question 3

finally got the darn thing to work! done calculating research questions 2 and 3. need to work on the writing, now... should take a few weeks! questions 4 and 5 won't be calculated for a while because i don't know how i should do it. i'll think about that when i'm done with 2 and 3. i'm also done filling out all the tables in my chapter 4 that relate to my question 2: number, mean, and standard deviation for native, nonnative, and not sure, for every variable i'm studying and for every likert-scale statement of the questionnaire: first language (12 different languages, you do the math), gender, school, level, grades, etc. now i have to look at those numbers and explain them. hopefully, question 3 shouldn't be too hard (matched t-test).

am hiring a lawyer for the first time in my life, it's a strange feeling...

got invited for a job interview at tesol in two weeks. school's in washington dc. in the meantime, getting ready for tesol itself is a nightmare, since i'm the chair of the nnest caucus: handouts, photocopies, banner, reference list, colloquia, presentations, social activities, business meeting, logo, volunteers, election of the new chair-elect and newsletter editor, booth organization, etc. etc. etc. PLUS the preparation of my FIVE presentations... ??????

writing...

on the questionnaires i received for my study, the most common thing students wrote when asked in what class they were, was "writting." writting... you'd think that the first thing they learn to write when they are in the writing class is to learn how to spell writing... i'd say that i saw that mistake on about 90% of the questionnaires coming from writing classes.

anyway, i'm writting a lot these days ;) that's all i can do because i'm stuck stuck stuck with the stats!!! i spent four hours in the stats consulting lab yesterday and three hours last week... for practically nothing. there seems to be some kind of virus, or the documents have been corrupted somehow, but we can't use the stuff we've entered. the first set of data is ok... but the second one is basically worth nada. when we upload it into SAS, it's all messed up, cutting words, giving blanks instead of numbers, calculating things wrong, etc. which is why, last week, when veronica and i tried to do the comparisons between our two sets of entries, it came out completely wrong. so yesterday we tried everything... it works in SPSS and other stats programs, but not SAS. and i am NOT learning how to use SPSS now that i spent almost two years learning about SAS. this is very discouraging. things had been going so well so far...

and now, just when i'd decided to stay an extra year at purdue (so the stats problem wasn't really an emergency), my sister decided to get married in october... and i won't be able to go to her wedding if i stay at purdue. i have to have a job to get a new visa (because mine expired) and be able to leave the country... well, i can leave, but i couldn't come back in. and i can't get this new visa without a job. so there, the stats problem is dramatic and the job situation is a disaster. so i keep writing, sorry, writting, and i hope that something, some day, will work...

ze future...

in case i don't get a job this year, just in case, and because it's not so dramatic and because after all i might enjoy a relaxed final year at purdue and could use some extra time to prepare myself for a job, i've applied for a mentoring position (engl. 505) for next year, and i've also been asked (and accepted) to teach english 002 again. so there. no panic. i'm slowly getting used to this idea and it's ok. after all, i did say i was trying to get a job but would be ok if i didn't find one. right? i don't hate this place! and that's how my last year as a master's student was: not much work left to do on my thesis, no courses to take (except bookbinding and spanish for fun), and just one year to enjoy! so i'm still sending out applications and waiting to hear from a few places, but i'm not worried about the future.

thinking

working on my third chapter again. it's going well. i'm rewriting some stuff, working on tables and graphs, cutting out a lot of junk... it's getting good. other than that, i'm pretty frustrated about the new data. i can't seem to get our two entries compared so we can fix mistakes and get the analysis going. at the same time, i have all the stuff i need to answer question 2 (question 1 has been answered), but i need to make sure i'm using the right format so i don't have to redo it all... and guess who's on sabbatical? that's why i keep working on my chapter 3. and i guess when i'm done i'll start working on questions 4 and 5.

i'll apply to three new positions this weekend, one of them is simon fraser, but it would be for may 2006 so i doubt i could make it that quickly! but it's simon fraser! then there's byu hawaii... but i don't know if i want to go through ... that... again... so i'm not applying for now.

i'm feeling a bit tired and i must have forgotten all my energy in canada because i can't seem to find any these days. but i keep working and things are moving. [edited]

the good thing about all this is that i'm cooking a lot these days and eating really healthy food. i made my first risotto today, a "green" risotto, and it was delicious! if anyone wants to marry me ... someone canadian if possible ... ;)

there

wow, i need to write some things down before i forget them, but i feel stoned, exhausted, drained! got stuck in detroit almost 5 hours before the plane was de-iced and allowed to leave... and i was sooooo air sick!!

first. i met some incredibly nice, fun, kind, interesting, talented, and wonderful people. except for the first five nervous minutes of the first meeting in the morning, i never felt scared or uncomfortable or unwelcome. that includes meeting with the dean of the department. i would have loved to talk with her for hours! it was an incredible feeling. i would absolutely love to work with these people!

