15 hours

I’ve hit the 15 hour mark, so my reward is something Paper Source.  I looove stationery, so I can’t wait to pick something up.

In other news, Nephew the 4th has been born!  Yay!

 

To the Canadians:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Clip art from here.

 

10 hours

My thesis goal for the week was simply to make space in the office* to actually do work and to find my thesis stuff in The Land of Unpacked Boxes.  Instead, I’ve done both of those things, plus actually worked on my thesis for an hour, bringing me up to 10 hours!  And there’s still another day left in the week!  My reward for 10 hours: new hardcover book or two trade paperbacks or four regular paperbacks.  I’ve had my eye on the new Tasha Alexander book….

*Office sounds so sterile.   Let’s call it the study instead. Makes you think of wood paneling and leather chairs, doesn’t it, instead of cubicles and institutional furniture.
P.S.  Thanks for all of the sentiments regarding my mother’s divorce.  I particularly like what CPP said.

 

Dear Universe: a little help please

Dear Universe,

While I appreciate that you do not revolve around me, I was wondering if you could cut me some slack here.  See, I’m trying to write my thesis and I’m having a bit of difficulty.  In addition to the extreme lack of motivation I have for writing (which I realize is totally not your fault) in the last three days there has been:

• Major construction going on in the apt. above me (Tues.)
• A friend that I have not seen in over 10 years in town (Wed.)
• A steady drip of water from my ceiling (leading to more construction upstairs).  AND tree trimmers outside.  All.Day.Long. (Today)

As you might imagine, these things have not been helping the thesis writing.  It’s really hard to concentrate with all of that hammering, sawing, and (I think) shop vaccing that’s going on.  And it’s really important to me to get some work done this week because we are moving at the end of next week which is going to make it difficult to do any work until things get settled again.

So, if you could see your way clear to refrain from sending any more distractions my way, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks much,

Mrs Whatsit

P.S.  If you could also get my advisor to read the drafts I keep sending him, that would be totes awesome.  Thx.

 

And now for something completely different

I realize the previous post might have been a bit of downer. It was important to me to write it, but it was also somewhat depressing.  And I can only take so much sadness in a week.  I have to offset it with a bit of laughter.  Therefore,  I give you LOLspores:

 

D day

My penultimate committee meeting is today at 2pm. Hopefully, my committee will be on board with my plan for graduation. Wish me luck, guys!

 

Giving presentations

Last Friday, I presented at lab meeting for the last time.  I’m happy to say that it went well.  Since I’ve been having some cognitive problems I was a little worried about how it would go, but I was able to answer people’s questions without difficulty.

A couple posts back, Disgruntled Julie commented:

[F]or me, as long as I have some kind of visual stimulus to help remind me, I am fine. So, while I am utterly useless if someone stops me in the hallway and asks me a question, if I am giving a talk in front of my committee and I have a slide up with general information to jump-start my memory, I am fine. Perhaps you will find something similar, too? Sometimes during my committee meetings if I get stumped on a question I just have to go back in the slides to one that has some information on the topic at hand, and it is enough to get my brain back on track. I’d suggest it if you ever find yourself in a similar position.

This is really good advice, I think, not just for people with memory problems but also for people who get nervous when presenting.  Keeping her comment in mind, I made sure when I put together my powerpoint presentation for my lab meeting that I had enough information on each slide to help me remember what it is I wanted to tell people.  I generally try to do this anyway when giving a formal talk, but I’m not so good about it when slapping together a lab meeting.

This doesn’t mean that I had slide after slide with paragraphs of information.  That’s pretty much considered a no-no as far as presentations go and anyway, if you lose track of what you’re saying mid-sentence, glancing at a paragraph of material is not going to be very useful for you to get on track.  (Unless, of course, you are simply reading the paragraphs off the slide, but that’s a big no-no as well.)  But, I did have bullet points with a few words that highlighted whatever point I was trying to make and that was very helpful.

After having such a successful lab meeting, I feel a lot better about my upcoming committee meeting!

 

Lab meeting

This week I’m giving lab meeting.  It’s the last lab meeting I’ll ever have to present at.  For some reason, that makes me a little sad.

 

G-T-C-A

I was going to write a post about migraine meds (and still will), butt I got distracted by this at Dr. Isis’ blog:

 

He’s here!

Born 2:30 AM.

I’m heading home!