I’m working on the revisions for the dissertation proposal.  My plan was to have it done by last Friday.  That didn’t happen.  Today I had to email my chair and say “If I’ve switched the experiment to this type of design, then that means all of my old independent variables are wrong, so are my new ones this and that?”

The fact that I’m writing the dissertation and I still don’t know for sure what my independent variables is just one example of why I’m having severe buyers remorse with my program.

My new hope is to finish up the revisions tomorrow.  They asked for clarification on a few things, and asked me to add a couple more things that I’m about convinced don’t exist in the literature.  But because I’m a compulsive overachiever, I’m going to kill myself looking for it.

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Tonight I took part in my first fantasy football draft.  It’s an all girls league, and I’m pretty excited.  How’s this for role reversal?  My boy is working late tonight, and I got to go drink beer, eat pizza, and play fantasy football.   Our life is good.

I have no idea how I’m going to fare in fantasy football, because I don’t really understand it.  In the 6th round, I apparently snagged a running back that everyone else was gunning for.  I wasn’t 100% sure who he even was, I just liked the way his stats looked.  It’ll be interesting.  At the very worst, my team will suck, but I’ll still go to the mid-season watch party.  More football and beer, oh darn.

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I’m having a complete failing when it’s come to working out lately.  We decided to suspend our Y membership to try to save money, figuring we’d alternate between the gyms at our respective schools.  So far, for me at least, it hasn’t been working out too good.  I’m apparently too battered and beat up to use most of the machines at my boy’s school, and my school is too far to just make a run to.  It’s so frustrating to me, because I was in a really good groove of working out.  Now I just feel lazy and unhealthy, and I hate it.  I wish I could figure out the magic answer.  If I don’t figure something out soon I’m going to be really cranky.

That, or I’m just going to take over the darn Y membership and pay it for my own sanity.

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In the bestest news (besides my ABD status), my friend WENNYBROWN has accepted a job with a big company and is relocating to Birmingham.  I am SO excited she’s going to be here.  She came over last weekend, we scoped out apartments, she signed a lease, and she moves in this weekend.  The best part of it?  She hired movers.  She’s smarter than we are. 

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the alphabet. Yet.  ABD is how I will define myself for the next few months or so.  In the world of academia, ABD stands for “All But Dissertation”.

I defended my dissertation proposal yesterday – successfully!  Not the entire dissertation.  That will hopefully come in January.  The proposal stage is rumored to be the most difficult, because that’s where your committe gives you the go-ahead on actually doing your dissertation work.  You write the first three chapters of it (the intro – yes, that gets its own chapter – the literature review, and the proposed methodology).  Your committee reads it, rips it apart, and sends you along to clean up the pieces.

I have a really solid committee of really good scholars, and more importantly, they all play nicely in the sandbox together, and no one feels a need to trump anyone else, and there’s no ego battles in the room.  That’s good, because I’d hate to have to look at people older than me and tell them to grow up.  My chair and I had a strategy meeting on Monday to decide who would go first and set the tone.  We decided on Dr. C, who is just the most awesome professor.  He is very go-with-the-flow, not a boat rocker, and I think he likes me so much because I have initiative and he doesn’t have to hold my hand.  We figured he’d be my lightweight committee member who would throw out a suggestion, and that would be it.

Wrong.  It was his turn, and he said “How much time do I have?”  If your ‘easy’ person makes that statement, then that should be a sign that things are going to go downhill quickly.

Thankfully, they did not.  He tore my methodology apart, but not in a bad way.  I knew it sucked, and he, along with the rest of the committee, made some great suggestions.  Hell, they told me to cut half of it, and simplified the other half.  They told me to do less.  I like that.

They approved, they signed the form, and I’ve successfully defended my dissertation proposal.  I finished the copy edits and minor revisions today, and now I’ll go through the list of “Must-do’s”.  That will get sent to the graduate school.  I’ve now crossed over the line from being a doctoral student to being ABD.

Next stop, Dr. Annie.

I’m writing a cover letter.  At least, I’m trying.  I hate these things.  How much shameless self promotion is too much?  I really wish I had the balls to just write one that says “I won’t waste your time, just look at my CV”.  Ugh.

