drafts

when i look at the last draft i got back with feedback all over it, i feel a little discouraged...

... just a little...

puppy love

the book i'm currently reading, write your dissertation in 15 minutes, or something like that, explains how to become selfish and say NO to everything that's not directly dissertation-related, how to forget your kids, your friends, your annoying family, how to ignore your duties, and how to focus on the dissertation ONLY. fine. but then it says "don't buy a puppy!" i just got a cat, does that count? i need to play with her at least an hour every day... darn... i should have read the book sooner! ... well, at least now i'll be sure to say NO to my friends and not to get pregnent in the next few months...

deadlines

deadlines: lines drawn around prisons. if the prisonners go beyond those lines, they're dead.

this phonology class is taking up all my time and energy. I spend about 2 hours every single day working on it and i'm just not getting it, dammit! yesterday we got our homework back and the teacher said "if you got an A you're fine, if you got a B you didn't get it, and if you got a C it's not too late to drop the class." basically. i had done my homework with karen and we had excatly the same answers, but she got an A and i got a B! so I complained and said that it looked like i hadn't got it simply because my homework didn't look as neat and nice as karen's... and got an A. it's a true story! and i didn't get half of what she explained in class, and now we have no class for 3 weeks and then the midterm! and curiously, this morning i had my first indiana panick attack... tried to have 2 hours of conferences with my students but finally gave up. couldn't breathe. couldn't stand up anymore. even had a hard time speaking.

i don't know what it is with my time, but i never feel like i have any. i only go to two classes, work on a third at home, teach 1 hour a day, and have to work on the prospectus, so what's the big deal? where does time go? i always feel like i'm running, i'm always late everywhere, i forget to do half of the stuff i have to do, and in the end, i never feel like i've actually done something with my day.

so, summer 2006 is the goal. let's try: defending the prospectus in the fall of 2004 (in 2 months, basically); starting the first chapters and working on finding schools, writing the questionnaires/interviews, and translating the whole damn thing during the spring/summer 2005; doing the actual study in the fall of 2005; analysing and finishing it all up in the spring of 2006. well after all, God created the earth in 6 days, so why should i need more time than that??

so yeah i'm pretty good with deadlines in general. i set easy ones so that i'm pretty sure to achieve the goals i've set, because otherwise i'm too easily discouraged by my failures. i don't like to procrastinate and i don't like to be told that i can't do something. now i can't think about anything beyond the prospectus defence. one thing at a time. i have 2 weeks between every new draft: i write stuff one week, send it to margie, she reads/comments/sends it back, i look at her changes/suggestions/comments, and the following week i meet with her and discuss the stuff, work some more on it, and then send it to her the following week. if i can keep up that schedule, i can manage with the november defense!

next time i MUST talk to her about B.'s suggestions + the statistical consulting thing. thanks scott :) so next draft needs to be sent on tuesday. huh, yeah!

meeting 3

i forgot to ask margie about B's ideas... it'll be important when i do my review of lit, which i will do last, so it's not that important now. during that meeting, though, i realized that A. would really be good on my committee because i am not sure anyone else is good with statistics and such. margie said i had to explain things as if no one knew what the hell that was... and that it was quite new to her... which is not so good. i guess most people in esl so far have done qualitative studies. so i'm going to have to make an effort and go ask A.

other than that, we just discussed about the specifics of the study, how when where who why. i have to give more details, that's about all i need to do. it's not hard, it's just long. it looks like i will be able to do what i want, so far, so that's good. as someone said, you're in control, now, your dissertation should be about what YOU want to do and you should be the one in control of how things go. advisors, yes, but not teachers anymore.

i've worked on the thing every single day except sundays. i think i'll change that and not write on tuesdays, because tuesdays are annoyingly long and crazy. and sundays are boring. i am tired, actually... not too tired mentally yet, which is good, it feels like i'm recovering a little from this summer, but very tired physically. i hurt a lot, constantly, and it's sometimes hard to concentrate on things.

ok... time to do some phonetics for my intro to linguistics class!

