rivka

rivka:
> > Did you intend to insult me with the "Piled Higher
> > and Deeper" part, or did you not realize that it
> > refers to *shit* being piled higher and deeper?

Someone else, not the original poster:
> Of course; it's a geometric progression (or worse):
>
> BSc -- Bullshit certificate
> MSc -- More shit certificate
> PhD -- Piled higher and deeper.
>
> Felicitations and salutations -- nobody will ever know
> what agonies you went through for that worthless piece
> of paper but you. Treasure those happy memories for they
> will sustain you in the trials to come.
>
> I'm not good at this sort of thing, as you may have surmised.

rivka:
If you were aiming at taking me down a peg, undercutting
my pleasant sense of accomplishment, or devaluing eight
years' worth of hard work, you're on the right track. If
that's not what you meant to be doing, well, maybe next
time you should stick to "felicitations" and leave it at
that.

I know I'm supposed to take this as all in good fun, but
I've spent eight years of my life working very hard,
earning very little, forgoing many pleasures, and postponing
other significant life goals. I don't know what prompts you
to tell me that my degree is worthless and my work is a
shitpile, but forgive me if I don't really have a sense
of humor about it.

---

Okay, I feel as though I've completely lost my shit here - or at least, my sense of perspective. But these comments just feel hostile to me. I'm sure he thinks he's just teasing and I know I'm supposed to be a good sport about it. And maybe if I weren't still so tired from the whole ordeal I would be a good sport about it. Or if it was someone I knew so well that their supportiveness could be taken for granted, and we had a pre-existing teasing relationship. In the absence of those factors, I feel as though I'm being told not to get above myself.

Sometime on the morning of my dissertation defense I had a startling realization: nervous and excited have the same physiological component. If you feel jumpy and wired and your muscles are tense and your heart is pounding, you get to decide whether to label that "excited" or "nervous." I firmly told myself I was excited, and it almost completely worked.
( the war story continues at length... )

I have my suit. I wear it seldom enough that I always marvel at how professional it makes me look. It's so deep a navy blue as to be almost black. It has quasi-military styling: it buttons up above my breasts with big silver-and-navy buttons and has a belt across the back with two more buttons on it. No one else could wear my suit - it's tailored to fit my short right arm. It fits me perfectly. I couldn't fail to be brilliant in that suit.

I have a cream-colored silk blouse and low black heels and fine sheer stockings with no runs in them, to wear with my suit.

I have my laptop computer and its power cord, which means that I have all of my dissertation data in Excel and SPSS files and output files for all of my data analyses. I have my dissertation and its figures and the external abstract on a CD. I have a hard copy of my dissertation. I have overheads for my defense. I have notes of my advisor's advice about my defense. I have the reference for an article he recommended on problems with the dichotomization of continuous variables, which wasn't in the University of Maryland library but is probably in the University of Iowa library, given that he read it. I have the Graduate College Thesis Manual. I have the Graduate College's critique of all the ways in which my first deposit deviated from the Thesis Manual. I have a half-page cheat sheet about logistic regression.

I have all of my University of Iowa keys to return.

I have two buttons, neither of which I will wear on the outside of my clothes: "Trust me, I'm almost a doctor," and "we have charts & graphs to back us up so fuck off."

I have all of the ordinary things you take on a week-long trip: seven T-shirts and two sundresses and three pairs of shorts and my sandals and underwear and a long T-shirt to sleep in at David and Leslie's house and my summerweight bathrobe and my bathing suit and jeans and a long-sleeved shirt in case it really does get cool in Minneapolis over the weekend, and four books (The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope, which is what I'm reading right now, and Murder Must Advertise and Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers, and a single-volume set of Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford), and my cell phone charger, and all of my bathroom things and my medications.

Surely that means that everything will go just fine.

Done!

"The American Psychological Association (APA) recently released a statement urging greater national attention to the maltreatment of children with disabilities (APA, 2003). The APA's call for further research, clinical care, and public policy directed at maltreated disabled children signals that despite thirty years of evidence linking maltreatment and disabilities, key research questions have not been answered and many of the needs of this vulnerable population have not been met."

