Flitting through

Well, I flew by here just to add a link to Jennifer's blog to my blogroll...but since I am here.... might as well post an update, eh?

Almost done! Not the whole Phd, obviously - but almost to the end of the first year ...which means almost finished all of my required coursework.

There are SO many courses that I still want to take - and I probably will audit some - but when I get to the end of this semester, no more required ones.

And I'm passing even - and believe me, I had doubts!

And today I managed to fire off not 1, not 2, but 3 papers I needed to get sent off. Well, 1 paper, 2 proposals.... same difference. Next up is a proposal re: the paper I'm going to write in my Can Lit --> Film course...and I have to write a 30(ish) page proposal for my thesis ... and one more short paper for my core course, and... well, still lots to get through...but I'm managing to get things done (and pass, did I mention I am passing?) and I am (mostly) having fun.

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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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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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Bits & Pieces

Somehow today just seems to have been eaten up with them ....bits & pieces of things that needed to be done... but none that really make any difference in the BIG jobs that are on my to do list.

Got an email this morning about a progress report that I didn't know needed to be done .... so ended up spending some time finally getting my fax machine set up properly so that it could be faxed to me, since I wasn't inclined to drive 2.5 hours each way just to sign my name (although it might have been a good idea, since I have 3 overdue library books that need to go back there asap!).

And then, since I was emailing back and forth with my advisor, it seemed like a good day to get the proposal for my paper finished off and sent in ...so finally got that done as well.

Ross & I went shopping and to get the mail (for all the good it did; the letter we are waiting for still didn't show up)... and I did do some work on both my presentation for next week and my MRP ...but it's a cold, wet, dreary day and it just feels like its been long and mostly unproductive.

I SO need to get motivated. And FOCUSED. Especially focused.

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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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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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Starting to Unwind

Today, a friend called with a powerpoint problem and I had time not only to help her fix it - but also to walk over to her place (3 miles, YAY me!) and go set up her printer and sit on her back deck and just chat for ages...

and tomorrow we're going shopping.

I don't much care for shopping on the whole - but since my accident back in November, almost all of my shopping trips have been with hubby ...Mr. Do You Really Need That? I'm looking forward to going out without 'im for a change :)

I've been doing the school thing for soooo long without a real break - it's taken me some time to unwind...slow down....breathe....

I could get used to this.

Not TOO used to it though - still got 3 weeks of summer school and a conference to go to ...and a major research paper to write. And will start again full time in the fall of course.

But for now, I have some down time. And Scrooge, my mutt, and I are enjoying it.

It will soon be time to get the boat in the water - I wonder how many calories rowing burns off? Will have to find out!

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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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Ethical Aggravation

So I'm doing this research project for school and one of the ~fun~ bits is that I have to jump through hoops to get approval for it from an ethics board. Got a response to my application yesterday ... and one of the things that just made me grind my teeth is that according to them, no way no how I am allowed to discuss any aspect of my research on my blogs.

Not even though my research is only about reading habits, not anything potentially sensitive.

And not even if I build it into my consent form, which is what I wanted to do.

I am sorely tempted to just pitch the entire survey of emerging adult readers then - too many hoops to jump through for that aspect of it. Not only am I not allowed to talk about emerging adults and reading if I do the survey, I would also have to use the system they tell me and have that system save the 'signed' consents and so on for each user.

I guess I'll just limit myself to available resources and to hell with the hoop jumping.

I understand that they have to have guidelines but this is ludicrous. What is the point of learning if you're not allowed to share it? Ever?

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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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