Analytical mind

my first love was organic chemistry. yeah. i love to understand how things work, to apply rules, and to figure things out. i hate to have to admit that, but i would have loved my syntax class if my teacher had not driven me crazy, because i loved to look at how the deep structures of french and english differ and try to understand how rules could be created about french. or whatever language. and i'd enjoy my phonology class too if it were presented in a manner that i could understand. not that i don't understand... sometimes i just need to make a little effort because it's easier to be lazy, but anyway, i think i will enjoy the problems with different languages and stuff.

same thing with my master's thesis. i loved to say 70% of the students said yes to this question at the beginning of the semester and 90% said yes to the same question at the end of the semester, now what does that mean? it was a lot of guessing work, finding clues, looking at how variables influenced one another, and trying to put things together so it made sense. i loved that, and i was good at that. in the end, even if this kind of research design has limitations, the answers are clear and clean. and what research design doesn't have limitations anyway!? and i'm not saying this because i think it's easier. i know it's difficult too, but i know that it's a way of thinking that i understand and can be good at.

that's what i'm good at. being efficient, fast, and trying to find clear-cut answers. i should have gone into chemistry. now i am in the humanities, and i understand that you can never have clear-cut answers when dealing with human beings, but you can still TRY and do your best. i want things to be clean, and with this kind of research, i already know my limitations, i know the kinds of problems i will encounter, i know the answers, and i know how to work to demonstrate them. how did i get this kind of mind? dad? i was never good at math or physics or anything, which is why i didn't go into chemistry, in the end. but i was good at statistics. i understood it and could play with it well. i feel frustrated because i know i have this ability but i am not asked to use it. it's like i'm not using half of my brain.

so i keep talking about this and i don't even know how things are really going to go, since this is only the third week of the semester, but i am worried about the type of research i'll have to do and the methodology i will eventually be "forced" to use. i wish people would just tell me what to do once and for all, i would do it even if i hated it, and we'd be done. i'd even be done faster if i hated it, maybe... but i know that i'll be the most efficient if i'm allowed to work the way my mind works.

ok, so i've never written a dissertation, and really i know i know nothing... i'm just a snob and a pretentious chick...

... but this book that i'm reading about writing your dissertation in 15 minutes a day insists on finding out the way you function, how you work best, your working style, stuff like that...

quantitative...

i knew this would become a problem and i is indeed becoming one. darn! i wish i was simply told what to do instead of having to play this guessing game where i have to figure out, through several draft, what my advisor wants me to understand and write.

i am working on my third draft now, and most of the changes are quite small but some of the questions i got back from the feedback on my second draft are a little ... annoying... but i'll meet with margie on tuesday i guess and all the questions will be answered. i hope.

one thing i also need to ask about is what B. has asked me about. this would add a whole new dimension to my research or at least my lit review and that could be good, give me some new insights about something i never cared to look into because it's so remote from what i've done so far, but at the same time it might be too remote and too complicated to looking into that stuff simply because i don't know anything about it. plus i'm lazy. plus i want to be done yesterday. have to ask margie about that.

i went to panera this afternoon to work a little on that prospectus and grade my first bash of papers... couldn't connect to their network but that's probably because i didn't ask them how to do it! might be better not to ask them so that i'm not tempted to surf the net while i'm there to do some actual work that i'm unable to do at home BECAUSE I HAVE THE INTERNET!

still can't manage to get myself to work on the article... this one is sad... and really stupid... i'll hate myself until the end of my life if i don't do something with it dammit! but i don't know HOW! i don't understand what i'm supposed to do.

oh yeah, plus i wasn't able to meet with A. the other day, oops, i made a big fool of myself that day so i guess she's not on my committee plus now i'm afraid of asking her for help with the article. boooohhh i'm so dumb!

done!

i am done with the IRB stuff! the last part was actually easier than the first 2/3 and that's good because the beginning was tough. i was able to print the "certification of completion" that i need to submit with the rest of the IRB stuff. i got 100% on the stuff and you only need 80% to pass, but it doesn't give the grades i got, so no one will know i got 100%, dammit!

margie sent me my second draft back. i'll try to work on that a little tonight...

am writing this on a new computer :) niiiice! it's much lighter than my old one and i'll be able to take it to school and work on my stuff from there. yeah, let's get this prospectus done!

draft 2

margie liked my second draft. it has basically nothing to do with the first one, it's much clearer and more detailed, and i eliminated the EFL variable. she said she's give me her feedback really soon. nice.

i wrote a letter to B. last night to ask him to be on my committee and this morning at 8:03 i had his positive answer in my mailbox, YEAH! that's really nice, and thanks scott because i'd never have thought of asking him! and it took me a few days to get the nerves to write him and ask... so, i'll still meet with A. tomorrow just to make sure that she doesn't want to be the fifth wheel because she'd really be good with the questionnaires and the analyses of the results... but if not, oh well, i will be well taken care of my margie, T., S., and B.. holly cow, 4 program directors! couldn't have dreamed of anything better :)

phonology: about 10 students have dropped the class today... and the ones that are still there HAVE to stay... so i complained first thing today, saying that i was very concerned because i already didn't get the first chapter of the textbook and blah blah and everyone said yeah! so she asked who would like her to go slower and 2/3 of the students raised their hands! so now she talks to us like we're mentally retarded, but that's fine with me, at least i understand the stuff, or at least enough to get by for now.