second. the university in itself is amazing. i was impressed before i went there, already, after i had done some in-depth research on their website, but what i learned about where it comes from, where it's going, how they are doing things, i can only think that that university is a model university in many ways (for example how they work with new faculty, their tenure review system, etc.). (ok, maybe they didn't tell me about the less exciting stuff, hehe...)

talking about self-esteem, i think i did pretty well. ok, my research presentation was a disaster and at the end of the two-hour interview, i couldn't speak english or come up with half-decent answers to their questions. but the teaching presentation went well (i was nervous so i didn't really follow my lesson plan and it was all over the place, but the students were fun and i felt as if i were in front of my 106i students). and i did know the answers to some of the search committee's questions! if i could go through five campus visits that, i'd be absolutely brilliant at the end. yesterday i was able to sound proud of what i've achieved, but with practice i'd really be able to talk about ALL the things i've done. for example, to the question, "have you published anything interesting?" i could respond "yes, i have published an article about my master's thesis" AND i could add "and i already know what my next article will be, it's about blah blah and i have already collected the data." WHICH IS TRUE. but i don't think about saying stuff like that often enough.

fourth. i like the city very much... huhuh, a bit cold and snowy i'd say... but pretty much what i expected. when we were ready to land there i felt like a little kid in front of the christmas tree. i've been wanting to go to back to canada for so long. i loved to watch tv in french, i loved to hear all those different languages in the street, i loved to eat civilized food, i loved to be surrounded by people who hadn't voted for the buisson ;) 1991 is when i fell in love with canada... and although the initial object of my love is now married and living in chile, i still feel the same excitement when i'm there!

this trip has been a breath of fresh air (literaly too!) for me. even if i don't get the job, i will have met wonderful people, i will have had a taste of what it would be to work and live in canada, and i will have had fun! yes, it was exhausting, my feet are killing me, i don't know why i'm so air sick when i fly these days, and i found 69 emails, two pouting cats, and no food waiting for me at home, but i just want to go back :) i want to go baaaaaaack!!!! (this is an excellent incentive to stop writing idiotic things on this blog and FINISH MY DISSERTATION ASAP so i can get out of here!!!)

ok, something intrigues me and i didn't have an opportunity to ask about it. from what i understand (maybe i misunderstood), this new university has a deal with the older university in town that they wouldn't create "majors" that already exist in that other university. for example they can't create the type of english major that they would like to create because it already exists elsewhere in town. that sounds really weird to me. i mean, what about simon fraser and UBC in vancouver? what about the UQAM, the university of montreal, mcgill, and concordia? they can't be all teaching something different!! anyone?

oh, and this is the first time, after an interview, that i didn't spend the following night excruciatingly thinking about all the stuff i did wrong and all the things i could have done better! maybe it was exhaustion... but maybe not...

ze job market

do you know what phd means? permanant head damage! yep, says it all ;)

ok so i went to new york for a job interview and it was ok. flying in and out on the same day was not such a great idea, especially considering that i had spent half of the previous night at the emergency animal hospital and that i was leaving a half-dead cat alone for 22 hours. other than that, the interview with the search committee went very well, i thought, and i enjoyed it. the only problem i had was to know how to answer to the question, "so why should we hire you?" or "if we hired you, what would you bring to our department?" or something like that. i have a hard time remembering the details of that day... but that's one question i need to work on. i don't know how to SELL myself!!!

then i had an interview with the vice-president of the university. scary. she was nice, but any woman at that level is an extreme overachiever and that intimidates me. so i didn't do too well i guess, especially when she kept asking questions about their school, what i knew about it, what i thought about it, what about this, and what about that. i need to make a list of "cool stuff about your university" to use next time.

also, she asked me about my salary at purdue and the salary i'd like if they hired me. ??!! the job description said "up to $64.000" so that's what i told her, huhuh... but then i said i'd be happy with something between $45 and $55.000. this is new york after all. i wasn't ready for that question! so now, for the canadian job which i REALLY want, i'm checking online and with canadian friends and i found a comparison of high and low salaries of assistant professors at different universities in canada, so next time i'll be ready.

that canadian school i'm going to on thursday is one cool school! it's very new and very quickly expanding, private, and in many ways similar to purdue. i'd be doing the same thing i'm doing at purdue (esl for undergrads) but also be in charge of the writing center, which is the part that i'm not so sure about. fortunately, i know a bit about purdue's famous writing center so i am not completely unfamiliar with the concept. i'm preparing a research presentation--kind of fun, since it's the very very very first time i'll present ANYTHING about my new research! it's not like i can cut and paste from previous presentations or something. this one is brand new... and i'm finding out about some of the results as we speak. so it's going to be an "in progress" presentation to say the least! i'm scared but also super excited about that one.