Issues. We all got 'em. (Some of us even have subscriptions)

It's nice and quiet in the office right now.  That will probably end in the next few minutes *g* but I thought I would take a few moments and try to update since my goal is to become semi-regular at this blog thing!

The Spousal Unit and I continue to move forward, stumbling sometimes but still together.  I received a very polite slap upside the head from a good friend about setting up an initial counseling appointment.  I keep meaning to do so, however, I will admit that I have let work and school continually push that task down the line into the "do later" column.  I have promised I will call the two provided names this week and figure out who I want to set up the appointment with.  The only requirement the SU has put forth is whichever one we use has to be okay with cursing (you can take the man out of the Navy, but...).

The SU agreeing to go is good.  It's agreement more on the side of "if you want to go/think we need to go, I'll go" but I'll take it.  It's better than outright refusal.  The only thing I really wonder about is how open and honest he will be.  When I've asked him that, I get a variety of answers.  Most of them seem to revolve around some convoluted version of "I'll try"; his walls have walls by this point.  He has said some things to me that have just broken my heart because I know that is not how other me, God or our friends see him.  But to hear him talk about how he sees himself...is just heart-wrenchingly painful.  My hope is that with working his sobriety and continued pastoral and other counseling, he will be able to start being honest about the things that truly, truly bother him or that are hard to deal with for him; that he'll be able to start putting that stuff in the garbage pile and rebuild his self-image the way God sees him.  And rebuild his relationship with God while he is at it.

Yeah...nothing too big :P.

I see my first new advisee today and then the appointments slowly start ramping up (please see pics of boxes o'students in Project 365 post below :)).  I've advised in the past - some planned, some impromptu - so I should be okay with it and will learn more of the ins and outs of this particular program as I go.  Having things to do is good, yes?

My main thought at this point is I'm almost halfway through the semester.  This semester continues to feel like an albatross around my neck for some reason.  It might be because I'm having to deal with a finance course and that is not my bailiwick.  At all.  When the instructor asked us to introduce ourselves and what we wanted to get out of this course, I said that finance was like a foreign language to me and I wanted to become more proficient than being able to ask where the bathroom is :). 

I think I'm grasping enough and I was able to create my annotated bibliography for my literature review and pull out necessary threads to make a coherent paper but it *feels* harder than other semesters have - even the semester I took Research Methods.  I spent three hours Saturday (8am-11am) and three hours Sunday (6am-9am) working on the lit review so I can try and have the rough done by this week and start on the policy paper.  Both are not due until the week of Thanksgiving but there are several analytic essays *also* coming down the pike and it makes me all Kermit the Frog:

And, finally:

Dear Providers of My Doctor's Office Supplement/Diet Program  -

I would like to make a suggestion.  When confronted by the first supplement of the day, perhaps one should not have to look at a drink that is the color of a urine sample that bodes no good for the donor.

Just a thought...
TCH

And thus and so...

So, week one of the diet is complete.  I lost five pounds which I am happy with for a first week result.  Below is a picture of the meal I actually get to chew each day:

That's eight ounces of protein (chicken in this case) and 2 cups of vegetables.  I also get two cups of vegetables for lunch along with whatever packet I've snagged before I left the house in the morning.  I'm having to look up more ways to cook vegetables or think of new ones to try because I don't want to get bored over the potential months I will be doing this.  I just don't want to buy a new vegetable, hate it, and then have to eat it because, you know, I spent money on the thing :P.

Also had to do all the medical stuff I couldn't do at my first appointment because there was someone else with me and HIPPA frowns on trading medical details like bubblegum cards :).  The last thing I had to do that day was...get measured (gasp!  oh, the horror!).  I still am proportional (47-42-49) but would like those measurements to go down just a wee bit.  Ah well, if this gets my pancreas to (a) stop giving me the middle finger and (b) start giving up insulin instead of hoarding it like it's preparing for a bomb shelter for World War Z, that will be worth it.  Plus, the need to no longer stab myself in the stomach every day with needles would be pretty awesome, too.

I am knitting, knitting, knitting.  I finished the first cable hat and sent it to my favorite girl-child-who-is-not-one-of-my-granddaughters, Beanie:

She was very happy with it per Mom.  What is on her shoulders is the shirt I also sent her:  Bambi (she's allllll into Disney right now).

I also started work on this dress (model picture):

I am about a third of the way through the back skirt portion of the dress and feeling rather ambitious since this is the first piece of clothing I am making so I'm learning about decreasing stitches for clothes as well as how to sew together the pieces (when I get there).