So rather than write this cover letter, I figured I’d steal this meme from Fishing Around and do it instead.

what are your most common nicknames? Ren and Yankee.

what is today’s weather? It’s raining a lot.  It was a little muggy when I went to the store earlier.

where did go on vacation this year? I’m including conference travel, since I do fun stuff while I’m wherever.  Savannah, Philly, Oklahoma, CT, Boston.  Still to come – PA, Canada, and home again.

what did you do there? Visited family, sight-saw, and scholarly things.

where did you stay? With family, friends, and hotels.

what job do you do? I’m a research geek right now.

describe where you live. An Alabama suburb.  It looks like any other suburb, USA.

what do you usually do on weekends? Sleep late.  Do schoolwork.  Clean house.  Watch movies.  Visit with friends.  Watch football/go to games.  Cook.

what food hits your ‘bliss spot’? Ice cream.  Cookie dough ice cream.

what drink really does it for you? I really don’t think I have one.

describe the first friend that comes to your head. Awesome.

what was the last restaurant you went to? Our normal bbq place for Friday Pie Day.

where would you like to live if you had unlimited moneys and nothing stopping your dreams? Easy.  NYC.  No question.

what is the likeliness of you achieving this dream home? Slim to never.

what do you like to do in your spare time? Read, take pictures, sit in my rocking chair and rock.

what’s your favorite genre for TV programs? Drama

what’s your favorite genre for music? Rock

what’s your favorite song that’s sad? Ummmm…I guess “Angel” by Sarah McLaughlin – but really only when I hear it on the ASPCA commercial.

what’s your favorite soppy film? Dragonfly

how about your favorite chick flick? Working Girl

what are you looking forward to at the moment? Finishing this cover letter (which yes, I know is my own fault because I’m doing this meme instead).

what are you dreading at the moment? Writing this cover letter?  And I’m slightly dreading my upcoming dissertation proposal defense.

how would you describe your personality? Happy, silly, sarcastic and guarded.

if you had a personality eraser, what part of yours might you erase? The part that worries endlessly about everything.

you are given $5000 to spend in 1 day, what do you do with it? remember, no limitations! Put it toward my car payment.  Or bank it for future conference travel that my school probably won’t pay for.

what is your biggest fear? Right now?  Doing a really bad job on this cover letter and sounding like a tool.

Sigh.  Back to work.

I’m a slacker.

Anyway.  To continue on with the pictoral series from my summering…

We went up to New Haven to meet the fabulous and wonderful Paige (who is not only my fabulous friend, but an amazing photographer, and the photographer that shot my wedding, so check out her site at PH Photography!).

She took this shot of my boy and I that I love…

And he got this shot of us that I also love.

We hung around for a few more days (ok, I hung around, he was all scholarly and got himself invited to a bunch of different panels for a conference).  I couldn’t be outdone, so I submitted some papers to another conference.  So much for ‘vacation’. 

Friday we went on a dinner cruise of NYC to celebrate birthdays’ – my parents, and our friend John.  It was the perfect night for it, and it was so much fun.

The cruise gang…

My mom caught a Twit Pic in action…

Us, with lower Manhattan behind us…

Sunset…

I didn’t bring a tripod or my long lens, but I’m still pretty proud I managed to snag this shot:

Saturday we headed down the shore to New Jersey for some

A) Beach

(That’s my neice, but she’s way cuter in a bathing suit than I am)

B) Boardwalk

(That’s my boy, playing his first ever game of Frog Bog.  He did not get a frog on a lilly pad.

We did.  And we won a prize!)

and

C) Bridal shower fun

(That’s the first bow hat I’ve ever made in my life).

Isn’t the finished product smashing?  I’m thinking she may forgo her veil all together now that I’ve made this masterpiece.

And there you have it.  There are the highlights of my two weeks of summering in New England, and the surrounding areas.

I’ve been back in the South for about a week and a half now, and there’s only one thing to say:

Bring on the football.

Getting back into the Saturday meme’s with one I stole from Tense Teacher!

1. Do you believe in seeing a rainbow after the rain?
Yes, because I’ve seen them.

2. If you could have one dream come true, what would it be?
So not to be greedy, I’ll just say that the magical student loan fairy would swoop in and remove all loans, and all future needs for loans.

3. Do you believe in eternal love?
Yes

4. What feeling do you love most?
A tie between two – sitting on the beach, listening to the waves, or laying in bed, listening to the rain

5. What feeling do you hate the most?
Recently?  The feeling that I have no clue what I’m doing when it comes to writing my dissertation.  This has lead me to re-write sentences 5 or 6 times.

