Session is almost starting and other things

So, I am happy and quite excited about finishing.
But as this moment of pure happiness can't last long, Advisor already told me that Graduate Studies is a big messy department and there is a chance that they will take too much time to distribute the dissertation to the members of the committee. I won't even comment on that because I already know how pitiful this University is. I have heard about students having to send their dissertation by themselves. So now we start to roll. I need to get out of here.

Ok, I won't complain too much about it because I don't want some stupid bureaucracy to spoil my happiness.

On the other hand, the session is starting soon. I am putting together my syllabus and today I think I'll make copies of it so it's out of my way.

As for the rest we had a wonderful dinner yesterday and Saturday we will go out to celebrate because the good news is also that Husband found a good job. Everything came in at the same time. It's almost amazing. And he will be again in Canadian Capital for a while and he'll be travelling again. Who knows, maybe I'll find a job there.....

He's happy and that's all that counts.

Printing day

I have finished looking at the last couple of things in the bibliography. So I make a copy of the dissertation on my memory stick and I am heading out to print it.

6 copies (5 for the committee and one for me).

Now, I shouldn't panic. What it's done, it's done. Yesterday I passed the spelling thing (again!) and I checked everything. I decided I didn't want to read it frantically another time because I was sure I would start to rewrite some paragraphs and then I would never finish.

So, wish me luck. The copy center is close to a Starbucks, and I will be sipping a cappuccino while the last 5 years of my life will be putted on paper. No more working late all the time, no more working Saturdays and Sundays all the time, and early mornings and nights in front of the computer for this.

Yesterday I talked quickly with Advisor (about a totally different subject) but she told me she was proud of my work and she fully agrees that I go ahead and I give it in. She says I am ready. And she thinks it's a beautiful dissertation.

Am I proud? Happy? Satisfied? (Exhausted? yes!)
I am but I don't think I am realizing what's happening. I am in a foggy state where I act but I don't really realize fully what this means.
So, instead of thinking that I, maybe should do..... I am getting dressed, I go out and that's it.

Dissertation is finished.

Conclusion

I have to finish the conclusion. I am almost there.
The abstract is translated, I only have to check the translation with a friend.
All the rest is done but I would like to reread for the last time.

Hopefully by Friday it will be DONE!

My allergies are bugging me. I wake up early everyday and I have a head like a balloon, runny nose and itchy eyes. I hate it! I am tired but I have to keep going.

The session is starting the first week of September. Newt week-end I will have to focus on preparing syllabus, and working out a plan for the courses I am teaching. The good thing is they are all ready. At least that.

I am tired but I keep going

Yesterday I stayed 10 hours in front of the computer and I worked this damned quotation-in-the-original thing out. I revised some chapters and part of the bibliography. By the time I went to bed my brain was fried.

Today I had my first meeting with the new director. She seems very fine and I hope it will be a good work relationship. We might close two classes. So be it, what can I do? (this is a long story for another post)

I scheduled some evaluations for Monday, a full day, basically at the office and I have another -hopefully- short meeting on Tuesday next week. All the rest of my time is devoted to the dissertation.

I am done with the abstract (I still have to translate it) and I have few changes to go. And the conclusions (I am not super happy about this part missing but I'll try to give it a shot tomorrow).

I still need to see how Chapter 6 is going, hopefully well.
This project is coming together, I just can't believe it..................... yet.

I received also some good and some bad news from home:

• good news: my uncle is fine. His doctor found out he had a large enough black mark in his lungs. He went to do a lot of testing and no doctor could understand what it was. Finally the specialist tried with a super strong antibiotic and he found out that this dark spot went away . I am very relived as I love him very very much.

• The not good news: my grandmother broke something in her shoulder. She is 95 so it's important she keeps active and hopefully the experience won't be too bad for her. She broke her hip five years ago and she fully recovered, so I really do hope for the best. I don't think I ever told you that I have 3 grandparents, all in their 90's. I like them a lot but it has been hard seeing them growing old to the point they have lost their autonomy, but even if the physical doesn't always follow they are very totally there with their memory and all the rest. So, I hope my grandma will get better soon.

