licenses at the same time, so they take the old one when you go in. The thing to do is tell them I "lost it," but won't that look suspicious when they see that it is coincidentally expiring in two weeks? Plus I am a terrible liar. Won't they know I'm lying? Anyone have any advice? If I wait until the out of state one expires, they won't need to keep it but then I have to take the written driver's test - no way!
So, should I lie? Or should I just give it to them?

UPDATE: So I totally lied. I'm so proud. It was a little hairy for a while because at first they couldn't find my license record in the other state's database. But soon I will have the official license which will stand as a reminder of my failure to return to the promised land within five years. I know, I'm being overly dramatic. Too bad this license doesn't come with in-state tuition.

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.