This place looks familiar.
Sep. 22nd, 2002 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaSo. I'm in Iowa City.
I'm here for the exact same fucking reason I was here ten months ago: my dissertation isn't done. I'm bogged down in data collection. The undergraduate research assistant I recruited to collect my last subjects flaked on me after running a grand total of four subjects - which is an improvement over the previous undergraduate research assistant, who flaked on me without running any subjects at all. This time, I at least kept in good contact and sent her frequent prompts and reminders - but much good it did me, because she stonewalled me at first and then just stopped answering my e-mail.
So I'm out here again. This time, I plan to run the remaining 25 subjects myself. In the next two weeks. While I continue to work on the grant application from a distance.
Does it show that I hate this?
I'm furious at the research non-assistant, obviously, but I can't put all the blame on her. My own fecklessness and poor choices and procrastination have more to do with why I'm not finished than anything else does. I should've been finished before I hired her ten months ago. I should've been finished before I went on internship twenty-seven months ago. Everyone who started when I did finished long ago. Intellectually, I know that it's not a race. Emotionally... I'm so ashamed of not being done that I can barely tolerate working on the damned thing, which is not the most helpful way to be.
I'm getting more done now that I'm here. I still have a low-grade panicky feeling in my gut, but I do feel better now that I'm actually moving forward. I can run 25 subjects in two weeks. I can recruit the missing 11-12 subjects in two weeks. I can get the data entered as I collect it and be ready to start data analysis by the end of the two-week period. My planned analyses are pretty simple - they won't take long. So two weeks from now I should be on the downward slope. That's the plan, anyway.
I just have to get through the next two weeks. That shouldn't be as hard as all that.
Right?
I'm here for the exact same fucking reason I was here ten months ago: my dissertation isn't done. I'm bogged down in data collection. The undergraduate research assistant I recruited to collect my last subjects flaked on me after running a grand total of four subjects - which is an improvement over the previous undergraduate research assistant, who flaked on me without running any subjects at all. This time, I at least kept in good contact and sent her frequent prompts and reminders - but much good it did me, because she stonewalled me at first and then just stopped answering my e-mail.
So I'm out here again. This time, I plan to run the remaining 25 subjects myself. In the next two weeks. While I continue to work on the grant application from a distance.
Does it show that I hate this?
I'm furious at the research non-assistant, obviously, but I can't put all the blame on her. My own fecklessness and poor choices and procrastination have more to do with why I'm not finished than anything else does. I should've been finished before I hired her ten months ago. I should've been finished before I went on internship twenty-seven months ago. Everyone who started when I did finished long ago. Intellectually, I know that it's not a race. Emotionally... I'm so ashamed of not being done that I can barely tolerate working on the damned thing, which is not the most helpful way to be.
I'm getting more done now that I'm here. I still have a low-grade panicky feeling in my gut, but I do feel better now that I'm actually moving forward. I can run 25 subjects in two weeks. I can recruit the missing 11-12 subjects in two weeks. I can get the data entered as I collect it and be ready to start data analysis by the end of the two-week period. My planned analyses are pretty simple - they won't take long. So two weeks from now I should be on the downward slope. That's the plan, anyway.
I just have to get through the next two weeks. That shouldn't be as hard as all that.
Right?
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no subject
Date: 2002-09-23 06:22 am (UTC)Your flaky research assistants aren't your fault. At all. If that's the only thing holding you back, then you've done everything you could. *And* you've done all this other spiffy stuff that your classmates probably couldn't have dreamed of doing. (So phooey on them.)
Good luck...