Tomorrow

So tomorrow is the big day. I defend my thesis at 11:30.

I know I did a good job and my committee chair called me tonight and told me that she has only heard positive comments about my work. She stressed that I did a really good job, above what is expected of a master's thesis and to think of tomorrow more as a conversation about the paper rather than a defense. In other words, there is no need to get defensive, no one will be attacking me.

Still, I am nervous and will take a sleep aid tonight to make sure that I sleep. I am taking a copy of my thesis to my room and reading through the whole thing once more in preparation. Then it will be lights out.

There will be a few minor changes after tomorrow that I will work with my committee chair to make. After that, it is time to prepare my official copies and turn them into the Graduate Studies office on August 4 at 11:30.

I can't believe that I am almost done. It is surreal.

Heh

Results From Formatting Appointment

So I had my thesis reviewed by the Graduate Studies Office. I have only 3 minor changes they want me to make. So cool! They said that they have yet to see a perfect thesis and that I did very well - I get a gold star.

Either they were being sincere or being very kind as they could see how happy I was to almost be done. Either way, yay me!

Suspicion

I have sent out several emails that I was expecting responses to in the last 24 hours but people have been very quiet - not responding. What's going on out there?

Woot!

I finally finished my rewrites of Chapter 4 - well, as much of a rewrite as I know I need to do until I take a look at the comments from my last committee member. I am in the process of printing out the whole darn thing to take into school for my formatting appointment tomorrow. After that, it is back to Chapter 3 for rewrites, then 1 and 2 together. Finally, printing and sending out the final thing to the full committee. Soooo close!

As of right now, my thesis is 198 pages long. And I still have work to do!

Peace out!

Thesis Update

It is 2:05 in the morning and I am not quite tired yet. In order to stay in schedule, I would have to have completed two chapters today and two tomorrow. Not happening.

See, on Thursday, I have an appointment with the graduate studies office to check my formatting of the thesis. They have these really specific rules for thesises, something to do with the binding process. The good news is that I do not need to have everything completely finished when I go in at 1:30 p.m. It just has to look like it is complete. They don't check content, that is up to my committee.
Speaking of committees, I have FINALLY! confirmed with all three committee members that we will meet on Wednesday, July 29 at 11:30 am for my defense. I need to finish all my revisions by this weekend so I can get the "final" product out to them. This is complicated as my chair-and primary reader-is out of town until Sunday and I have to mail a physical copy to one of my committee members. Please shoot me.

****UPDATE****
Hey! This is my 401 post! I didn't even realize that when I posted yesterday, it was post 400. Huh, not as impressive as some of the bloggers I know but still, its a landmark.

Molasses

Still writing, slow process at this point. I have until the end of this week to get everything together.

In other news, I just picked up two more classes at a neighboring college. This is a private university that is located in the opposite direction from the school I attend. Basically, I am half way between my two jobs. So I will be teaching Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays this coming semester. At least the two schools are one week apart on schedules. State school starts August 24 (I know, lucky me - Happy B-day M) and the other school starts the beginning of September. So at least I will not be in finals week for both schools at the same time. All I need to do is keep on top of the grading for sure now.

Went to the gym for the first time in months tonight. Half an hour on the elliptical. Better than nothing. I have not been to the gym since before I wrote Chapter 4 on my thesis. That would be....sometime in June I believe. No bueno. My defense date is July 29. Have to turn the whole finished product in by August 4. That is the last day to file. So tired of working on this darn thing. I have no desire to keep rewriting. Can't if just be done the way it is? I don't care anymore!

got to go, more to write. Will update on the 30 day challenge soon. Fell off that wagon pretty darn quick.

Still

Still writing, still super busy, still hating my life, still procrastinating and still tired all the time.

More

So, still no internet at home, there is a problem with our land line that AT&T needs to fix. We have apparently had this problem for a long time but had received a work around solution that actually worked on a permanent basis. Since I don't understand all the stuff they are talking about, I'll sum it up by saying we have two datalines running to the house and one is cut. Has been for a while and we have been running the phone off the other one. Problem is, the one that was cut is tied to a closer fiber optics center and that is the one we need for the new internet and DVR that is being installed. yay, fun.

In other, bigger news, my thesis defense date has been postponed. No new date set but it will be July 27-30. I think I will propose the 28th but need to coordinate schedules with all three committee members.This is not a bad thing. A lot of people have been expressing an "oh no!" kind of sentiment. Although I am bummed that I have to work on the dang thing longer, this allows me to actually finish it and be done for sure at the defense. I can have everyone sign and turn the dang thing in rather than defending and then having to go back and fix stuff. It gives me more time to fix stuff, like typos, formatting stuff and well, content. Because as much as I have been working on this thing, the beast has not been slain yet.