IRB modules: i did to 3 of them yesterday so now i only have 4 left.

have also been going back to the gym for the last week, and it feels great! i'm going there late at night during weekends which is not too good because then i can't sleep for hours, but things are looking brighter in general so that's good.

in love with generative grammar

it's not a good sign when i'd rather do the stupid IRB modules and work on my prospectus than read my phonology in generative grammar textbook...

7 modules left... i can do 3 today... i think...

wondering about online vs. paper surveys... plus training in filling out multiple-choice questionnaires!

methodology

there are 18 modules on this darn IRB online training thing... 17 quizzes... I'm done with 5... some are much longer than others. next one: research with prisoners. great!

Here are the titles of the modules, in case someone's interested:

Introduction (no quiz)
History and Ethical Principles
Defining Research with Human Subjects
The Regulations and The Social and Behavioral Sciences
Assessing Risk in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Informed Consent
Privacy and Confidentiality
Research with Prisoners
Research with Children
Research in Public Private and Secondary Schools
International Research
Internet Research
HIPAA and Human Subjects Research
Workers as Research Subjects-A Vulnerable Population
Conflicts of Interest in Research Involving Human Subjects
PURDUE UNIVERSITY INSTITUTIONAL PAGE
Human Subjects Research at the VA
Hot Topics

questionnaires: can be translated for people who have low proficiency in english + easier analysis of large amounts of data and big numbers of people. i want this study to be easily replicable. have many subjects in order to make it more generalizable (representativeness). hard to handle several specific variables (such as first language of students) and to compare them one with the others if not enough participants. allows for more specific and explicit questions and focused answers.

interviews: difficult for esl students with low proficiency in english but possible with teachers and administrtors. interviews with a smaller number of students would allow for better triangulation but the problem of language remains. more difficult to handle large groups and to compare them. more difficult to code. time consuming. problem of location. attrition and self-selection are also problematic, especially in studies that deal with questions of attitudes.

the study is not about performance, not about an observable phenomenon, not descriptive, not experimental.

IRB

since july 2004, lucky me, the IRB regulations have changed and are becoming a lot more strict. damn! so i have to attend one presentation about the thing (which is given only at a time when i teach, of course), and then i have to do some online training and reading and stuff and then pass quizzes at the end of every one of the 10 modules and get an 80% total score to pass. after that, if i pass, my tests results will be scrutinized along with the 150 forms that i have to fill out to get IRB approval when i'm done with my prospectus and want to start with the real resesarch. goodness, what a pain!

i started with the online stuff... it's not that hard but it's a LOT of reading about historical stuff, regulations, names of different laws, problems, human rights, torture, dead people, medications, and stuff that i don't really care about. the quizzes are annoying but you can take them more than once and they'll keep your best results. i'm done with module one. i'll try to finish up a couple of modules this weekend. it took me about 1 hour to finish up 1 module, and i hope the other ones won't be longer, because all i've done so far is the introduction! dammit!

i'm also thinking about the scope of my research. i think i'll give up on the EFL thing because it's just too long and i don't want to spend 200 years on that thing. but i will try to keep the native vs. nonnative, i think it'll make my study a little more exciting, new, and interesting, and it won't make it that much more complicated. i think. because if i only do the nonnative teachers + admistrators, i'll go crazy with boredom.

margie said i should think about methodology, also. i think i'll keep the questionnaires + interviews, because i want large numbers of participants, and it's just easier to compare numbers than to compare what people said in interviews. damn, maybe she doesn't like quantitative research... i think it's so much easier!

i need to write an email to B. to ask him about the committee... i don't know if i should wait until i ask A. or not... but A. really said she didn't really want to do it, so... ok i'll try to write an email to B. this weekend and meet with A. anyway on wednesday.

committee

S. said ok, she's still on my committee, and gave me a few rules that she wants me to follow when i give her drafts and stuff... i made an appointment with A. and will see what she says. Scott says i should ask B. who knows about empirical research and esl and stuff and is nice to work with plus a good name to have on a list of references when i am looking for a job. we'll see.

i worked on my proposal yesterday and today. i hope i can continue like that every day.

meeting 2

met with margie. talked about:
- committee members: must go ask A. and S. if they're ok with being on my committee. maybe G..
- schedule: must finish the thing by beginning of november.
- scope of the research.
- research methods: interview, questionnaires, observations, focus groups, blah blah.
- the education and the law class that i'll take in the spring and how to integrate that into my research: legal issues, discrimination, ethics, etc.
- how we're going to work: expectations (work, meetings, emails, drafts, schedule, etc.).
- beautiful roses that she had received.

looking good but hard. still feeling ok. a little less stressed out now that i know a little more about how this is going to work.