This thing just keeps taking longer than I thought

I finally was able to have an unhurried phone meeting with my adviser - hallelujah! When I can get a hold of her, she really is helpful.

Maybe too helpful. She had all kinds of comments about stuff I should add, further measurements and tests I need to do. Oh, and it should probably be around 200 pages, at least. I've probably got about 120 right now. Ugh.

As she said, I probably could get it done quickly, if I had to, but she wants me to have "a really kick-ass dissertation" so it's worth taking an extra month to get it done. But I'm fairly certain her one month will at least double, if not turn into August.

I wonder if I told her that I never plan to get a job in linguistics, she'd feel better about it not needing to be completely kick-ass? Somehow I don't think that'd be the best idea.

Quick reminder

I got a friendly email today reminding me that there are only 4 weeks left for thesis submission for a May degree conferral. Ha. That goal went out the window. Now I'm just trying to defend by May!

Motivate! Motivate! Motivate!

Well, I finally badgered my adviser enough so that she got a chapter back to me! (Supposedly all three were going to be back yesterday... I still hadn't seen them this morning, but by noon she had at least got one back to me. Will I get the other two today? It's anybody's guess!)

Basically the only comment she wrote was "Why?" Over and over again. Apparently I need to motivate why I'm doing what I'm doing a lot more. She had actually told me this earlier, so I added nice little c.f.'s back to the first two chapters. Apparently that's not the right way to go about it.

I would complain, but I'm just so happy to have some work to do that I think I'll just do that instead.

Still waiting

It's been forever since I updated, and unfortunately it's not because I've been working hard. I did finish chapters 3-5 and sent them to my adviser, so now I'm just playing the waiting game again. I'd like to go ahead and write my sixth and final chapter, but I'd really like to get her feedback on the thoughts I present in 4-5 before I expand on them. In the meantime I should finish revising the first chapter, but have to figure out what my conclusion will be before I can really write a good intro for it.

In other words, I'm blaming my lack of writing on my adviser, and content myself with calling her every other day.

On the bright side, my amazing husband has started reading through what I have and making lots of helpful comments. He's always been able to motivate me more than any professor!

The gift of pestering

I sent my adviser the next two chapters of my dissertation on Monday - whoohoo! Of course I haven't heard anything in response from her, so I called her home phone and cell phone first thing this morning. Of course she didn't answer, but I left a message urging her to read them and get back to me, seeing as I kind of need to graduate in like 4 weeks.

Then I logged on to facebook and discovered that today is her birthday. Whoops. I'm sure seeing my name pop up on caller ID was the way she wanted to start the day! Guess I won't be hearing back from her for another week...

I actually get paid to do this

My only comment is that the folks in the hard sciences get paid more - I'm one of the grad students who brings that average down :)  But who can complain when you get paid to go to school?

Smartest thing I've done while dissertating

Hiring a statistics grad student to run my numbers. You know, the ones I've been struggling to figure out since SEPTEMBER? The ones that could've been done then, if my husband I hadn't been so reluctant to hire them out, and therefore potentially have been done writing this thing by now?

I didn't do it earlier because this is part of getting your degree, you'll need to know them in the future, yadda yadda yadda. Guess what? When none of the professors know it, that's a sign that you won't actually have to know it. And when you aren't familiar with research methods and setting up an experiment so you know what stats to run ahead of time, you end up with much more complicated tests to run. Complicated things that even your psychology committee member, who teaches a stats class himself, can't do.

Then it's time to bring in the big guns. Well, not the really big ones - I checked with an online company that wanted to charge me $2400 to do it. $2400! What a joke. Then of course they said they could do less for half price (which is what I wanted them to do anyway - I don't really want someone else to write my results chapter), but that was still way over the top. Enter stats grad student - smaller guns but the bullets are just as effective.

The happiest day of my dissertation so far was when she emailed me the results.