I feel so much better about the dissertation...

...now that I spent another day working on it. I thought I would have to be done last night, but I just wasn't pleased with the product. Rather than sending it to my adviser this morning, I worked on it all day to beef up one of the sections in the lit review. The dissertation isn't that great, but at least it is much better than it was last night, and now I won't feel too embarrassed to have my committee members read it. Yeesh!

I finished writing the dissertation...

I think. There is so much I left out and it's so short. It's no wonder the grad school tries to keep people from doing quickie dissertations by disallowing them to defend the proposal and dissertation in the same semester. I feel like I've done myself a disservice by writing this crappy document in three months instead of immersing myself in a field of inquiry for a couple of years.

But, I have to start making money. I just need to graduate and get a job. Would that I could stay in grad school and not have to think about money.

Sigh....I hope the defense goes well...

Lost My Momentum

Ugh! Two nights ago, I had to switch my momentum from dissertatin' to preparing to teach. Since then, I haven't been able to get back into the mode of dissertatin'. I'm getting kinda tired of the dissertation and I can't seem to get myself to finish Chapter 2. I only have a tiny bit left! But, I feel so "blah" about doing it. It must be done by tomorrow night. I must do it!

Making Progress on the Dissertation

I can't believe I actually just finished the discussion section of my dissertation. It's 28 pages long and I know that's kinda short for some people's standards, but I'm pretty happy about it because I did it in three days and it's good enough, I say. Now I just need to go back to the literature review and write one or two pages worth of stuff. I must have the first dissertation draft done by this Friday or Saturday in order to defend a few weeks from now. Yes, that is all very short notice; but, I really want to graduate this semester. There's a whole wide world out there in which to frolic with three magical letters behind my name.

I proposed a new dissertation today...

....and it went fine. I really appreciate my committee members. Every single one of them is incredibly supportive. They were fine that I didn't have Chapter 2 ready and they were okay that the analyses I proposed may not be entirely what I end up doing. And they were so nice about discussing possible limitations without making it seem like the end of the world. I'm actually going to be quite sad to leave this department. I almost wish I could stay here just to hang out and do research and take more classes. Sigh, but the lure of making money is high...

Things are better...

Phew! I'm pretty wiped out. All this emotional upheaval isn't good for me. But, I think I'm doing a little better now. I might even meet with my committee sooner than I expected. I'm trying to roll with the punches. I wish I was more like my boyfriend in that respect. But, at least I have him around to help me roll with the punches.

Teaching didn't go so well. I get bored with Piaget (I prefer information-processing theories) and that seems to translate to boredom teaching Piaget. Either that or my class was just really tired tonight. I gave back the test and that might have put them in a sour mood as I have a feeling the students were not expecting my class to be that hard. But, I thought they did pretty well, otherwise.

Well, I think I'm going to get to work on something....anything will do.