Dissertation Musings

Today, I defended my dissertation.  I passed.

During my writing process, I wrote little snippets of how I was feeling, or weird things I noticed.  Here are my dissertation musings:

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I've hit 100 pages, and my word count is a little over 18,000.  That seems pretty good.  Then I do the math.  I'm averaging less than 200 words per page.  Yes, this is a picture book.  The page with the most words is probably in the Table of Figures.  (Also, my Table of Figures is now 5 pages long.)

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So, I have a bunch of different playlists for my music.  Today I started with my playlist of violin solos.  This evening, realized that I have 14.5 hours worth of violin solos in that playlist . . . and I got through all of them.

Actually with that playlist, I first realize how long I've been working at the computer when I hear the sounds of Mozart's 3^rd Violin Concerto (which is highly distinctive) and realize that I've already made it through 3 CDs of Mendelssohn's Violin Concertos.

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I had a dream about writing a huge document, and then printing it off to edit it.

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"Words, words, words!  I'm so sick of words!"  Actually, it's just that I'm getting mixed up with the terms "stiffness," "mass," and "damping," using one word when I should be using another.  You may be thinking, "Those words sound nothing alike!  And they don't have anything to do with one another.  How are you getting confused?"  Well, I'm using each of them a lot within a small group of paragraphs, and they do have quite a bit to do with one another . . . I just don't want to get into that right now.

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Normally, I always have my computer screen at the brightest possible setting.  As I've been writing late into the evening, and early in the morning, I find myself using the full range of my screen's brightness settings.

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As I type this, I realize that I'm totally sick of Times New Roman.  And the formatting requirements of a thesis.

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If there is a large (as in number of megabytes in the file, not as in visual size) image in the line below the one in which you are typing, Word has to think a lot, and my typing is a word or two ahead of the words showing up on the screen.  But, if you scroll up so that the image is just out of sight, Word has no problems.

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Last night I had a dream where I was working at a retail store, like JCPenney.  Is that a sign of subconscious hopelessness?

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A few weeks ago, one of my lab mates asked me what my minimum dissertation length was.  (There's no department-defined minimum, so it's a personal judgment call.)  I replied that I felt 80 pages was the absolute minimum I could get away with.  Once I hit that mark, I was amazed at how much inner relief I felt.  I wasn't even close to being done, but just knowing I met some arbitrary benchmark I set for myself was freeing.

Speaking of arbitrary benchmarks, it's amazing how much more pressure I felt to get writing done as I neared some of my arbitrary personal deadlines for having my dissertation ready for my advisor to review and ready to deliver to my committee for review.  I missed every single one, but I was really efficient under the pressure!

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After typing so much in my dissertation document, I opened something else in Word, and a 1" margin on the left felt way too narrow!

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I would also like to share a comic that is very fitting:

 

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1597

Now, that's not quite what I did; I essentially wrote my dissertation in the last two months, not the last year.

In case you're wondering, the completed dissertation is 150 pages and just under 30,000 words.

 

Typing

There are certain times when I get really frustrated with my typing ability.  There are, in particular, two words that trip me up repeatedly: "equation," which often manages to come out "equatino" as I type, and "sensitivity," which comes out in a variety of ways.  It doesn't help that as I type "sensitivity" I frequently have to stop and think about which syllable I'm on.

While a normal person does not have much need to type "sensitivity" (just had to stop and focus on syllables there!) and "equation" very often, a person writing her dissertation on a new application of sensitivity analysis in structural health monitoring does.  Even worse is when I have to talk about observability.  According to Microsoft Word, "observability" is not a word, and even after I've told Word to add "observability" to the dictionary, Word repeatedly tells me that it's misspelled.  (Clearly, Google is smarter than Microsoft; it understands that "observability" is a word.)

Maybe I should do drills on typing those two words, like I used to do with really fast passages on the violin.  Or maybe I should pick up my violin again.  One time in high school, I was typing a paper right after having drilled myself over and over on a really tricky fast passage, I think in Beethoven's 7th Symphony, and I was amazed at how quickly I could type!  But I digress.

So, now that you feel entirely unenlightened by my post, and possibly unentertained, I will return to my writing, and frequency mistypings of "equation" and "sensitivity."  (Hey, I just got both of those without mishap!)

Communication

I'm being reminded of how much of life depends on communication.  Specifically, a lot of life depends on written communication.  Applying for a job requires a written resume and (in many cases) a cover letter.  Getting a grant requires a written proposal.  (Hmm, I should come up with more examples; writing looks better with more than two examples.)

Last spring, I got a teaching award, which makes me eligible to be nominated for a bigger teaching award this spring.  (This bigger teaching award includes a plaque!  And $500.)  But first, I have to write something.  I have to persuade an unseen committee that I merit this Excellence in Teaching award.

You know, one reason I never ran for student council was because I didn't want to have to give a speech saying "I would be a great student body president because . . ."  But that doesn't stop me from having to give that kind of speech.  I've done it in college applications, scholarship applications, grad school applications, fellowship applications, and I'll have to do it when I leave the cocoon of academia and get a real job.  But right now, I have to do it for an award application.  I get to discuss my excellence in teaching, my excellence in student and colleague mentoring, my accomplishments in discovery and engagement, and my awards and honors.  In three pages.

