Week 17

I sucked it up and shoehorned everything into a single linear shambolic rickety whole, and have been adding bits to it for a couple of days. It's currently 144 pages of actual chapters (seven of them), not including the world's longest bibliography, and the acknowledgements section I add to whenever I'm too frazzled to deal with anything else. The shortest dissertation from a previous student in my program that I've read so far is 158 pages. I currently don't care at all about whether it's coherent or persuasive (it's not). First full draft is due January 18th and I still have SO MUCH work to do, but having managed to actually make some decent progress this morning after some of the worst insomnia that I can remember (for fairly obvious reasons, I typically can't remember my very bad bouts of insomnia), I am signing off for 2016 not feeling entirely terrible about this little enterprise... so there's that.

Week...15?

So this got off track. All seeming a bit trivial now tbqh. I just want school to be over so I can go kick some bigot butt in the real world.

But fortunately I have made progress on the actual dissertation.

Couldn't tell you the total page count but I recently knocked out a chapter draft that was 5 pages longer than it needed to be, in about four days.

Less then a month until the first full draft is due. Holy smokes, y'all.

Week 5

Emily's dissertation is not finished yet.

Pages: Still 6 - but PLUS A NEW KICKASS TITLE I AM SUPER HAPPY ABOUT. I woke up with a start and emailed it to myself in the middle of the night mid-week. My data analysis classes, and some other excellent positive steps forward, are provoking a lot of good mental fizzing.

Pages goal: Who cares. I'm going to write this and what I end up with. It'll be as long as it needs to be, and as elegantly concise as I can muster. I totally got this. 

First full draft goal: January 18th. I'm feeling super confident about this right now, because my 2nd reader supports my plan to start writing up and not worry about collecting any more data. I still have to convince my advisor but I'm confident. 

Defense date: April 5th. I'm so, so ready to be done, but really genuinely feeling good about the process of getting there. But I'm also noticing that I am procrastinating the actual data analysis work a bit - no matter what my title or framework is, I do need to properly prepare and manage my actual data and that has... not so much been happening. Today, again, it was the one thing on my list that didn't get done, and I'd deliberately only given myself one interview to translate. I've been wittering on about doing it all myself bringing me closer to my data but maybe I do need to just pay someone else to crank through it all. 

Week 4

Emily's dissertation is not finished yet.

Pages: 6. I had to write an overview of my research foundations for the data analysis class I'm in and neither writing it, nor talking through it with a review partner in class, was as painful as I was expecting. Turns out I do have a fairly solid grasp of what I'm doing. Good. 

Pages goal: 200... ish. I'm getting more attached to my data again. I revised the draft of a poster presentation I have in for a conference in a few weeks and much as I value the elegance of concise writing, there IS a lot in this research that's worth airing. So maybe the minimalist approach that got me over the hump of starting the semester won't be the end result after all. 

First full draft goal: January 18th. I spent some time looking up sick day legislation, which is going to be necessary to get there. 

Defense date: April 5th. And my beloved academic idol agreed to be the external examiner! Her eyes on this research is going to be the single biggest pressure keeping me on track and committed to excellence and not just getting this over and done with. 

I am so, so ready for "worrying about data collection logistics" not to be my main everyday activity. But as of now, I still genuinely don't know how or if I'm going to pull off another two dozen or so interviews by phone in the next four weeks. 

Week 3

Emily's dissertation is not finished yet.

Pages: .5. Yes, that's one half. Officially decided to consider what I have so far as annotated bibliography and signposts to a new outline, and use what I'm producing in my data analysis class as the basis for starting over. This will include having to decide whether/how to incorporate my newfound focus on overage students. But the good news is...

Pages goal: 200... I read a couple of much shorter dissertations this morning by people who really know their shit, and they were real short. And this poster presentation based on my interviews so far that I threw together a draft of sailed trough conference committee review with no changes requested (after having been immediately praised by the conference chair who I also am going to ask to be on my committee). AND someone I met when I was in Goma says he has 15 people lined up for me to interview, which will pacify my advisor and make for some welcome forward momentum - and a much needed reconnection with the fundamentals and reality of the actual topic. So having to start completely over and write a new thing doesn't feel too unmanageable. 

First full draft goal: January 18th

I sat down with my advisor this week and now I have an actual defense date: April 5th. HOLY CRAP Y'ALL. 

Week 2

Emily's dissertation is not finished yet.

Pages: 78, most of which needs rewriting and/or consists of notes to self in all-caps, like FIX FIX FIX.

Pages goal: 250

First full draft goal: January 18th

Must defend by April 24th to graduate this academic year!

Week 1

Emily's dissertation is not finished yet.

Pages: 76

Pages goal: 250

(1/3 of the way there...)

First full draft goal: January 18th

Must defend by April 24th to graduate this academic year!