Got to go home and work on the paper, later!

Stuck

I have fourteen pages written of my conclusion however, I have major holes on page 8, and have not answered my second and third research question. Plus, I have the final paragraph of my paper written but not the paragraph before then! I don't write in a linear fashion, as a thought comes to me, I move to that section of the paper to record my thoughts.

The only problem with that is it leaves holes in the text and gives me a false sense of completion.

Damn it! I wanted to finish this chapter tonight, sleep and then proofread the chapter tomorrow morning and send it to my committee before I leave at 10:45 to pick my parents up from LAX. Not sure how I am going to do all this.

And I am not pleased with the final product. I am definitely repeating myself and will need major rewrites on this chapter. How many times can I talk about how this film sucks from a communication studies perspective?????

Grrr

I'll get over myself shortly.

Online, Kinda

So, I went over to the AT&T store yesterday and picked up one of their wireless laptop cards. (Long story, I thought we were suppose to get it for free but I ended up having to sign a 2 year agreement and put $120 on my credit card but that is a story for another day)

The card runs on the 3G, same as if I had one of their phones. The service is absolute crap. It times out and is slow and horrible.

This is why I will not purchase an iPhone as long as there is only service available through AT&T. I was an AT&T customer before it was purchased by Cingular back in the day and let me tell you, they were a great company until that merge. After that, my service got worse, both in the sense of where I could take calls and also customer service I received. You all remember how I could never take or make calls from my cell in the house.

That's why I switched to Verizon. And have been pretty happy since. There have been some billing errors in the last few months although I am happy to report that two emails per incident has resolved the matter and had the charge credited to my account.

Oh and BTW, I have blocked all features but texts and calls. So if you try to send me a picture on my phone, I will no longer receive it. I use to get them, but then they would try to charge me and extra $2.

Not going to happen.

I'm grumpy. Peace out.

Update

At school today cuz the internet is still down at home and the supposed fix fell through cuz my timing sucks. I cannot believe how much I miss the internet. I feel like crap and am having a hard time buckling down to write when I am so close to being done with the damn thesis.

I am currently reading through my draft and other than some editing tidbits and some places where I see I could make a better word choice, I am pretty pleased with and proud of my work. Two more chapters to read and one more to write.

As I get back to work, I leave you with my horoscope from Yahoo for today:

"Your mind is like a deep-sea creature. It's interesting to look at and ponder."

Update

Obviously, the internet has not been turned off yet, lucky me. And guess who has two thumbs and finished a draft of thesis chapter 3?

That's right, me! One more chapter to go, suppose to get it done by 5:00, it will be very close.

In additional news: I tried oatmeal again this morning and on Christa's suggestion, added some maple syrup (the real stuff since that is what we had in the house). The taste was much better but I don't think I added enough water when I was microwaving it - it was a little dry. Will try again tomorrow.

I discovered that half a lime in my water bottle was too much citrus. I was having some acid reflux and...some other problems that I won't share the details of (You're welcome). I now add just a teaspoon to my water bottle and the results are much better. My digestive track is happier and I discovered that it is surprisingly sweet when it is a hint of lime rather than the amount I was adding before.

Okay, well my break is almost over. I will keep you posted.

Meals

So the interwebs are not cut off yet, so I will post before it does and I head to school to work.

In addition to cutting artificial sweeteners and caffeine from my diet, I am also back to writing down everything I put in my mouth, a la Weight Watchers, and counting calories. To save calories, I am eating a lot of veggies, and I do mean A LOT. I have also switched to supposedly healthy for you oatmeal for breakfast instead of my usual soy logs on toast (I'll post about that some other day).Well, if you know me at all, you know my distaste for oatmeal. I used to keep the instant packages of oatmeal in my desk at both jobs as it was a quick meal if I was short on time and stores well. Convenient size too. But old fashion oatmeal or eating it by choice - hells to the nos!

Maybe it has to do with the experiment in elementary school of keeping meal worms but when I go to scoop up the dry oats, I always look for meal worms. And if that isn't unappetizing enough for you, I always think that cooked oatmeal looks like vomit in a bowl. And has about the same texture. Not going to go into a detailed description but lets just say that I sometimes have the uncomfortable feeling of food rising in my gorge in the middle of eating oatmeal because of the damn texture. So yeah, I'll choke it down but you can't make me enjoy it.

