recovering

slowly recovering from the shock... i wrote to my thesis advisor at byu, told him what happened... he also happens to be the chair of the linguistics dept... my sister and margie say he must not have known that the stats was all wrong because he wouldn't have signed his name on something he knew was flat-out wrong. still... he must know so i wrote him.

margie said i could redo the whole statistical analysis of my MA thesis data and use that as my pilot for my dissertation... and then rewrite the whole TESOL quarterly article with the new data. that's so much work, though, that i already have a headache just thinking about it.

i still need to make some major changes to my prospectus and that sucks. i also don't know HOW to do the statistical analysis, now, because i knew what a t-test and an ANOVA were, but i have to learn a new thing now, and also how to use the statistics program, a different one than the one i had...

so anyway... i'm still pretty discouraged by the whole story, and mad too... but not as freaked out as thursday/friday... thank you guys for your good ideas and kind words, i need it!!

ok ok

ok so thank you guys for worrying...

the situation is REALLY too complex to explain, so i'll just give you a short summary of a few things:

- i was writing this article from my master's thesis research for a very important professional journal and they told me to make some revisions... which made me realize that the whole thing i did for my master's thesis is CRAP and so there, i can't have the article published because the whole statistical analysis is not even good enough to use as toilet paper!

- WHY did my advisors let me write that crap for my MA?? i'm seriously doubting myself!! --i guess only scott might guess why... sorry, not in a mood for explanations...

- i'm planning to take TWO hard classes next semester, which is highly unusual when you're ABD... but i really want to... plus they're useful for my research! but now i'm going to have to add a statistics class to that!!

- i won't be able to start writing my questionnaires/translating them/IRB/doing the pilot study as i had planned, which means i'll have to wait until next fall to do that which means i won't be able to do the actual study in the fall as i had planned... etc. etc. etc.... so i'm in for an extra 6 months to a year... feels like a prison sentence and i've just been denied parole...

- all this time i always thought that my MA thesis was really good, i REALLY worked so hard on that damn thing... and now to learn that it isn't worth shit is just hard... plus to have to give up the journal article which was my first door to success is really discouraging too.

the situation is a little more complex than that still, but nothing dramatic... mostly an extra 6 months, statistics class, and big disappointments... how can i have faith that i'll do better with the dissertation? i'm disgusted!

holly shit

i'm fucked!

can't cry in front of my students! can't cry in front of my advisor! can't cry in front of my teachers! can't cry in front of my students! can't cry in front of my advisor! can't cry in front of my teachers! can't cry in front of my students! can't cry in front of my advisor! can't cry in front of my teachers! can't cry in front of my students! can't cry in front of my advisor! can't cry in front of my teachers!

1000!!!!

asked purdue for more space on their server. so originally we all have 500MB, and i asked for 300 extra MB, thinking that they'd give me 200... they gave me an extra 500!!!! Whohooo, i can write on my blogs for two years without having to worry one bit! cool raoul!

filled out 200 forms today with tons of signatures from tons of people and with tons of details that tons of people don't know where to find... PLUS i had to change my plan of study because i am planning to take new classes and haven't taken others that i said i would and there was a mistake and i also needed to add B. on my committee officially. i had to give a reason for adding him and i wrote "because i need 4 members on my committee" and the graduate secretary rejected it and said i had to write a better reason, like "he's really good in my research area blah blah" ... so i did... school doesn't teach me to be an honest person!

applied for some special teaching assignment with the library something and technology something something... the application was due at 5pm today and i downloaded it at 4pm... filled it out in 20 minutes and sent it... doubt i would get it but anyway, it's always good to try. if i get it it'll be a problem because there is a whole day of training i'd miss since it's the same day as the INTESOL conference in indy and i'm presenting...

headache yesterday and today...

defense!!!!!!

ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it is my great pleasure to tell you that my dear advisor has told me that she thought my last draft was "wunderbar" and ready to go. HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

so it came to pass that the date of the defense was set to december 8, 2004, at 10 in the morning, and all the committee members approved of that day and time and so did the graduate secretary who scheduled the conference room for us on that wonderful day.

and so it will be that i won't be able to sleep until that day and already have a knot in my stomach... but i'm relieved and only have a few minor changes to make to that FINAL DRAFT OF MY SUPER MARVELOUS WONDERFUL PROSPECTUS :D

... who could have guessed, hey ;)

so: M. and T. want an electronic copy of my draft, S. wants both a paper and an electronic copy, and B. wants a paper copy. haha... the insanity of my life is just starting...

idiot

ok so i'm an idiot... it's not purdue's server mess that created the problems on my other blog, it's the fact that i had used up the whole entire space given by purdue, 500MB... wow!!! not really surprising when i know that i have 10 blogs... so i'm going to have to move soon... darn!