The linen stitch scarf got put to the side for the moment because I wanted to get the hat finished (check), get started on the dress (check) since I have hopes of finishing it in time for Christmas, and I am pretty close to getting this scarf done:

I've got about eight more sets of the thin stripes to complete and then around 100 more rows of solid block knitting using the gray color first and then the white (or I may use one of the blues again, who knows?).  BTW, please excuse the crappy picture - it was taken on my desk at work.

Still kind of writing off and on.  It's a relaxing thing like knitting.  I've been working on an SGA/Chuck crossover for a while and I have various scenes written but I think I need to start trying to stitch them together and really nail down my timeline between the shows.  There is some difference and if I go one way, I need to use the Legacy series SGA books as canon and the last one won't be out until November.  Not a problem one way since (a) I write at a glacial pace these days and (b) this will probably never see the light of day to an archive or anything like that.  But I can see another way I want to go and I'm not sure I can get the timelines to mesh as well as I would like.  Oh well, at least I'm writing!  Now if that SGA/X-Files plot bunny would leave me alone...(I'm skeered of Chris Carter's ever fraying grasp on his own series canon.  That's a migraine waiting to happen!).

BTW, if anyone has a good idea for a topic I can write about for Public Finance Administration, sing out!  I have my Public Policy topic but Finance eludes me.

Group Work

Group work in graduate school is like herding cats.  Wet, rabid cats.  (more after this weekend when I am finished with the summer semester :P)

And the winner is...

Our professor was back in town so we met last night and finally got our midterms back.  Of course, when he starts out the evening by saying over half of us - out of a class of 16 - failed the miderm, that's...not encouraging.

I passed with a B and I'm working on being happy with that (*waves to legacy of performance orientation gifted by parents*).  What I found interesting were the attitudes of people who had admittedly never read the book and failed the midterm.  One girl was saying how she'd never failed anything and the Evil TCH Munchkin in my head wanted to say, "You're young yet.  Give it time." but I refrained.  Still, if you're not reading the book or trying to familiarize yourself with the material, how can you be surprised that you didn't do well?

The other thing that boggles my brain is how many people haven't even started their papers yet.  This is just anathema to me because I like to spend the last few weeks of a semester polishing up my prose, looking for any errors, etc.  I know I've got some breaks in that I don't have kids at home but, still, the majority of my weekends each semester include at least a three hour stint in the coffee shop working on homework.

So I have one more case study due that I'm going to try and complete this week, the HR paper to polish up and then finish running my data, and write my discussion and conclusion for the other paper.  Fingers crossed.

Weddings, Midterms and Various, Assorted Other Junk

Well, I *finally* finished the blanket I was working on for Rylie's (my oldest granddaughter) birthday next month:

That's the second thing I've ever knitted.  It was 150 stitches for each row and ended up being about 42" long and 35" wide.  I bound a multi-colored skein of yarn and used that for the fringe.  There were one or two missed stitches but, all in all, I'm pretty happy with the way it came out.  We took it to my Kristy's wedding (my oldest daughter) since Jess (youngest daughter and holder of grandchildren) was going to be there with our granddaughter, Emery.  It got use for Emery's nap so I guess that's kind of a seal of approval :).

I'm also wanting to try something more complicated now that I've finally figured out purling.  I kept making unintentional yarnovers until I watched Yarn Store Lady (YSL) again a few weeks ago.  The light bulb moment came when I realized YSL was bringing the working yarn around in front *before* she purled.  Duh! So I have in mind a lace pattern scarf made from silk alpaca and a blanket for Emery that alternates knitting, purling, and slipping...or using the yarn to strangle myself when I go insane from trying this!  It's a tossup :).

Kristy's wedding was really nice.  They were originally going to get married in August but it was becoming a hassle.  They had planned a small wedding but there was apparently some potential drama with people thinking they were invited, wondering why they weren't invited, etc.  So they moved it up to March and basically had family and just a few friends.  God was very awesome in the manner of our Federal tax return so we could afford the plane tickets, rental car and hotel and not have to worry about it, and it was lovely to watch the Spousal Unit give away our "little girl".

We went up on Friday, came back Sunday night, and Monday was full of seeing old friends.  Last night, though, was the dreaded Research Methods midterm.  Professor X gave very few clues about the content of the midterm other than he expected us to write about 20 pages and that he expected us to fully explain and defend the choices we made in our answers.  I wrote for about 2.5 hours straight.  Here are some of the questions:

What is a variable?  What is the difference between an “independent” variable and a “dependent” variable? What does it mean to operationalize a variable? How do variables contribute to the research process? In your discussion, note the “stages” for developing a variable, i.e., taking a variable from concept to application in research?

