done, for almost real this time.

printed and binded 5 copies today: $122.91. and that's nothing compared to the final copies with special paper and special purdue binding.

i'll be working on two tesol proposals due the 1st of june for the next couple of days, then on my TQ article and my book proposal (oh, i wrote to a journal a few weeks ago with an idea about an article and they wrote back saying that they'll be waiting for the article in october). then i'll leave town for a few days. yep, i'm outa here! sick of this place. gotta go visit someone i haven't seen in exactly 10 years!

and then there's the defense of course...

still nothing about the work permit, i think i'm going to cry very soon... or look for another job...

2 days left

and still 2 chapters to revise.

i am going to write a book, huhuh, sounds pretty funny. like "faculty member" sounds pretty funny too...

empty

the blogosphere is dead, france is on non-stop vacation in may and it's memorial day in the us next monday. very discouraging to feel so isolated again. i need to turn in my final draft all nice and binded on tuesday (can't do anything on monday because of memorial day, dammit)... and it's going to be a close call. i'm revising chapter 7 right now (the longest and most boring) and margie still hasn't returned my chapter 8! my fingers are seriously feeling like they're going to fall off very soon and my arms and back are killing me. plus it's super super hot and humid, now, yuck.

just a few more days...

still no news about my work permit, i should get the first part now, as in NOW NOW!

deadlines

- finish dissertation: may 30th
- write and send 2 conference proposals for TESOL: may 31st
- defend dissertation: june 13th
- find an apartment: june 14th to 18th
- finish an article for TQ: june 30th
- move to new place: july 15th
- find authors, write a proposal, write one chapter, and edit one chapter from another author for MY BOOK: july 31st
- start new job: august 1st
- graduate: august 5th
- write an article for ET: september 30th
-die: another day.

going crazy

today i was in my kitchen cooking a really really bad meal (it was bound to happen some day!), and i suddenly felt the urge to just jump into my car and leave my cornfield and drive, drive, drive, until i'd find civilization again, normal people, good restaurants, culture, french tv, life. i am so sick of waiting i could cry. i look at my bookshelves and the huge mess all over my apartment and wonder how i'll manage. i look at my cats and hope they'll manage too. no news on the work permit yet and it's killing me.

i forced myself to go out yesterday, not out like movies or anything, just out of my house, because i had been in my apartment, in my pj's, working on my stuff, not seeing anyone but my cats, not talking to anyone except to my sister on MSN, not even checking my (snail) mail, for a week! now that's pretty scary, even for me. so i went to border's, ate a slice of chocolate-raspberry cake, and read a book about cats so i know what to expect when we move. my life's so much fun.

other than that... i printed chapters 1 through 4 and am reading them all over again to edit them well. i'm just better at doing this on paper. i cut and cut and cut... maybe too much, but at this point i just hope i won't go over 400 pages so cutting things out sounds like a plan. it takes me a day per chapter...

D-day minus 9...

revisions

i've revised chapters 1-8, margie's finally approved chapters 5 (after a crash-course in statistics) and 6 (after i rewrote it all), i've changed the 20000000 tables in my appendix... ok, only 2000... and my sister's been reading and editing chapters 1-4. hopefully she'll survive the next 4.

so basically all i do now is read and re-read and re-re-read to find mistakes, change a few words here and there, add or delete a sentence, verify the format... i am also working on my abstract, acknowledgements, and table of contents, but really, i could be done today if i wanted to. kinda. except that i don't want to have to do too many revisions after the defense so i do as much as i can now.

and i'm also working on the article. mostly done with the intro section, now i need to start the results section. not sure how to do that. while i was working on my last chapter today, i also got several ideas for other future articles.

all over again

rewriting chapter 6 entirely.

have worked 3 days non-stop to redo more than 2000 tables...

so upset

and so busy that i can't write for now and for the next five years or so. if you haven't heard from be by christmas, you might want to call the cops...

hope things are going well for you. and thanks for your support. right now, i don't need any support, i just need a gun.

OMG!

i am trying to write a first article out of my dissertation so i cut and paste... and cut and cut and cut... and it makes me realize that my writing is soooo bad i can't even believe i wrote this poorly. ok, it was a first draft, but i'm going to have to work A LOT on the second draft of this dissertation! damned!

i am not sure i'll be able to put all the information i got into a 25-page article, even by not addressing 2 of my research questions... just the intro (participants, lit review, methods, etc.) is already taking half of that.

i also wonder if i should really write this article right now. i want to make sure it'll count towards tenure... maybe i'll just write drafts of 2 or 3 different articles this summer and send them out in september or october...

i remember the dinner i had the night before my campus visit, in the hotel. makes me crave good food. it's a great incentive to continue working hard.

done

and dead.

almost almost almost

the only thing i must now write is the conclusion of my concluding chapter. 8 chapters and almost 400 pages... i wrote my cv, the acknowledgement page, and the abstract... once this conclusion is written (and it should take me a day or two an hour or two), I WILL BE DONE! ok, then i have to do all the revisions, but hopefully that won't be too bad.


ALMOST DONE!!!

i wish the defense were tomorrow! still 42 days to wait....