sent a new draft to margie today. it was her b'day yesterday--i wish i could have told her better how much i appreciate her help and enthusiasm and encouragements and everything... she's so wonderful!

wrote to A. today to ask her if we could meet because i can't get this tesol quarterly article revised by myself, there are stuff that i don't know how to address or change... it's frustrating! i don't know if G. made the changes he said he would make, i should write to him too. agh, so frustrating!

that's it, i want to be done, i think my drafts have been reworked enough and i'm good to go with the defense, now. i can't answer more questions, i don't have the anwers yet, and i won't have them until i start looking for participating schools and teachers and students, so i should just go ahead and DEFEND the darn PROSPECTUS!

and be ABD :)
... huhu... as my friend heidi said, you go to school for all these years and they can't even teach you the alphabet correctly?!

the never ending story

went to another grant writing presentation today. with the same old desperate people as last time... quite interesting though, because the presenter gave us some handouts, and one in particular where she had started with a conference proposal, then an article proposal from the conference, then a book chapter proposal from that article, and then the actual chapter of the book, also with the letters she had sent to editors and stuff like that. all on the same topic taken from her dissertation... gave me some ideas about how it works and what can be done. she said after the book, though, she started working on a new project because she had pretty much used up all the ideas from that topic.

so we had hackers into purdue's system yesterday, that's what caused the big mess... and of course, i should have predicted this, it messed up my blog, the other one. lost my october archive page.... so right now i'm backuping ALL the stuff i have on purdue's server on my yahoo server which recently gave us 4.000 MB of space (instead of the 100 original MB!!!). thinking of publishing my blog on yahoo's server too, but i have more than 200 visits on my blog per day and changing address would mess this up big time. good thing this one is published on blogger's server. not much safer, but simpler!

haven't written a work on my prospectus drafts this week... every day i would start at 10am and come back home from class or work at 11pm... so i'm REALLY tired... and i have no inspiration anyway... will need to get back to it this weekend! ...

beware the computers!

ok so we keep getting emails from the university about a major problem with computers campus-wide and we should be receiving a press release soon about it. wouah! yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, we had people running in computer labs like something had just bitten them and screaming at us to turn off ALL THE COMPUTERS RIGHT NOW or else something terrible was going to happen! now the news is "a number of computers in our department have been affected" and this morning, the word of order is "don’t even touch the keyboard!" ... if you do touch your keyboard, maybe a big green ugly slimy virus is going to jump at you and bite your nose... ? sounds a little creepy... i live in a real science fictious world!

make sure to wash your hands after you read these words!

the things we say...

got a new draft back today, the lit. review, with very few comments except that i always say "it is important to remember" so i'll change that, and margie said that after i made those changes, it'd be ready for the final prospectus thingy. yeah!!! but it's only the lit review... 20 pages... she also said it was a bit too much, but better too much than not enough!

have a friend who was talking about school and being sick of it and all... then she asked "what degree are you getting again? i forgot" so i told her "a PhD but i don't know what i'll do with it" and she said "sell it on eBay?" huhu!

so things are going well these days.

wonder who's constantly coming on this blog from unh.edu...

me good me happy :)

Dear Lucie,

On behalf of the Excellence in Teaching Committee (and Bud), I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected for an award for your teaching in 2003-2004.  Certificates will be distributed at Wednesday’s faculty meeting.  Warm congratulations!

beurk

new draft finished... sent to margie with the table of content that i now need dearly since the thing is getting bigger and fatter by the day. i wrote a 20 page lit review... plus the rest, which is about 15 pages...

haven't worked on anything in the last few days though, because of my phonology midterm which is an even bigger nightmare than i had expected! i just don't feel like doing anything else after i've spent hours and hours and hours pulling my hair off my head...

anyway, i feel like i should be done with this prospectus by now! i've written just about everything i can possibly write given the fact that i have no idea how/where/when i'm going to do what i plan to do... i could start looking for participating schools and stuff but i don't think so! can't be an overachiever, that'd be a bad habit to adopt, hehe!

i'm working a lot with karen these days. really cool friend! much nicer to work together than alone... watch a few movies, cook, chat, laugh, play with MKC... it's nice to actually DO other stuff than be in front of my computer 20/24 7/7... so things are ok these days, except for the @#(*&# phonology of course... it's freezing cold here... i'm completely and entirely broke... but things are ok :)

stress

so, i write 2 sentences, i block on something, i eat a piece of chocolate (thanks for the package dad!!!), i think while eating this delicious swiss chocolate, i write 3 sentences, i don't know what else to say, i take a piece of chocolate, i fight with my cat to keep it, the cat wins, eats the chocolate, i write 1 sentence, i block, i take a piece of chocolate, i win, i eat it, i write 2 sentences, i have a blank, i check my emails, i eat a piece of chocolate, i write 3 sentences... ETC! 1 hour = revisions on 1 section = 1 plaque de chocolat gone! yeah... my dissertation will be 300 pages long and 300 pounds on my hips...

