Fly Away Little Thesis

First off, an apology to what few loyal readers I've got left for the lack of posts lately.  I've been doing the thesis tango with my advisors and a whole lotta caffeine.  That means I'm grumpy, tired and all sorts of not into writing blog posts.  However:

I've sent Thesis v1.25b to the advisors.  I think I'm going to end up turning in version 1.4 or so.  There is a mild danger that v1.25b will need to become v2.0 (Summer edition).  I'm not too distressed by that - it was my original intention to turn the blasted thing in in the summer, but it's still to be determined what will happen to my summer gig if I don't have MA in hand.

And a couple of notes to the students in my sections:

I'll help you, but I'm not going to do it for you.  (Seriously, I should get this stitched on a pillow.)

Yes, well, you should have noticed that you weren't enrolled in the class sometime before week 9.

Yes, perhaps it would have been a good idea to write that paper and turn it in instead of... not.

The Madness Continues

4th day in a row.  I think this is the only think keeping me from thesis-induced insanity
8.23km - 39'27"

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Originally uploaded by Overread.

Runlog Backlog

I felt like running a bit more this week - go figure

Monday - 6.06km - 28'17"
Tuesday - 6.02km - 28'29"
Today - 8.29km - 39'30"

Meme-orial Day

From Zerodoll
10 Favorites
Favorite Season: Fall
Favorite Color: Green
Favorite Time: either late late night or early early morning
Favorite Food: Nachos
Favorite Drink: Hot chocolate
Favorite Ice Cream: Cherry Garcia
Favorite Place: Park Place – but only if I’ve got Boardwalk too.
Favorite Sport: I would say football, but it’s generally whatever’s going on at the time
Favorite Actor: (I should mention that I’m very fickle about actors and actresses. These opinions will probably change in a few minutes) Ben Kingsley
Favorite Actress: Jennifer Ehle (Elizabeth in the BBC Pride & Prejudice)

9 Currents
Current Feeling: worn out
Current Drink: Diet Pepsi (I usually go with Diet Coke, but same thing, right? They’re both bad for me)
Current Time: 7:28 pm
Current Show on TV: Heat vs Pistons Game 4
Current Mobile used: Cingular
Current Windows 3 Microsoft Word (Beta testing the 2007 version – Woohoo!), 1 Yahoo Music Engine, 1 Firefox (9 tabs), 1 FeedDemon and a handful of widgets and a couple of field specific ones that I ain’t telling you about :)
Current Underwear: Um well, I just got out of the shower after a run, so… none. TMI? I know, I know, but I can’t lie on a meme, right?
Current Clothes: see above – none.
Current Thought: Why don’t I take more pictures anymore?

8 Firsts
First Nickname: The Fonz (first one I remember, anyway)
First Kiss: On stage: Katherine (I mention this because it happened well before anything more real). For reals: Catherine (For those who know me, you don’t know either one)
First Crush: Tracy (?)
First Best Friend: Chris
First Vehicle I Drove: My sister’s VW Bug – well before I should have been doing so legally :)
First Job: Sonic
First Date: Mexican
First Pet: Skeeter!

7 Lasts
Last Drink: Um… Diet Pepsi? Didn’t we already do this? Oh! Drink! Um… Margarita. Geeze, that was many weeks ago
Last Kiss: Right before the breakup. Nearly a year ago?
Last Meal: Turkey and bacon from the sketchy little sandwich shop right off campus
Last Web Site Visited: IMDB to look up Jennifer Ehle’s name.
Last Movie Watched: I’ll give two, because this is a really good insight into my psychoses: MST3K – The Wild World of Batwoman and The Seventh Seal
Last Phone Call: To my Mom (awww)
Last TV show Watched: actually watched? From beginning to end? Tough. Umm… Oh! I watched an episode of Airline yesterday or the day before– very entertaining.

6 Have You Ever...
Have You Ever Broken the Law: sure!
Have You Ever Been Drunk: yup
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: Are we talking ‘know’ in the biblical sense? No. er. Know.
Have You Ever Been in the Middle/Close to Gunfire: I had an AK-47 pointed at me in Moscow, but he didn’t fire. I was around a lot of gunfire in the army though
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: no
Have You Ever Broken Anyone's Heart: perhaps.

5 Things
Things You Can Hear Right Now: the TV and the fan (the wind-making kind, I’m not that popular yet) and occasionally street noise
Things On Your Bed: Me. Various sheets and pillows
Things You Ate Today: We did this one before already too! Umm… Turkey & Bacon sandwich, Special K cereal bar thingie, pretzels, a bag o’ skittles and some tortilla chips (can you tell I’m on diet hiatus while I finish the thesis?)
Things You Can't Live Without: I’ll second Zerodoll’s ‘oxygen.’
Things You Do When You Are Bored: surf the web, read, play video games, watch tv

4 Places You Have Been Today
home
office
library
old running trail (it’s only ~7km, so I got off easy today!)

3 Things On Your Desk Right Now
mountains of papers
Sharpies in several rainbows worth of colors
2 hard-copy papers I forgot to grade

2 Choices
To omit or not to omit, that is the question
Can I last another day without doing laundry?

1 Place You Want To Visit
The Space Station

Thesis Blathering

I hope everyone had a loverly Memorial Day.

 

I actually had a minor breakthrough on the thesis front. Once again, to no surprise, it was thanks to my advisor. He suggested a reorganization that will give me legitimate reasons for changing some parts and ejecting some portions of the thing that were really dragging the thesis down. So, rather than presenting each piece of data and painstakingly analyzing it before moving on, I’m going to give a general overview of the problems, explain trends (with excerpts from the data) and then present all of the data at the end.

 

The problem was (and is) that I have a big teenage-hormone-crush on my data. It was really the reason I came to this field and this topic in the first place and I love it. It’s also really really hard and the main product of the thesis itself. Even though the analysis is useful and interesting, it’s very secondary in importance (in my mind).

 

I wanted to put the data up front and with big flashing lights to let everyone know – “HEY! I CAN DO THIS STUFF AND YOU CAN’T!” Err… or something like that.

 

Anyway, it just makes soooo much more sense to organize all of the data behind the discussion of the trends and such. Yea advisor!

 

At the risk of getting hit by a train, dare I say that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting a smidge brighter?

 

Pages:     113

Words:    45,710

Lines:    3,057

 

Ok, I’m kinda proud of the poor, disorganized, rambling thing :)