So, I've been pulling up my past applications.  And you know, as much as I dread writing these kinds of things, I'm actually quite pleased with the final product on those old applications.  The process is painful, though.  Maybe that's why I don't have a dissertation written yet.

In Case You Were Wondering About My Fitness Goals . . .

In June, I set a goal to swim every week, averaging 11 laps (550 yards) each time.  I did it.  So, in June, I:

Biked 82 miles
Swam 1.25 miles

(As it turned out, the triathlon in July that I was looking at was on a Sunday, so I didn't sign up.  And I didn't set any running goals.)

In July, I decided that rather than increasing my swimming distance, I would improve my speed.  I started doing my first four laps with no stopping, and then did 7 more, with breaks.  At the end of the month, I could do 4 laps in 6 minutes flat, and could do all 11 in 18 minutes 14 seconds.  That was improved from roughly averaging 2 minutes per lap previously.

The second half of July was horrible biking weather: heat, strong winds, and lots of sporadic thunderstorms that lasted just long enough to drench you, but not long enough to help any crops.  So, in July, I:

Biked 53.6 miles
Swam 1.56 miles

Then, the pool closed for 2 weeks.  Then, classes started.  I didn't make it to the pool at all in August.  I've still been biking, but I stopped counting miles.

Anyway, there's my follow through.

Leapfrog

When I go to campus, I generally do a combination of biking and riding the bus so that I can avoid biking up the hills.  This morning, as I was biking to the transfer center, I saw another biker, wearing a blue-green shirt, who was headed toward campus.  He did not take the bus.

I got on the bus, and it took off toward campus.  As we were coming up to the first stop after the transfer center, we passed* the same biker wearing a blue-green shirt; once the bus stopped, the biker with the blue-green shirt passed the bus and continued on.  The bus passed the biker, and then stopped for more students, and the biker passed the bus.  Then we both stopped for a stoplight.  Since the bus was behind a long line of cars, the biker got across the street first and started up the hill.  The bus was just about to pass him when it stopped to pick up more students, and the biker pulled ahead.  At some point on the hill, the biker got off his bike and started walking, and the bus passed him.

I got off the bus and pulled my bike off the rack in front, then headed toward my building.  As I locked up my bike, I saw the same biker with the blue-green shirt, bike put away, walking toward his building.  It's really not faster to take the bus.  Of course, I don't take the bus because it's faster; I take it because I'm a wimp with hills.

* Note:  The biker was on the sidewalk and the bus was on the road; passing did not involve going around and pulling in front of one another.


PS:  On my way back to the transfer center after my class was over, I crossed a street at the same time as another bus.  It stopped to drop off riders, and I passed it.  It passed me a little further along the street.  Then it stopped at a stoplight, and I caught up.  It passed me again, but it had to travel a farther distance to navigate some one-way streets and end up pointed the right direction at the transfer center, so I beat the bus there.  (No, this was not all downhill; the portion where I was playing leapfrog with the bus was mostly flat.)

The Best-Laid Plans, or, Yet Another Reason Why I'm Glad I Rent

On a specific day on June, David and I were going to go to the zoo.  We had it all planned out: watching the tiger training, giraffe feeding, dolphin show, and other fun things.  We also picked a day when admission was half price, which doesn't happen too often.

We got up on time, and David took some fruit out of the freezer to make a smoothie.  The fruit was . . . mushy.  Definitely not frozen.  So we made sure the freezer door wasn't having any trouble staying closed, and it wasn't.  After a little while, we noticed that the fan for the refrigerator was blowing continuously, but the compressor was coming on for 3-5 seconds, then cycling off, and repeating that every few minutes.  There was something wrong.

Well, we couldn't very well wait another day to get the fridge and freezer fixed, and we couldn't really leave--if we needed a new freezer, it wasn't like maintenance was going to transfer all our food over.  So, David went to the grocery store to buy a bag of ice, then took a bunch of bags of food to keep in the freezer and fridge at his lab for the day.  I stayed home and waited for maintenance.  At 12:30, the problem was diagnosed, and at 3:30, we had a brand new refrigerator!

Let me just say, I'm glad that management made the decision of the make and model to buy, and that they made the decision that the fridge needed to be replaced.  The problem was solved so much more quickly that way.  So, once again, I'm grateful to rent.

Of course, we still haven't made it to the zoo.

Success!

My goal for May:

Bike 56 miles
Swim 1.2 miles
Walk 13.1 miles

My reality:

Biked 80 miles
Swam 1.3 miles
Walked 13.3 + miles (I only count the distances that are easy to measure, and when in doubt, I round down.  Oh, and if you're interested, I ran 0.6 of those miles.)

My goal for June:

Go swimming every week, and average 11 laps (550 yards) each time.
I anticipate biking just as much, without setting a specific goal.

Now, do I dare sign up for a sprint triathlon at the end of July?  Or a 5k at the beginning of July--in which case I would have to set a running goal for June?  Not sure yet . . .