6. Do you cherish every single friendship you have?
Nope, because there’s different levels of friendship.

7. Do you believe in God?
Yes

8. Who cares for you most?
My boy and my parents

9. What do you think is the most important thing in your life?
My family

10. What emotion do you like to show?
Happiness!

11. If you have something troubling you, what do you do?
Talk out loud to myself in the car, or talk to my boy about it.

12. Whom do you admire most?
My mom.  She is easily the best person in the world, and I don’t just say that because she’s my mom.  She is the most giving, kind and selfless person that I know.  She’s genuinely kindhearted through and through, and does countless wonderful things without ever asking for anything in return – including things that she does without ever telling anyone about.  If I could be half the person that she is in my own life, I’d be doing ok.

13. Whom did you last chat with in a chat room?
I have absolutely no idea.  I think the last time I did a chat room was on AOL in the 90’s.

14. What kind of person do you think the one you stole this meme from is?
She knows what she wants out of life, what makes her happy, what’s important to her,  and isn’t willing to put up with a lot of excess bull from people.

15. What color do dye your hair?
I give it golden highlights, and darker brown lowlights.

16. Why are you doing this meme?
Because I like Saturday meme’s

17. What do you do when you’re moody?
Take a long, hot shower with the good soap.  Thankfully, this doesn’t happen very much.

18. At which age do you wish to or did you, get married?
I was 31.

19. If today is the last day of your life, what will you do?
Spend it with my loved ones

20. Who is the person you trust the most?
Myself

21. Last time you smiled?
This morning.

22. What are you listening to right now?
The fan going in the office

23. Who was the last person you saw in your dream?
I have no idea

24. Are you talking to someone while doing this?
Nope – I’m in the office with just one of the cats.

25. Do you walk with your eyes open or closed?
Please.  I trip so much with my eyes open that walking with them closed would be like a suicide mission.

26. Is there a quote by which you live?
Not really…

27. Do you want someone you cannot have?
No   My boy!

28. Who always makes you laugh?
My boy!

29. What was the worst idea you’ve had this week?
To try to move the recliner upstairs by myself.

30. Do you speak another language other than English?
I took Spanish for about 9 years and don’t remember much.  I need to start learning some Italian and Greek!

So how exactly does one ’summer in New England’?  It’s a good thing there are pictures. 

First you go to Boston.  You do Boston all wrong, and by all wrong, I mean that you go for a total of 4-ish days, and only manage to leave the conference hotel for one afternoon to walk the Freedom Trail.  Then, despite the absolutely gorgeous weather that is occuring, you spend the rest of the time cooped up in the hotel, doing presentations, job interviews, networking, and being all responsible.

Sheesh.

The beginning of the Freedom Trail.

Chandelier inside one of the churches along the trail…

The State House…

Taking a rest before heading to Bunker Hill (or, in other words, stopping because I’m the dope that decided I’d rather not carry my sneakers with me all day, so I wore flip flops to walk the 3+ miles of the Freedom Trail.  Yes. I got blisters on the bottom of my feet.  So not fun).

Bunker Hill:

We finished the walk with a tour of the USS Constitution, which I’ll admit, I wasn’t too enthusiastic about doing, but ended up being so glad that we did.  It was a really incredible tour of the ship.  I’m only a little sad we didn’t get some of the grog.

That’s the highlights of my Boston foray.  I didn’t take any pictures of the inside of the conference hotel.  Maybe I should have.  I could have live Twitted an interview.  “Oh, excuse me, let me just take this picture of this interview.  Multimedia prowress and all…”.

We took the train down from Boston to CT on Saturday.  It was my first time taking a train other than Metro North.  I was really nervous.  I enjoyed it – we sat in the first row, and had endless leg room.  I read My Sister’s Keeper and tried not to cry a few times.  However, there apparently had been some train track incidents earlier, because we ended up getting in almost 25 minutes late.  That was agony – watching the familiar landscape appear before my eyes…and the train was barely moving.

Back to the summering.

Then you spend an afternoon out on a boat fishing for bluefish off the ‘gold coast of Connecticut’.  That’s not a joke.  I learned that day that’s actually the part of Connecticut I grew up in.