Love-hate relationship

So I got my dissertation back from Advisor. I have to rework Chapt. 1 and the intro, all the rest is fine. Good, I knew that was the part I would have to work on, not only because I felt that it was maybe weak but also because Advisor really didn't read it carefully the first time around.
Advisor was supposed to meet me to explain me some of the points she marked but because her meeting run late, she was an hour late (I understand) and then she couldn't be with me because she had to have lunch with a colleague. OK, we agreed that I would call her for the stuff I couldn't understand, even at home. Pretty fair.
Then she looked at me and she said: "well, another thing, you are quoting a lot of authors in English or French, I just feel that because you are writing in language XYZ (my mother tongue) you should translate all your quotes because I think the Faculty demands that"..................
??????????????????????????????????????????????????
Hello?????????????????????????????????????????????
Couldn't we have asked the question before? I have to know NOW??????????
She told me she was not sure what the rules are so I should ask someone. I consulted two other dissertations from friends that finished 3 and 2 years ago. One did translate everything, the other one quoted in the original language. Plus, isn't this country bilingual? I am not quoting in Chinese here, only in English and French....

So I went upstairs and I asked the secretary: she told me that you can not substitute yourself for a translator, but jut to be sure she told me to call Graduate Studies. I did, I asked, and the person I spoke to assumed the same thing but she asked the Vice-Dean who gave her the same answer: no need to translate. Thank you!

But... wasn't she supposed to know this stuff? I am not her first Ph.D. student. I understand all the rules and regulations are boring but hey, that's definitely NOT my part. As for the quoting style: I asked her a while ago should I use MLA, Chicago, the French style some of the people use if they write in French? She didn't have a clue. I asked again the secretary: she didn't know either. So I consulted old dissertations: I didn't find two that were using the same style. We have no rules!!!!!! OK, much better, at least for me, but doesn't someone knows about this stuff?

And, I know that lunch maybe was important, but spending 15 minutes with your student would be a nice thing to do too (I couldn't make it this afternoon because I had to pick up the furry monster who is sleeping at my feet with his stitches showing...poor thing, but at least he is very joyful and happy to be home).

Now I am scared... what if her job is not good enough? What if she didn't correct stuff that was important? What if I should have read more? I basically did all by myself (corrections excluded) but I never spent time with her really discussing my subject.

To make a long story short: I hope I learn from all this and one day I'll make a better job at advising students........ I can't wait to be done with all this....

Dissertation update

I received an e-mail from my Advisor today. She wrote she was very very pleased with my work and she thinks it's a wonderful dissertation!

I am so very happy.

That means I should be able to finish by the end of the month. YES!

I will meet her tomorrow to pick up the manuscript and so I can work on very little revisions especially Chapter 1 (I knew it!).

I am finishing Chapter 6, abstract is done, now I will think about the conclusions and work a bit in the bibliography.

Yes, yes, yes......... I am almost there......

Dissertation update

I wrote the abstract today. Too bad I have to translate it in two more languages (and by the way, I'll wait to submit it to Advisor first, I want to translate only once, thank you!).

Now I am attacking the last chapter. Maybe tomorrow I'll be up for the conclusions.
If only I would know what I want to say......

Update on little monster

I phoned the Vet yesterday and he told me hat my little monster is doing fine and his surgery went ok. We will pick him up on Monday afternoon at 3p.m.

This is good news. I am eager to see him and I have a perfect excuse to leave the office early. I was there Thursday and I did all I have to do in an hour and then I spent time surfing the Internet and looking for articles.

Student enrollment this year is extremely low. Mind you, it's low everywhere at my University but in the Language section is one of the worse year in a long time. It seems we will have to cancel 3 maybe 4 classes. I am very disappointed and very frustrated with the situation.
New Director (ND) arrived last week. She seems fine but somehow I have the felling she really doesn't know what she has been thrown into. When she talking with me about class enrollment she said "but ten years ago classes were full and you had students!". Yes, that was 10 years ago. Now we don't have students and the ones we have are usually in for the language classes and not the language programs. For a University that on paper wants to promote internationalization, let me tell you, it's doing NOTHING about it. Again, it's all on paper. I am very critic and probably clinic against this institution because I have seen really the worse things happening. Nobody is rewarded for their hard work, it's all politics: who you know and how. Young researchers are used and squeezed to their breakable point and then left out when a real position is opening (3 out of 3 friends that graduated there, 2 of them with previous experience somewhere else, were called into for openings just to be left out when the moment came). We are told that we need to be productive and attract students. But if I need a new brochure (I went to get some infos about it and for 250$ we could have some new brochures lasting at least two years!) nobody is paying for it. I have been waiting for 4 years now. They don't even bother to answer my calls anymore.

