thesis

i don't remember how i worked for my master's thesis. too bad, because i worked quite well, if i recall. i know i had to write the first few chapters for my specific classes and that helped. i remember writing my chapter 2 in one weekend and feeling amazingly good about it. then, after chapter 3, i stopped thinking about my thesis for a while since i was back in europe and no longer a student at byu... but then, when i came back, i finished my chapter 4 in one summer. i remember writing on my bed for hours, going crazy about the neighbor's dog which was constantly barking, and i was calling the cops about three times a week. but i was writing. i think the data analysis is the easiest part, since all you have to do is look at what the statistcs tell you and write it down so it makes sense in words too. boring but easy. chapter 5 was just a summary of the whole thing, i think, so it must not have been too hard. i really can't remember much. from here, it looks like it was not too hard, but i am sure that if i go back to my old journals, i'll see that i hated it and had the hardest time in my life! started one winter, wrote chapters 1 and 2 that winter, wrote chapter 3 the following fall in my research design class, got kicked out, came back and worked on chapter 4 that summer and a little in the fall, but i remember that i didn't do much in the fall because i was just teaching, not taking any classes, and it was just fun. plus i was still recovering from the winter's surgery. and then i finished the whole thing mid-winter semester and defended it in march i think, or beginning of april. i could have graduated then, but i wanted to work that summer before coming to purdue so i didn't make the last changes to my final draft until the middle of summer and officially graduated that august.

so what kind of rythme can i have, now, to write every day? two hours a day? three pages a day? however long i can survive whenever i feel like writing? nah, that doesn't work well. i MUST tell myself something like "you can't write anything on your blog or even read anything from there until you have written at least 3 pages every day!" agh, that'll be so hard. the written part could work, but the reading? i don't think i can live without knowing what comments i got and what other people said on their blogs. so maybe i could make a deal like "first, you look at your comments. then you write 2 pages and then you read other people's blogs. finally, you write 2 more pages and write a new entry on your blog." how's that? could i survive that much? do i do that every morning? that'd be the best, because in the evening i'm dead tired and sometimes have classes late. so, wake up at 8 every morning and go for that? yeah, i should try. i MUST finish quickly, i MUST get working on this.

things i need to do right now:
- get this proposal going,
- talk to margie about: the committee, the schedule she wants me to work on, the expectations for drafts and feedback, and regular meetings,
- keep looking for more literature, at least the things i can get for now, since i am still not sure exactly what the scope of the research will be,
- get this TQ article revised and resubmitted. i tried this morning and it's tough, i don't know how i'll do it. i have no idea how to do what the reviewers said i should do. maybe i could ask april for help... i am tempted to give up on that but i know it's too previous and valuable, so i'll keep trying. damn.
- work for my phonology class and manage to at least get a B in it otherwise i'd have to take it again and that'd be dumb!