What are three measures of central tendency?  Discuss each fully.  Which of these three measures is the preferred measure of central tendency?  Why?  What is dispersion?  How do we measure it? How does this concept work with central tendency?  In your response, you must demonstrate deficiencies of other measures as well as the strengths of the measure you select, i.e., you must discuss each fully.  Which of these two concepts (dispersion/central tendency) is most important and why? 

My only thought as I left last night was "why did I think a Master's was a good idea again?"  I'm honestly worried about how I did on this exam.  I don't feel like I answered the questions as fully as I should have and it's going to bring down my grade in a bad, ugly way.  I know, realistically, there is nothing that I can do about it now and I wrote down everything I did know and tried to explain and/or defend but...yeah, not happy.

The good part of this week is we got to see some really good friends of ours who, now that we've moved to Arkansas, we don't get to see unless they are coming through the state on their way to Texas.  But, lo and behold, they did and we got to spend some time with John and Jen and their kids - three out of four whom we've known gestationally :).  Aidan (or Monkey) is my special bud and his sister Eleasa (Beanie) loves me too (and I love them).  Samuel, the oldest, had been writing a worship song on the trip and showed it to both Mike and me.  Mike made sure to give him his very best worship leader critique :).

We met them while they had dinner and then agreed to meet them at their hotel pool a little later.  It was when we were getting into the car that I noticed Mike making a face and rolling his eyes.  I told him that I could go to the hotel by myself if he wanted and he said, no, that wasn't it.  Later on, he told me that God had chosen that exact moment to explain why He had told us not to put down roots in Arkansas (e.g., not buy a house, etc).  According to God, it's because we will ultimately be returning to our old stomping grounds to once again to work with John and Jen in their new church at some point.  The reactions of the Spousal Unit and me to this news were largely the same:

*look up at the sky*  "Really?  I mean...really?  You're kidding, right?"

'Cause, dang, it's not like I don't have people I love back there (hello, see pictures above) but I *like* where I am now.  I like my town, my apartment, my job, my friends.  If God really wants us to go back, He's going to have to make it quite readily apparent.

(oh man, that's just like throwing down the gauntlet, isn't it?)

The Spousal Unit and me...we're just gonna let that one percolate for a while.

Dear Potential Student

Dear Potential Student,

When you call about my program and I tell you it is a graduate program?  Please not to be getting all huffy with me regarding the requirement of a bachelor's degree.  For, lo, whilst I agree that, indeed, life can seem most unfair at times, the fact I will not make thee a thing called an "exception" due to your (dubious) sparkling personality doth not qualify as "unfair".  Nay.  It is barely a blip on my radar.

When you inquire about a community program that has a link via my program's web page that I do not know about, please not to be disbelieving regarding my statement that I have no knowledge of them as I only work with my program.  However, when I am kind enough to not comment on your affliction of blindness and point out the link contains contact numbers for you to talk to people who, you know, actually work with these community programs, and I suggest you call them?  Prithee not to be badgering me about how come I have not the information within my own brainpan.  The last time I took inventory, I did not determine I was the Fount of All Knowledge.  If you continue to insist that, yea verily, I have abilities beyond my ken, I will be sorely tempted to maketh stuff up and tell it to you as Gospel.

Me

Not me:

Ballad of the Overcaffeinated Grad Student (a segue)

I am currently sitting in a Starbucks, having arisen at the stupid hour of 5:30 in order to be up and revising my lit review by 7am with a cup of coffee and a bottle of water in front of me.  (I'm taking a break at the moment since I've worked through about one-third of my paper, moving stuff around...adding...deleting...pausing for a moment to think "the hell?" when I come across a particularly obtuse piece of writing.)

Of course, there was a moment when this almost didn't happen.  I have the luxury on occasion of being able to work on my homework at my job if it's slow.  I keep everything on a jump drive and take that jump drive home with me every day.  Well, every day except yesterday. 

I got all the way home, grabbed my backpack out of the back seat, and suddenly had a clear and vivid picture of me shutting down my work computer with my jump drive still stuck in the USB slot.  Cue me making sounds at a frequency and pitch that only dolphins should be able to make.  There may have also been a slight dance of "well...CRAP!".  (Ball fists, bend knees, turn in a nearly complete circle while trying to not give into the desire to punch the car or the side of your head.)

'Cause, see, my campus locks the buildings on the weekends.  Sometimes there is an entry door left open and sometimes not - it's like Jeopardy.  "I'll take the South entrance for $200, Alex."  The Spousal Unit and I drove down there Saturday morning while running our errands and hoping we were early enough to avoid the Razorback crowd*.  We made it and I ran across campus to my building to find the open entrance to Track 9 3/4...er, my building so I snatched up my jump drive, ran back out and we boogied on down the road.  Whew.  God likes me.