Anyway, I don't want to get too bitter. There's no point. I, all alone, won't change the system, I can only change what is in my power, little things. As for the rest, I'll be on the job market this year, so I hope I will have some stories to share.

I am concentrating on the abstract today and I'll start working on Chapter 6. I hope to hear from Advisor on Monday. If I still have some minor work to do, I'll do it, if it's major reworking, I'll wait and I'll submit later on. I decided this because I want to get things done in a good way, I want to finish but I don't want to risk corrections. I'd rather do them before than after. I know I am finishing this year. But I also know I want to get my life back. I can't work like this all year long, all week-ends, all free time except when I am too tired to anything but collapse.
I'll keep you posted.

My poor little monster

I arrived home this morning from a nice walk. My little monster played crazily with his doggirlfriend. As they played in the dirt, I cleaned him up and I realized he was bleeding on his flank and he had basically a hole in his skin. I cleaned up the wound and called the veterinary. We took him in an hour later and the Vet told us he will have to stitch him up and clean the open wound because it was very deep.

So my little sweet monster will have surgery this afternoon and I'll call the Vet tonight at 6 to see how it went. Little monster will have to stay at the clinic until Monday or Tuesday as the Vet wants to make sure everything is going well and that he will rest adequately for the first couple of days without eating his stitches. I hope everything will go well and that his surgery will be fine. We are taking the opportunity of the anesthesia to get him micro chipped too.

Dogs are incredible, they don't show any signs of pain (he didn't cry or anything else, on the contrary he played until the last minute), so I got into the habit of checking him every time we are coming home. I am glad I do.
I am a bit anxious but I hope I will post very good news soon. He's such a sweet dog, he even loves to go to the Vet, he licks everybody and would like to play with all the girls working there (he's a charmer with his blue eyes). I know I will get to sleep in the next couple of days but I miss him already.

Sometimes I think life is just so fragile, in a minute everything can change.

Done! Almost...

Today I gave my Advisor chapters, + intro+table of content.

I don't know how it will go. I am very happy about all the chapters except for the first one where I am not sure if I made my point. I have some doubts regarding that part of the research because I think Advisor didn't read it carefully at the time and she actually did misunderstood a couple of things. (maybe I wasn't clear enough too..)

So now I have to wait and in the meanwhile I have to polish off Chapter 6 and write the conclusions. I hope to give her this part by mid-week next week. She promised me she would read it by Monday, and I hope so much she'll actually do it.

If everything goes ok by the 28 I can print out everything and submit it. If there is any major concern I told her I'd rather wait a little bit more and that we should work together about it. At this stage, I'd rather wait two months and restructure things than risking minor revisions.

Today I am at the office, it's lunch hour, outside it's raining and I feel I could go to sleep right away. I am tired, I worked until late for the last week to put everything together.

Today husband has a big interview for a job. I hope he'll get it, he would be so happy about it and both of us would be ecstatic about a new position for him. Hopefully we will have something to celebrate tonight.

I am working

Every day until late. I need to get this dissertation done.
I truly do.

Today I bought the covers... in two days I have to give in 5 chapters to Advisor.
I still need to edit a part.

You bet I'll party after this one!

Got to go, I'll try to be back asap.....

I have to keep going

I am almost done with chapter 3. It took me a long time because I felt I had to read a couple of books before attacking it.
It's a lot of work, it's painful. I hate revions. (I am shouting it out loud)
Can't they get done by themselves? What if it's not enough and I am stuck with this another 6 months (my dear, that will make a super boring blog!)?

Now, I should shut up and go back to work......

Cutest kitty

Husband gave Black Cat her new product against hairball product. She was loving it!

Back to work - reflections on life part 1

I went back to the office today (under a super heavy thunderstorm, thank you my dear Husband for giving me a ride). I found things relatively calm and I will be able to wait until Thursday now before I check in again.