That’s me and my dad.  If you look really hard, you can actually see the blue in the water.   It’s about halfway up the rod.

Or I could just show you this:

My boy says he caught the biggest fish that day.  Because he’s cute, I’ll let him keep thinking that.  Of course, I caught the biggest.

Here we are, in all our pretend yuppie glory, on the boat that day.

I say pretend, because if I was a real yuppie, I would have been wearing my cute little straw hat, a cute little sundress, and I’d probably be holding a cocktail.  Instead, I have on my Dad’s trusty Yankee’s hat (which he said I wasn’t allowed to steal), a Georgia Highland’s t-shirt, workout shorts, and sneakers.  *gasp*

The next day we did absolutely nothing all day, but got to go up and spend the evening with my former diving coach, Dan.  We had dinner at his house, and then headed to an evening of free entertainment provided by stand up comics.  There were three – usually the best is last, but I actually thought the middle guy was the best.  There were some thick New York accents that night, and I wished my friend WennyBrown had been there to hear them.  I didn’t take any pictures that night, so you’ll just have to take my word that it really happened.

I’d go on and tell you about our adventures attending Yale, but I need to have a picture emailed to me to complete that set.

It’ll just have to keep you on the edge of your seat with anticipation.

That’s pretty much where I’ve been for the past couple weeks or so that I’ve been sadly neglecting my little blog corner of the world.  There was adventures here in Alabama that left me sans internets, then a conference in Boston, then the death of my laptop, and finally, some quality time at home with the family.

The laptop is back (sort of, kind of, but not really fixed), I’m back home in Alabama, and life seems to be settling back down to a semi-normal pace.

Today was the first day of classes of the semester.  Since I’m writing my dissertation, and I’m not officially taking classes anymore, and I’m not teaching, I got to sit at home and kiss my boy as he headed off to school today.  It felt very strange.  I do plan on spending two days a week at school this semester (which will coincide with his classes so that we can carpool), but that won’t start until next week.

In the meantime, I’m on a deadline to turn in my dissertation proposal and get my defense date set.   My plan was to have it turned in by last Friday, but when the laptop goes on the fritz, it makes it kind of hard.  Thus, I’m plugging along now, working through some earlier criticisms and adding new material in.  I spent a couple of hours working on my introduction earlier, then spent a couple more completely re-doing it.  Who knew that much effort needed to go in to 4 pages?  That’s the portion that ’sells’ the rest of the paper, so it needs to be spot on.  I realized that my first draft went off on a tangent that I’ll never even talk about in the actual dissertation, so it had to go.  Currently I’m at 42 pages, sans references.

The trip home was much needed, and wonderful.  My boy and I decided that since we had just spent 5 days being all academic and nerdy with the ‘white tower academic elitists’ we should name our vacation appropriately.  Thus, we decided to say we were ’summering in New England’.  We even gave each other yuppy and preppy names.  I originally went for “Bunny”, but settled on “Lehr” later.  Sadly, I can’t find an oomlat here on WordPress to correctly write out “Lehr”.

There we are, on a dinner cruise of NYC (which yes, I know is not New England, but it’s us on a boat) to celebrate the birthdays of my parents and one of our friends.  I put this here as a teaser picture – I have more that I’ll use to do a picture dump over the next several days or so, because let’s be honest – that’ll probably be more interesting that writing about the dissertation.

Here’s looking at you, squirrel…

I tried some more ‘artsy’ shots today, but I don’t like them.  Ergo, we fall back on wild animal kingdom.  Or something like that.

Sometimes, it helps to fancify your drink.  Today I chose milk in an over sized snifter glass from the Pirates’ House in Savannah.

See? It looks fancy.

Of course, it’s hard to be classy and fancy with any kind of drink when your cat sticks her head in it.

My cat Allie loves to sleep on the bed in the guest room.  She rotates spots on the bed – sometimes she’s stretched across the foot, sometimes she’s snuggled all up in the pillows.  If it’s the early/mid afternoon, you can be pretty certain that’s where you’ll find her.

Yesterday I was cleaning/organizing/being domestic, and decided it was time for a massive sheet changing/bedspread washing/mattress flipping extravaganza.

This shows the sheer love that this cat has for this bed, and her determination to sleep on it, no matter what.

And yes.  After I took the picture, she slept up there for a good couple of hours.