-- New opening sentences of rivka's dissertation, replacing both the original dull and uninspired first sentence and the perhaps a trifle too inspired "Don't call me Ishmael."

Does one thank one's advisor in the Acknowledgements?

The Grad College manual says "acknowledgements are limited to thanks for or recognition of special assistance;" I'm thanking my funding sources, my undergraduate RA, the people in the Pediatrics department who gave me access to my subjects, and my advisor's secretary, who helped me with a lot of admin stuff that isn't in her job description. Helping me is in my advisor's job description, but should I thank him anyway? I'm not sure what's generally done.

Another five pages edited. It's not a great rate of progress, but I'm not exactly in a position to complain about any forward movement whatsoever. I should have time to work on it tomorrow while I'm waiting for research participants. I think it will help to work earlier in the day, before I'm exhausted.

We booked our travel arrangements for my defense today. We're staying at the same hotel which housed our wedding guests and the Weddingcon '99 consuite. It's a more-comfortable-than-average hotel with a pool and hot tubs and a truly goofy medieval theme, and at $65 it's only costing us about $25 a night more than a Motel 6. Worth it for the comfort, of course, but the true value of this place will be in the happy memories. The bathed-in-love feeling comes back just thinking about the last time I was there. I think I'm going to need that, come the 26th and 27th of August.

(1) Called the Graduate College to make sure that I understand all the rules for First Deposit of my dissertation, and also to be sure that someone will be around during the break between the summer session and the fall semester to receive my First Deposit. All is well.

(2) Edited the Method section, incorporating all of John's suggestions as well as the additional changes I wanted to make myself. The Method is the shortest section, so in that sense, finishing it isn't that big a deal - but on the other hand, it's finished, and it's not as though I've had so much forward progress these days that I ought to be downplaying any of it.

I'm going to try to get in at least another hour this evening. Using a classical CD to set a work period seems to be working well, and the current English Country Dance CD in the drive is an hour and six minutes long. I can do that. But first, dinner and The Amazing Race.

I suppose that it's normal to be falling to pieces at this stage of the process, but it's damned annoying.
( whining follows )

Tuesday evening, the day I finished my dissertation first draft, I sent the last section to my advisor with a slightly panicked note reminding him that he hasn't gotten any of my sections back with comments, and that the clock is ticking down. At the time I wrote the e-mail, there were a scant five weeks until my defense - which meant three weeks until I have to have my final draft.

No response Wednesday.

No response Thursday.

No response Friday morning.

I've really been freaking out. I mean, yes, I can make changes on my own. I'm a good writer and a good editor of my own writing. But I need to hear from him that I'm on the right track overall - that I've done all the analyses I need to do, that my discussion is adequate in scope, that I'm not missing anything important. I can wait for his stylistic comments, but I desperately need a big-picture evaluation from him, and I haven't been getting it.

Today I called him at his vacation cottage in Wisconsin. I was pretty worked up by the time I called - all this silence from him! - and there he was, sounding all relaxed and amiable. Happy to hear from me. Nothing in his voice sounded like he thought there was any kind of issue between us.

Yes, he got my e-mail. Yes, he knows he needs to send me something. He's going to try to get me the whole thing tomorrow or Sunday. Can he send me sections? No, because he's working back and forth through the whole document and thinking about how the sections relate to each other. Can he tell me anything? Well, the reason he hasn't been rushing to get it back to me is that it's pretty good. He's got some suggestions - I need to dig up references for some of the things I say in the introduction, for example - but he thinks it's in good shape. Has he read the whole thing? Oh yeah, of course. And he thinks my graphs are great - very persuasive. A word of advice - installing a glass block wall is a lot trickier than it appears. Any dissertation advice? Not at present, but he knows he's been derelict. He'll get it to me soon. Great talking to me.

Jesus Christ. Okay, I feel much much better knowing that I'm on the right track. If his only example of things that need fixing is some unreferenced assertions, then I'm fine. I'm not going to find out a week before it's due that I have to rewrite the entire back half. But for God's sake, why couldn't he drop me a single lousy e-mail to tell me so? He was so... so blithe, through the whole phone call. So cheery. As if it never occurred to him that not hearing from him might be causing me problems.

I feel like tearing my hair out at the roots - but only because I can't get to his.