Pushing myself

I still have SO much to get done this month that I have come up with daily goals - 10 pages/day for my major research paper means I SHOULD be able to finish the first draft by Saturday (allowing for one day to go to Peterborough to find a place to live). Which is REALLY pushing it - and it will still need work/editing/the works cited page and all that fun stuff... but the main thing at this point is to get 'er DONE. Then I can futz all I want... until I run out of time.

The Mavis Gallant piece that I need to write also needs to get done this week ... hoping the photocopies I have ordered will come tomorrow but even if they don't, I plan to tackle a first draft tomorrow.

AND I need to do some work on the archives project this week, and start my digital project and ...and...and...

yeah... I have bitten off too much again... but I'll get it done. One way or another.

I've started making time for journalling... it helps. Somewhat counterintuitive to make time for it - it FEELS like I don't HAVE time for such things... but when I do my journalling I'm a lot more focused when I do sit down to work... so it's worth it. I think.

Anyway ..don't know how much time I'll have for blogging over the next bit...but we'll see!

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Time for Penguins

The biggest challenge to my successful completion of a Phd is on its way to being resolved....

Not having a drivers licence was HUGE - a major challenge, hardship, obstacle, whatever you want to call it.

I am very fortunate that Ross was willing to take on the role of chauffeur - and that he would continue doing it for as long as needed - but it really is way too much to ask and I hate HATE HATED it!

Saw the doctor today and she was really pleased with my weight loss (50lbs in less than 3 months) and withthe results of all of the tests I've had since the accident and she checked the MTO guidelines and she is writing the letter so that I can have my license back. The letter was going out today - will still take 4 - 6 weeks to get processed - but by the time I start school again in September I should be driving!

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Awww....

I have been having a not very good week.

This is the second week of the summer school course I'm taking - I get to go home tomorrow!!!! and although I really enjoyed last week, this week, not so much.

Been really cranky, and having a LOT of very negative thoughts about whether I am really up for 2+ more years of Trent. I likes my house. I like Georgian ...I COULD just finish my MA and apply to go back and teach at the college level and....

well, yeah... be bored out of my skull within a few years and all ...but...

ANYWAY... today the secretary was in and not busy and I happened to think of my student evaluations .... almost didn't even ask for them because I was in SUCH a pissy mood... but I did it anyway and guess what????

They like me... they really like me LOL

Lots of really positive feedback from my students - comments about the variety of activities I offered and the effort I put into "helping us to better understand the literature" and they appreciated my use of technology and how quickly I responded to emails and so on.

s'almost enough to make me think I should keep going.

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Database for Notetaking

So ...I finally did it: made myself a database for taking notes while I wade through the stacks and stacks of readings.

I meant to do it when I started my MA but just never got around to finishing one.... but this summer I decided to do it again, and this time I not only started it, I finished it ....well, to the point of usability anyway ...I continue to tweak it as I go and I'm sure that that will continue for awhile yet.

I am using it for my readings for the course I'm taking - there are a lot of readings!

It works for me in part because I am not known for organization - when I take notes on paper, I invariably lose them - until right after I need them at which point they mysteriously reappear. Since I always have a computer of some sort with me (and to date, knocking on wood, have yet to misplace one, although cords are a different story) - I can manage this far better.

Plus, of course, it has the advantage of being fully searchable, sortable, etc. I can pull up all notes that relate to a certain article or topic or author or.... whatever.

My hope is that by the time it comes round to having to study for my comprehensive exams in the second year of my doctorate, I will have an excellent resource from which to work. Comps are the one aspect of my Phd studies that scare the crap out of me - I am not so great at recalling what I want when I want it.

Typing my notes into the database - and also coming up with a summary of each article/work - should, I hope, improve my ability to do that sort of thing. I'm already finding that I am doing much better at retaining who said what information, which is probably because I have first of all, had to type the authors' names in, then select them, then see them on the screen at the top of every note I write or term I add to my glossary.

AND once I have a good database of typed out ~stuff~ I shall have even more fun fodder for playing with some of the textual analysis tools that I learned about in Victoria last week. It's all good.