money

well i've decided to give up one of my variables for lack of money: the NNEST vs NEST. i can't have my questionnaires translated into 20 languages, given that 1 translation is already $2000! so there, i won't compare native and nonnative teachers. it's sad because it would have made my study really unique... nobody has done that before... but i'm opening a door for future research :)

talked to margie yesterday-- am still taking her class just for fun, because i've decided that it's not extra time that i spend in her class when i could be doing something smarter but rather a time i take for myself when i can actually enjoy learning and not having to worry about exams or papers or homework or readings-- so anyway, i told her that i'm a little tired and getting close to losing it. she said i could come to her office to "melt" if i wanted to and not feel too alone... also that i could defend the prospectus in january if i wanted to. but i don't want to. i want a christmas break without ANYTHING to worry about... plus i want the glory of having done it fast and well. hehe.

still don't know what i'll be teaching in the spring and i'm worried that no one will give up on the international students so i'll be stuck with americain students who don't particularly like me and vice-versa. i made a student cry yesterday... great job... i'm a pretty bad teacher this semester, it's sad. oh well, can't do it all well, right? i'm not superwoman!

IRB

that's it, i'm done, certified IRB complient or something like that... hehe... that last meeting was truely retarded but i shouldn't complain, at least it wasn't hard or too long or anything and I AM DONE. funny, margie and a lot of other students were at the meeting, but i was one of the only few who had already completed the online stuff. ha!

plus i'm going to be exempt, so filing the IRB stuff for my research won't be too hard, just one more thing to do. hah, things are moving... i even printed the form for the statistical consultant, that's a first step in that direction too... and i registered for the international administration class and the thesis hours, and got permission from the law class teacher to register there too... great!

oh i need to send my lit. review to margie tonight!

margie

i saw margie at panera on saturday. i went there and spent 4 hours drinking chai tea and working on my prospectus and grading papers, and she was there with T. and a few friends. she came over to my table and i had the k-12 page open and it said "something about k-12" and that's it, since i still don't have a clue what i'll write there... i showed it to her and asked her if i was precise and concise enough, if i had made my point, and if i could be any more specific. she laughed and said i was really not wasting my words and always knew how to express the deep thoughts i wanted to express.

i thanked her for the draft that she had returned with feedback after only two days and she said she knew i needed it quickly and she knew i needed to have a good christmas break so was going to help me finish this by december. she's sooooo cool! i met my neighbor yesterday while i was walking my cat through the hallways of my apartment complex, and she told me that her advisor (in electrical engineering) didn't work well with her and that she didn't like him at all... so i know i couldn't be luckier!

yesterday i was super depressed though, and the news about christopher reeve's death just made it worse. this is a very sad news and a hard blow for people like me!! all i can be happy about is the fact that he doesn't have to live like that anymore, which i don't know how he could have done for so long in the first place. and maybe his death will make people talk about him a little and make them realize that stem-cell research is needed... goodness i'm depressed.

ok, back to grading...

politics

i am soooooooooooo depressed because of what's going on with politics right now. i am constantly eating junk food, non stop... and smoking more than i have ever smoked in my life... but really i feel like letting myself starve and die. i try to concentrate on my prospectus, i MUST graduate and get out of here ASAP, this country is turning nazi and it's scaring and saddening me horribly. i LOVE this country!

i think i'll reduce the scope of my research so that it can be done faster...

statistics

http://www.stat.purdue.edu/scs/how_to/apply.html

ask margie for a time

in love and war

sometimes i really hate that it's so hard and that margie pushes me so much... but then as i am writing about the same stuff i did for my master's thesis, i realize what crap i wrote before and how i was really never pushed to do well for this thesis... and so i'm glad what i'm doing now is a little better and that i won't be allowed to produce junk this time.

margie sent me back another draft, 2 days after i sent it to her, she's amazing.

... have to contact those statistics people. any advice about that anyone?

and that other teacher who knows about k-12 too...