I don't remember if I blogged before about Colleague/Friend (and I am too tired to check right now). She is a colleague turned into friend-acquaintance that has been working for me and with me for the last couple of years. She is a funny person, I like her sense of humour and we were going out from time to time for dinner. The thing for me was she could only see me at her time, when she wanted. Anyway, lately I was very disturbed by her because she never called me much before but when she got her new Mac she needed all this important information for her computer every Sunday in a row, and THE THING that really pissed me off was that she borrowed the manuals we use in class that I ordered for the office and she kept them for over a year. I had to ask her at least 4 or 5 times to bring them back and she was really taking advantage of me because I didn't want to "report her" to my director that she was keeping stuff she was supposed to buy for herself (I bought myself a copy of the manual we are using as all my colleagues did).
To make a long story short today I found the books. She left them in my office with no note, no nothing. And damaged. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would say a good 6. Of course: they are now used books and when I gave them to her they were new. (It's true I don't need new books for the office but should I ask her to keep them and buy new ones for the office?) And I feel just so upset that she took advantage of my trust and of my good intentions.
When I was home I was thinking about this and I talked about it with a common friend that came to visit me for Conf2. She told me that she was thinking about this as not respectful and not tolerable. I have to agree with her and now I have to realise that true friends are first of all respectful persons who won't act deliberately to impose something on you like this.
I have to admit that this experience and the one with ex-friend-from-hell really opened my eyes on how trustful I can be and how weak I can be when, even if I am right, I should be speaking up and make a point but I don't do it because I am ind of scared of losing the person, the friendship even when there is none there. I think one of my problems is that I am a people pleaser. I always want to have people to like me and sometimes I can sacrifice what is right or what is good for me to get this precarious sense of acceptance. After all it's not her fault but mine, because I was the one that didn't step up for what was right because in my head I was considering her a friend and I was finding excuses even if the other part was abusing my trust.
I realized I need to be more true to myself and if this means that some other people won't like it, well, too bad. I can't be liked by everybody and I don't have to please everybody either. And from now on, I will be more cautious before trusting someone. And if I disagree about something, I need to say it out loud, and if it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out. End of the story. I have to set boundaries here and clear ones.

On the dissertation front, I was very tired during the week-end and I didn't do as much. On the good side, I think I have found out why I am always drained. When I was back home I went to see my doctor and she ordered a blood test. Apparently I have a super strong hypothyroidism. I am saying apparently because she told me I should do the test again to confirm it, just in case, and discuss it with my doctor here.
So I am seeing a new family doctor in two weeks for this but when I checked all the symptoms (and I don't want to be hypochondriac) some were certainly there: tiredness, feeling cold all the time and weight gain are the most prominent of all. I hope I'll get a good check up here so I can have the appropriate treatment for it. I was always crediting the stress for the dissertation and the teaching and all the rest for my tiredness but now I know there is something else. I couldn't possibly be stressed this week-end or overtired because I was working too much because I have been working at my own pace. But things are still looking good. I have two days to work on it before Thursday. :-)

Funny boy

The furry monster sleeping with part of his tongue out.... I am defintely entertained by him every day.

Another chapter is done

Yesterday I closed one chapter. That means this is it, done!
Now I am attacking another one (the order is random I have to admit but I now work by association of ideas and it seems to be fine) and hopefully it will be done soon enough.

After some more chapter attacking, it will be time to focus on the resume plus the intro.... that's the part I hate!

A question: do you have troubles putting in the headings for the chapters? Word seems to work in a weird way (some times it works fine some other is just ballistic) and I don't know if it's me doing something wrong or the program itself that seems to be unreliable. I hate formatting too, by the way.....

Today is another super hot day and I'll be enjoying in the afternoon my birthday present (even if its long gone): a pedicure! I love that (and hopefully the energy from my feet will get to my brain....), I will take a couple of hours off and far from the computer.

I still can't believe next week I will go back to work. There's a lot of new stuff going on: a new director will come in by Mid-August, some colleagues are already stressing because we don't have a lot of students (what's new, the University is not doing a single thing to promote the language programs) and there will be some stuff that accumulated over the holidays. In any case, the secretaries are gone until mid August, and I might as well relax and do the same.

My new mantra this academic year is: do not to bring home the office problems, they just don't belong in your personal life. I hope I will be able to keep the boundaries between the two and I will apply a strict policy of "don't call me at home and if you do, please call me back at the office when I am there". No e-mails if I am not there and nothing else but the dissertation until is done.

I still have 28 days to go....

A last minute find

While leaving, at the airport, I passed by the Swatch store and I found a ring (actually 2, but I'll show you the first one) I fell in love with:

And it was 30% off, so I bought it. I like the playfulness of it and when I am typing it's moving all the way with my hands. Maybe I'll type my revisions faster?