Well, all, that is, except for the mosquitos that are driving me nuts! I'm sitting in the backyard of the house that I'm staying at. It will soon be time to give it up and head inside for a shower and then bed. But going to get back to my reading & database for a bit longer .... I've finished my readings for tomorrow now and am halfway through Thursday, which is good, as tomorrow night we're having a BBQ and I will not want to read. I'll have a couple of hours in between class and the BBQ in which to finish whatever I don't get done... but would be nice to get it all done tonight.

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Advantages of being a nontraditional student

I said in yesterday's post, Being a nontraditional student sucks? that I would post some of what I see as advantages of being a nontraditional student. So - here is a list:

1. As a nontraditional student, we tend to have a lot more life experience on which to draw. We have usually read more, had more experience dealing with businesses and with people, and have work experience that can go a long way to helping us to be able to apply what we are learning to what we already know. Assimulation is always easier than accomodation - and so we nontraditional students get to learn the easier way a lot more.
2. Nontraditional students are generally more disciplined (we have to be!) and professors like us because of it.
3. Nontraditional students are also usually closer in age to the professors, which can make for better relationships with them - especially important when it comes to reference letters and recommendations for scholarships.
   
4. Being able to better understand how our professors think makes it far easier to pick up on important clues about what they are looking for in essays and exams.
   
5. Nontraditional students understand the importance of the investment we are making in our education, and are more likely to take it seriously - again, a tendency that in my experience is often highly valued in an academic environment.
6. Nontraditional students are better at juggling than other students are - so we are typically less inclined to go into total meltdown at the midterm and end of every semester... not that we don't - but we usually manage to get through those stressful periods better than some.
   
7. Nontraditional students have connections that can help to support us while we are in school and also help us to get jobs when we are done.

Like my tag line says ....Nontraditional, mature, returning students ....no matter what you call us, we are a determined and resourceful bunch.

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Being a nontraditional student sucks?

That made me kind of sad - the fact that one of the search terms that showed up in my google analytics today was that being a nontraditional student sucks.

That has not been my experience at all - I think that being a nontraditional student can certainly be challenging - we nontrads tend to have a lot more juggling to do to make it all work. But we also have advantages that can make our experiences as nontraditional students pay off.

When I accomplish something as a nontraditional student, I take pride in the fact that I pulled it off in spite of all of the challenges I face. It means more, I think, to succeed when it's hard.

My degrees show that I can not just write papers and pass exams ... but also that I can juggle, organize, balance, and overcome.

Especially overcome. Being a nontraditional student can be really difficult. I've done it as a broke, burned out single mom; as a caregiver for someone with Alzheimers who needed a great deal of care and attention and who died here, in my living room, in the middle of a semester in which I was carrying a full load as a student and a full teaching load; and now, dealing with some pretty inconvenient health problems of my own.

When I walk across the stage and pick up my degrees, that means something. Of course, it means something for every student that makes it that far - but for me, it is a particular source of pride.

I'm not feeling so hot tonight so I'm off to bed - tomorrow I will write about what I see as advantages of being a nontraditional student.

But in the meantime, let me just say that I don't think that being a nontraditional student has to suck - and if you are someone that ended up here by searching "being a nontraditional student sucks" I hope you'll drop a comment - or send me an email - and maybe together we can find some solutions to make it work better for you. I would love to help ... that is exactly why I started this blog.

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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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Flitting off

So ...today is the day for my first year ENGL students' final exam. Hubby took the day off and we're driving down to be there when they finish so that I can grab my sections' exams - they all need to be marked and their final marks submitted by Monday.

I'm hoping to get most of that done in the car on the way home, actually... exams don't get handed back, so I don't need to do all the commenting and so on that I do when I mark essays (not that many of them seem to read the comments but I try).

Just remembered that I never did open the file that contained the exam! I guess I'll find out what was on it when I get them. The profs set the exam and although we get a copy, I don't like to have it potentially influence the final exam review I do with my guys, so I don't open it before that - meant to go and have a look after, but ....

Oh well. No big deal.

Still working on the last of my semester papers, about Robert J Sawyer's Wake and viral contagion in Canadian publishing. It's all coming together very well, but still time consuming. Hoping to have it handed in by noon tomorrow. The incomplete option has been offered and I was tempted but it would be SO nice to have everything done ....well everything aside from my major research paper, anyway. So ...will just have to stay up tonight until it's done, get up in the morning and proofread, and fire it off. Sounds like a plan, don't it?

Once that's done, will be back to blogging regularly.

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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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