Summer School

Only 3 more sleeps and then I'm off to start three weeks of summer school courses.

The first week is on digital humanities in Victoria BC, and then I have 2 weeks about editing Canadian modernist poets' work.... am really looking forward to all of it ...but the readings for that latter 2 weeks seems a ~bit~ overwhelming at this point.... 320 pages for the theory week, followed by 626 pages for the practice week that follows. I still have SO much work to do on my major research paper, although it is coming along.

It seems like my hopes of spending July & August doing MY stuff were a ~tad~ on the optimistic side... not likely to have much time to work on the MRP during the 3 weeks of summer school; that much is obvious.

Oh well... all I can do is try.

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The End of Slacker-Time

Heard back from both the ethics committee and my advisor yesterday... approvals all 'round. So I guess that means it is time to stop slacking and get back to work.

One 50 page research paper, coming right up. Ha!

Still need to set up some appointments with people to do some of the research... but in the meantime, am going to get working on it, anyway. Sure will be nice to get it all done and out of the way.

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Maybe this nontraditional student is enjoying time off too much

One of the features of my nontraditional student experience - until now - is that I have gone at full speed. Always in overdrive - not just doing the school as student thing, but also writing, teaching, and whatever else I happened to have on my plate.

Once I started my university courses, I went full time - if they didn't have what I needed offered during the summer, I signed up for online courses through Athabasca U. Hell, I did Athabasca courses anyway - on top of my full time plus full time workload.

Now, I'm off. I take the mutt for a walk almost every day ... today I dug my garden bed. I've read hardly anything, haven't been working on my major paper (am waiting for approval from the ethics board, and feedback from my advisor). I watch stOOpid judge shows. I even do housework, much to hubby's surprise.

And soon, we will get the boat in the water and I'll go fishing.

I think I am going to enjoy this summer.

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Getting Organized - PDFs, Books, Chapters, Photocopies

Well, my bookshelf reorganization is well under way ... at least the academic side of my office, which is what I am most concerned about.

Next up, I need to sort out a system for paper. Over the course of my MA program, I ended up with hundreds - or more likely, thousands - of pieces of paper. A lot of our readings were chapters out of books, or other academic articles that we were required to photocopy.

So I have stacks of articles - to do with a whole variety of topics - public texts, fiction, viral contagion, emerging adults, etc. etc.

I am trying to decide how best to organize them. Most citations are by author - so it would make some sense to file them by author - but many also have multiple authors and besides, I am not that good at remembering authors' names ....so likely would never be able to find what I want when I want it.

By subject has potential - but then what does one do with articles that could fit into one or more categories?

I could, I suppose, start my own database to keep track of everything... have been planning to do something along those lines to use to make notes of my readings next year .... I figure that would go a long way when it comes to having to study for my comprehensive exams in the second year... but even though I have the database ability, I am not so confident in my organizational abilities.

And the thought of typing all the info from before into it doesn't really appeal much anyway... hmmm ...sounds like a job for my kid.

Now that I have all of those articles printed though, it doesn't make sense to me to not DO something constructive with them. ...at least organized enough that if I should happen to need one of them again, I can find it and not have to print/photocopy it again.

ANYWAY - if any of you less flitty more organized types has an opinion on a good strategy to use - especially for the offline paper stuff... I would very much appreciate your input.

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Nontraditional student waiting

So - one of my essays is marked and will be available for pickup in the grad student office tomorrow. That irks me, rather, given that it was submitted electronically and the profs all know that I live 2.5 hours away - would have been nice to get it back electronically. At least the mark!

But oh well, I'm going to be there on Saturday anyway - so will find out the worst then. Will just have to try not to think about it too much between now and then!

Final marks were all due in today, so presumably all 3 of my essays are marked.. waiting on those, and also for my draft proposal to come back from my research advisor, and, of course, the ethics board response to my revised application.

I hate waiting!

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They said it couldn't be done...

.... well, actually, 'twas I that said it couldn't be done.

Repeatedly ... everyone else kept saying that of course I would pull it off - I always do. Once again, they were right, and I was wrong.

I managed to get my last 20+ page essay submitted today.

Yay me!

That makes 3 big one and 3 little ones all doing in a very short period of time. The one I finished today, I am quite happy with, even .. the other two need more work but I ran out of time...

Anyway ... they are done. My proposal for the program is sent off to my advisor for review; all of the rest have been submitted.

Tomorrow I will revise my ethics application and fire that off, and get the rest of my first years' exams marked and their final marks calculated and sent off.

And then all I will have left is to write my major research paper. 50 pages, but I have 6 weeks to do it in.

After pulling off almost 100 pages of essays and so on in the last 2 weeks, I think I can manage that - especially since all of the papers I have done relate to the major research paper, so a lot of the research for it is already done.

Yay me.

I might just make it through this MA thing after all :)

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Nontraditional Students & Crisis of Confidence

Do you do it too?

I don't know if it's because I'm a nontraditional student or just because I am a total neurotic - but I hate, hate, HATE, handing in my essays any more.

I was up until 6:30 this morning finishing my CanLit one - at about 5:30 I started thinking

"OMG this is crap; I can't hand this in. I am going to fail! What if I fail? My last essay was crap too. Oh God, I'm going to fail!"

Got myself totally freaked out and even though I eventually did hit send on the damn email and go to bed for a few hours sleep, the pit of anxiety in my gut just will not go away.

I'm working, now, on my proposal re: my Major Research Paper. Everything I have done this year has been leading up to this paper. I have had the opportunity to talk to my advisor, other profs, get (and incorporate) feedback from them, fellow students, etc. I have read hundreds of academic articles. I have written essays related to smaller sections of the whole.

I know what I'm doing and how I am going to do it - and I can't seem to write a blessed thing.

Well, I can ... but then I just can't seem to keep my hand from hitting the Delete key.

Crap, crap, it's all crap!

I don't have time to be neurotic this week. I need to get this proposal sent off to my advisor so that she has time to review it before it has to be submitted to the department.

And then I still have another major paper (20+ pages) to write, and 20 essays to mark - although I think rather than torture myself with a block of 20, I'm going to start doing them a few at a time - would be nice to at least start seeing that number go down.

And maybe at least in comparison to those, my own work won't seem like such crap any more?

So.... what do you think? Is this a nontraditional student thing? Or am I just neurotic?

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Interuptions R us

Wow... it's Grand Central Station around my place today. Which is not good, as I have 2 major papers to get done - one for Tuesday and another for Wednesday.

Which wouldn't be SO bad, if I weren't doing the Easter dinner thing here on Sunday, and teaching all day Monday and again Tuesday morning. Don't quite know when I'm going to get it all done!

This is our first week of being home and hubby's been out talking to people and so on and they all know we're back so it seems like everyone is wanting something or other... have had people stop by to borrow stuff, another to drop something off, still waiting for one of Ross' nephews to stop by to pick some old computers up and so on and so on...

and of course, the phone just keeps ringing too.

But I'm making progress none-the-less... just have to keep on keeping on, I guess. And maybe give up sleeping for a few days!

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