He likes me so much I'm here in Starbucks drinking bad coffee and playing my iPod really loudly in order to drown out the stuff Starbucks calls music :).

*Look, I know y'all here in Arkansas have the whole "Soooeee, pig!" thing going down for your cheer but  you still can't beat the cheer from my previous university:  Austin Peay (pronounced "pea").  Know what ours was?  "Let's go Peay!"  Yeah...

An Anal Retentive Moment brought to you by TCH

Holy crap, has it really been almost a month since I've written anything here?  *checks date*  Ooops.  Guess so.

Sara - aka Mama 365 for purposes of this entry - has handed me down a challenge to get my ample posterior back on P365 (although I believe she mentioned wanting to see the cats versus, you know, me :P) so I'm going to try to take pictures this week and get them uploaded in time for next week's showing.  Kim *waves to Kim* also e-mailed me so I'll work on it.

I've turned in my annotated bibliography even though it's not due until the 31st.  I've finished it, I'm hoping to get some early feedback on it, and, frankly, I'm tired of looking at it!  I've started on my overall literature review/thesis beginning today while sitting in Starbucks and having my iPod plugged firmly in my ears. 

*bangs head against wall*   Dear Buddha riding a pony down Main Street while juggling, this sucks!  I've been writing both for school and for enjoyment purposes for years but this whole review/thesis thing...oy vey.  I mean, I know I'm anal retentive (see post title) and have my own perfection issues but I'm used to being able to write something close to a final version when I sit down and start typing.  This, though, has got to be one of the draftiest drafts I've ever written - and I'm not even done with it yet.  The thought of revisions to this fills me with about the same excitement as your average root canal, too (excluding the fact that the one root canal I've had was actually one of my best dental experiences ever.  I'm sure that was an aberration).

Other than that, however, class is going okay.  Our group finished its first project and, as a bonus, quickly located the deadwood within the group.  I can understand a little getting into the swing of things, y'know?  But when you are approximately my age (the answer to everything according to Douglas Adams) and I explain not only the assignment but what your part in it is and hand you web sites to help you find what you need, I should not have to come after you (a) three times for usable material for inclusion, nor (a1) should that information you've given me three times be completely unusable and wrong to boot - and I'm not even going to go into the potential plagiarism issues to which said deadwood almost exposed the rest of us.  Seriously, when I went back to the well for the third and final time (and re-re-explained the project all over again), her response was "Well, there isn't one web page that tells me all that".  So, unfortunately, we had to try and make up for Deadwood and that meant she got to ride through on our grade.  Another "grrrr" inducing moment brought to you by higher education :P.

And yes, I am practicing my thesis avoidance tendencies by typing this.  Why do you ask? :)

Slight freakout ahoy!

I'm thinking I  may just have to call this "The Continuing Travails of Our Graduate School Experience".  That sounds kinda nice and old-timey...or, considering I just read the quoted title again, like I have several personalities just yearning to burst out.

We, uh, I'll never tell...

Got an A on my literature review so yay me :).  I spent yesterday morning working on my part of our first group project and I think I have a decent handle on my portion of it.  I'm part of the Federal Highway Administration and part of a group concocting a memo to our director re: a several-billion-dollar multi-year project.  My part is to highlight the positive way this project can have an effect on our relationships with our lobbyists.  We're all meeting online tomorrow night to discuss/show what we've come up with so far for our separate taskings.  And, of course, someone brought up in class how when you work in groups there is always someone who doesn't pull their weight and blah-blah-blah, it's not fair and how is that going to be dealt with?  I did love my professor's answer - which was essentially welcome to the real world.  Apparently we do get to all grade each other at the end of the course but, hello, not everyone in the work world pulls their weight so...suck it up, buttercup and get on with it.

My research project is approved!  This is good but also scary since this will evolve into my thesis over the next two-three years (depending on how many classes I cram in each semester and if I end up moving or not).  I'm researching gender equity amongst faculty at four-year state universities using salary and promotion as my focus.  Considering my annotated bibliography is due next month, I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time stuck in databases and then at Guillermo's trying to put all this in coherent form.  It's a proven formula from my undergrad days:  laptop + coffee + iPod = completed paper.

So, you know, slight freakout but  more in the "Aaah!  Paper writing!  APA style again!" versus the full and complete Kermit the Frog arm-waving freakout I was having just before classes started.  Improvement! :)