I realized, scanning the first page of the blog, that I haven’t posted anything school or work related in a while. In an effort at fair and balanced reporting, here is the qualifying exams report:
Part 1: Inexplicable low pass. I really want the comments from that one. It’s the one I wrote the first day and I really felt good about it. My quals buddy also got a low score on that one and doesn’t understand it either. Yes, it’s a pass, but it still annoys. me. to. no. end.
Part 2: High-ish pass – as to hopefully be expected since it is my major area.
Part 3: Low pass – as to be expected and I’m very thankful for it. This is the area that they make us take one class on in the whole program and still expect us to write exams on. I wrote this with the stomach flu and thought I was going to have to leave part way through to throw up. Can I say again how VERY thankful I am that I passed?
Remaining problem: Communication between parts of my committee regarding my specialty area exam and oral exams. This needs to be cleared up ASAP because one of my committee members is retiring at the end of the semester. Nothing will happen this week though because it’s AERA (where I probably should be but just can’t make myself care enough to go even though it is basically in my backyard this year.)
Dissertation proposal: In the time between the approval of the outline and now apparently everyone and their mother have decided that’s a good research project to do. Well, okay, so they thought that sometime in 2005, did it, and have now published it. *sigh* Start. Again.
The upside is, I may have found a quantitative option that would actually work for a related question so I could do mixed methods. This would take less time than the completely qualitative plan I had before. I’ve been gathering all the articles I can find related to the quantitative option and will hopefully be able to put something together to give to my Chair next week.
Wonderful Bibliography Management Suggestion: DH picked up a SanDisk U3 1GB flash drive for me a month or so ago when they were on sale dirt cheap at Staples (I want to say he paid $20 after a mail-in rebate). One of the U3 programs is called Disk Hero. What Disk Hero does is it backs up all the files on my flash drive to a remote server automatically and in real time. It is completely free for your U3 drives. I put my EndNote library and all my linked pdf files on the U3 flash drive and they are always automatically backed up. If I loose the flash drive I can pull my files off the Disk Hero server and I haven’t lost any work.
Plus, if I just forget my drive at home and need to look something up, I can pull the files down from the Disk Hero server anywhere I have internet access. Admittedly, to use my EndNote library I need a computer with EndNote on it – which I have at work and at home, but maybe not at the library. However, as long as I have internet I can get to the pdfs of the articles. This combination may save the little bit of my remaining sanity while I try to organize the new proposal.