So I did. Made it in the microwave with rice milk instead of water. Not sure if I will keep this up. I may resort to making cream of wheat, which doesn't bother me as much.

Damn food texture issue of mine...

later, have to go back to writing. I hate my life.

The Interwebs

is going down tomorrow. I have to go to school to be online. We are switching service, hopefully we will not be without internet for very long.

Grr...

Goodnight

Crap...

Update:
Thurs: Made progress on Ch. 3 but not done
Friday: Worked on Ch. 3, got frustrated and finished Ch. 2 instead
Saturday: Took the day off (May be a mistake in the long run but I needed it
Bonus: Got my chapter 4 back from my chair. Better but still needs work
Sunday: Aiming to finish Ch.1 and make more progress on 3.

New schedule
Monday: rewrites on Ch. 4
Tuesday: Prep all four chapters, go see chair for help with Ch. 3 (possibly) Send chapters to my proofreaders (LAbookgal and T3)
Wednesday: Write Ch. 5, all chapters to chair

Later and later...

30 Day Challenge

So I don't think anyone is actually reading my blog anymore but I will continue to post for myself. (neener, neener neener)

I have started reading a new blog called The Great Fitness Experience(TGFE). I really like it. Today's post was about what people drink in their water bottles at the gym which could also easily be titled, "The Evils of Drinking Artificial Coloring and Sweeteners" post.

Add this post to the experience I had this weekend: I was sitting on the couch between Ms. B and T3 and a commercial for Crystal Light came on the TV. Simultaneously, both of them started in about how Crystal Light is nothing but a bunch of chemicals and artificial sweeteners and just crap.

I had to speak up in my own defense. I just don't like the taste of water. Even filtered, it tastes like dirt to me and I do not have pica. In fact, I am so bad at drinking water that I use to dehydrate myself at least once a summer when I was in my mid-twenties. Not fun.

Enter the plastic water bottle and crystal light packets. I know that there is also some controversy if the reusable plastic water bottles are releasing toxins into your water but I will take my chances. I digress - not unusual.

Adding the crystal light packets are the only why I can manage to drink enough water to stay hydrated. I water down the mix since the recommended mixture is like drinking syrup - I add one small packet to a 32 oz. bottle when Crystal Light recommends an 8 oz. bottle - shyeah right! By adding these packets, I usually drink two bottles a day - at least 64 oz., not including my morning cup of tea and anything else that catches my fancy. That's an improvement.

But with all the crap I have received and read recently, I am entering a 30 day challenge (modeled after TGFE). I have decided to try to cut back on the artificial sweeteners I ingest each day for a month.

I have the occasional diet soda, so that is not an issue for me. I am also cutting back on my caffeine, so I can def. cut back on the Splenda I use in my morning tea. When I do decide to have tea, I now actually use a teaspoon to measure the Splenda instead of dumping several spoonfuls into the cup - hey, my one sweet tooth splurge is sweet drinks - whatev', don't judge me.

Instead of using the crystal light packets, I will be using limes to flavor my water. Armed with my trusty polycarbonate water bottle, a couple pounds of limes from Costco and a Mexican Lemon squeezer, I will attempt to severely decrease my artificial sweetener intake. The occasional drink will happen but I will be interested to see if cutting back on artificial sweeteners will assist in my quest to lose the weight I gained back during grad school (my love handles are out of control right now - I just know how to dress to hide that fact) as artificial sweeteners are suppose to trigger appetite.

I'll post results periodically. Now, back to the thesis! It is down to one chapter a day now to have a 'complete' thesis by Monday. Yikes! Finished Ch. 4 last night, my schedule is as follows:

Today (Thurs.): Finish rewrites Ch. 3
Friday: Rewrites Ch. 1
Sat: Rewrites Ch. 2, print 1-4, proofread and submit hardcopy to chair
Sun: Write Ch. 5 my conclusion, submit all to chair
Mon: rework any notes and send 1-4 to complete committee with Chair approval

Woot!

Mental

It takes me a while to get into the mindset I need to write. There is a part of me that knows I am procrastinating but then there is another part of me that says,

"Get everything that is distracting you out of the way and then buckle down and write! If you are not distracted by thinking about other stuff then you can get done what you need to."

Sometimes that is playing an online game that I was really into for a while. Now it is checking the blogs I read. And making sure that I am comfortable. What ever it is, I need to buckle down, I don't have that much time left.

P.S. I need this pet.

Las Vegas!

My favorite quote from this weekend:

"You know we've gotten old when instead of aspirin and Tylenol, we carry Zanex and lactaid in our bags." - Chrispy