Things are Looking Up

Well  now, tonight is a special night indeed!  A kind word from my dissertation mentor has righted my world, at least for the short term.  He tells me not to worry, nothing is derailed yet, keep it generic, and keep working.  Solid advice!  My chapter 1 is coming along, but I am struggling to keep the vPSI philosophy out of the literature mini-overview section.  All my research has been geared one way, and now I must step WAY back for a look at the BIG PICTURE. And this is good!  If forces me to think about what it could all mean for the BIG PICTURE.

Let's practice karate and let that mull around awhile.  I have stopped work and time is short.  A computer has had my attention for almost 14 hours today.  I gotta find a new line  of work!

Dare I Be Hopeful?

Somebody threw me a lifeline today.  It scares the hell out of me, but I will grab on and give it all I have; it may be the only chance I get.  If success happens, it will be my greatest accomplishment.  If failure...let's not even go there. This is an opportunity to either look really good, or look really bad.  I best not put specifics here yet.  In time, I can reveal what happened today.

I went for a walk at lunch today.  The goldenrod is lovely...er...well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so they say.  I love goldenrod because it reminds me of Kentucky.  It is our state flower, except it's really more like a weed.  This is an up-close shot of our native beauty.





I also took a picture of the little lake behind the office where I work.  The water level is down a bit since we haven't had rain lately.  I love this place, and not too many people make the walk.  It's a nice quiet place to go and get away from the chaos of cubicle-world.
 

So, enough procrastinating.  My dissertation mentor told me that I should stay focused on the the things I can control and quit fretting over the fact that failure is more likely than success.  He listed the obstacles for me, I already knew what they were, but I guess it's his way of acknowledging the obvious road blocks.  The lifeline I got today gives me something to focus on.  I will press on and keep my eyes on the prize...so to speak.  Now, I work! 

Grumbling

Things are not going well at all with getting approval for the study I want to do for my dissertation.  Why in the world did I think it was going to work out?  I knew pessimism was the correct attitude, but obviously more pessimism was needed.  Honestly, I had enough hope at the beginning to think it would work out.  Is anything in this world easy?  Anything at all?  No. 

On a happier note, my African violet is amazing right now. 

So tomorrow, I am hoping to get a promising e-mail.  Some glimmer of  hope.  It's hard to stay on this literature review if the study is going down the drain..  If no evidence of hope by the end of the workday tomorrow, I will abandon all hope and pursue another avenue....at this point, what will that be?  It's going to be another night of bad dreams, no doubt.  I hate failure.  Funny how my dreams seem to be directly tied to the mess going on in my life.   

It's getting late, and I have nothing positive to write about.   Not a good thing....

More So Soon?

I took a picture with my obnoxious, poor excuse for a phone today.  It does not do it justice but I will post it anyway.  My office would be a very sad place without plants.  My corn plant is taller than me now. 

It's Friday night and I must work on the literature review for my dissertation tonight.  I have a terrible feeling about all this.  I'm pretty sure my company will not let me do this study.  I don't think they will say no...I just think they will never say yes.  Why do I always make everything so complicated?  Is there anything at all in this world that is easy?

Bouncing off Walls

I am bouncing off walls tonight.  I knocked off work early because...just because.  It was a very frustrating day today.  In fact, Sarah's picture reminds me of me today!  Well, it would  be me if I wore dresses to work and had long hair. 

Some day, I will retire from "that place" and get a job I want to do.  OR, maybe, I will find a job in "that place" I want to do.  For now, the good news is that my boss has given me the project I wanted, BUT (and there's alway a catch) I have to take on some other crappy work at the same time.  So, I get a project that's going to require a lot of analysis and travel, but then he saddles me with more busy work.  The busy work is already killing me.  I hate bureaucracy!   

Should I write about my dissertation?  I think the bureaucracy will not permit me to do the study.  My own company would rather not allow something like this because they've never done it before and there's no published procedure for it.  God forbid they give OK without meetings, procedure writing, and approvals.  Of course, that's not the excuse I will hear.  Some change agent I am!  Plan B and C are already swirling in my head.  On the bright side, my mentor said my prelim outline is good enough, my topic is worthy, and I get to read studies that interest me.  I think my selected topic is a good enough choice for  me.  Someday, if I survive all this, I will get a teaching job and research whatever I want!   

Higher Education

Where to begin? Cheryl gave me an African violet which is one of the things I like most about my office. It has gone crazy recently and is loaded with blooms...I have to give you a visual!

My office plants are the only things that make that job tolerable in many respects. I have an older photo of a spider plant that has really gotten bottom heavy lately. I will have to harvest some babies and start new plants soon. Also, my corn plant (I don't have a photo unfortunately) is now taller than me. It is magnificent!

So, today, I have been reading studies in preparation of writing an outline for my literature review. The reading has been interesting so I'm thankful that I have not selected a boring topic Still, it's so overwhelming to think that I must somehow find a way to organize the info provided from hundreds of studies. I'm also starting to wonder if my topic is even worthy of studying....I will write aboout that in my reflection statement this week.

A number of words came up today that I had to look up again. Listing them here (seeing them again) may help me eventually commit them to my unreliable memory.

• salience - prominence, or importance (why can't I remember this one)???!!!
• amenable - willing to comply
• ceteris paribus - all other things being equal - (I should have remembered this one)
• veridical - coinciding with reality
• egalitarian - belief in the equality of all people
• Bayesian learning - evidence or observations are used to update what is known about underlying hyptheses. Huh? That was the most concise definition I could find, but I'm not sure it makes that much sense to me.

zzzzzzz and Sand

I'm searching for committee members tonight. What a chore! I'm not having much success with the search criteria selectors. I select quantitative and case study, management and technology for experience, and it returns too many. The metadata is ill-defined. I've come to find there are many, MANY more teaching faculty than business or technology faculty. I told myself I will not go to bed until I've officially selected four candidates.

I recently heard someone talk about drawing a line in the sand. He spoke as if the line is a barrier that separates before and after - like a impenetrable fortress that can never be breached. But sand is not very firm and is not permanent. A good hard rain and the line is gone. What is that phrase really supposed to mean?

Back to work now. Get the task done so I can go to bed..it's been a very long day (and week).