... and sign up for classes, 2 administration classes next semester, should be fun.

have 8 sections for my lit review. wrote and finished 4 today. hope to get done by wednesday except for the k-12 stuff.

really wanna get super drunk, get stoned, and jump off the window tonight.

grant

yesterday i went to a presentation about fellowships and grants. how depressing! there's no hope there for me, which is sad because my research is going to cost me thousands and thousands of dollars! there's TONS of stuff for americains, of course, but the presenter explained that they were only for the "tax payers" and not for international students. as if WE TOO didn't pay taxes! about $200 of EVERY PAYCHECK i get goes to the country, the state, or the county! disgusting! oh yeah, there were are few grants for international students: $500 per year, $1000 per year... but the other grants the presenter showed us for americans were $30.000/year, or $10.000 per year, for example...

other than that, good news, i was trying to explain on my other blog how the american higher education system works and what i have done and am doing, and writing this out kinda made me realize that i've done A LOT of stuff and have gone pretty far! not everyone is going as far as i have gone. it feels like it because i'me surrounded by people who are doing the same thing, but if i get out of purdue, what i'm doing is quite an achievement. and the presenter of the grant stuff, yesterday, told us that only 15% of the students who start a PhD at purdue ever actually finish it!!!! FIFTEEN PERCENT!!!! that's amazing!!! i need to be in those 15%. wonder why the other 85% quit...

damn, there were so many people at that presentation, it's pathetic, we're all begging for money... and ALL of us of course were in the school of liberal arts... many in the english dept, and many international... and thus many depressed people left the meeting. thank goodness, there were good cookies!

fear and loathing in lafayette

if i want to defend my prospectus by the end of the semester, i have about 4 weeks left to finish up the writing! i'm doing ok, i just sent my 4th draft to margie. i think that now i need to concentrate on the lit. review, because the rest seems pretty clear.

i started looking at schools in canada, esl, french, whatever. i found this page which is wonderful! but thinking about having to write letters to all those schools to ask them if they have job openings scares me. just like thinking about what's actually AFTER the prospectus defense. how do people manage? how do they not feel overwhelmed and scared to death?

until now, i had smaller hoops to go through... classes to take, the prelims, the prospectus... but now that the end of the prospectus is near, i feel like i'm not ready to jump into the REAL BIG thing, the LAST thing, la fin de la fin. nah ok, so then there's the job finding process... ok... i should stop thinking about that because that's even scarier than writing the dissertation.

i'm sick... don't know if it's the food i ate while silvia was here for the conference (that's when it started) or if it's fear... but i feel like i've a ton of stones in my stomach and at the same time, i constantly want to eat, but every time i do, it gets worse. great!

dad said: write 10 pages for 30 days and you're done :) haha. he also said: go to canada if that's what you want. that's what i want.

variables

dependant variable: students' attitudes/opinions

independant variables: age, gender, fist language of students, intents to go back to their country, exposure to international experiences, etc. + first language of the teachers.

this is becoming crazy, out of proportion! i need to add ITAs and K-12 research and do the lit review and find the schools... well that'll be last... this afternoon for the first time after talking with margie, went back to my car and studdenly had this dreadful feeling that it was too big, too overwhelming, beyond my understanding, beyond what i'd be able to do! felt like it was going to take 200 years to do this.

i'm working on my prospectus and getting there... slowly... the questions margie asks on my drafts become more and more impossible to answer! am i ever going to make it to the end??

conference on second language writing

interesting stuff. seeing old friends was good! i found some good info for my research too. in a sense, going to this conference gave me some energy and desire to do well with my own stuff, and at the same time, i sometimes felt like i was an impostor, someone trying to pretend like i was like all those people, someone who thinks that i am important but really aren't, as if i really didn't belong there. meeting "important" people was fun and inspiring... but i don't see myself fighting like they did to achieve what they did.

other than that i ate way too much and am feeling a little sick now... and behind in my work for my own students... and i need to have a revised draft of my prospectus for tuesday, so that won't be easy, since the questions are getting harder.

mmm.... good conference. i wish i had presented something!

k-12 and ITAs?

other question: do i unclude research about NNESTs in K-12 context? i never thought of that, but it seems like some research has been done about that and the results are not at all the same as with NNESTs in adult education contexts!

still not sure about ITAs. and about "different teachers" in other contexts (B.'s idea). must meet with margie.

talked with chris about working with B. and it was good, she told me what he usually did or didn't do with dissertations, types of questions etc. also, it was good to see her again. she's an inspiration to me and i miss her!

tadadadada... lalala, yadada...

i want to go to oulu, to hokkaido, to eritrea, to bangalore, to johannesbug, to kuala lumpur, to canakkale, to tasmania, to antananarivo, to katmandu, to karachi, to mandalary, to santo domingo, to tauranga... i want to take my cat in my arms, and fly to these places, and smell the spices and the mouuntains, feel the heat and the languages, eat the sounds and the colors, hear the smiles and the bells, touch the fears and the skies.

... and no, i really don't feel like writing a dissertation, if that's what you're wondering...