finally moving on!

Let me interrupt my NY blogging for a second to let you know something–
I passed my prelim!
And that means, after way too long I am finally a PhD candidate!
Jeez. Thank freakin’ goodness. Can I please take my dissertation off hold now and work on it with reckless abandon already?
Yay!!

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putting up a good front

Although I’m putting up a pretty good front (relaxing, watching movies, reading and what not), I guess my subconsciousness is a little more worried than I thought about prelim results. Here’s a couple examples from my last 2 nights of sleep:
In one dream I am sitting in a class and I’m being assigned all kinds [...]

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aftermath: what happens next?

Well, let me resume control of my blog here… (but I’ll send a shout out to my sister for filling in for me, and for figuring out hilariously strange ways to motivate me to finish).
Yes, my papers are finished. For better or for worse. I spent the last 2 days editing them more thoroughly than [...]

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Guest Post: Amazing Sister: amazing motivation

My big sis is in the last few hours of stress, so the Amazing Sister that I am will blog for her and all of you! Very exciting! But… she is starting to get, well, a little crazy. So to help her i have been very inspirational. (I could make a living at [...]

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prelim update: the home stretch

Here I am in the home stretch of this bigger-than-it-freakin’-should-be grad school hurdle. 1 week from today I’ll be sleeping in, and it will be all over.
My migraine is gone, and I just have the usual pre-prelim issues (sore wrist, twitchy eye etc). I haven’t made the MRI appointment yet with my regular doctor. I [...]

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update from the land of cultural sociology

Greetings from deep into the land of cultural sociology. I go to sleep thinking about symbolic boundaries, multicultural capital, and the tension between production and interpretation. I go back and forth regularly between thinking my papers are really pretty decent to thinking they’re idiotic. I’ve written 40 pages (in need of work and editing) so [...]

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rockin’ at the library

I’ve been tagged by Mary as a “rockin’ girl blogger”. I’m honored, but I don’t know how much I’m “rockin” these days! Let’s see… I’ll tag Marlena because her knitting rocks, Gail over at FidgetyBudgie for her awesome cooking, and well… the other 2 blogs I would tag are now all private. So I’ll just [...]

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a place for myself

I can’t find a place for myself to write. I am so restless. I managed to get tons of reading and note taking done sitting at home over the past couple weeks, but now I can’t concentrate on doing anything there. I don’t have an office at school I can work in. I actually worked [...]

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on a mission

Now that I have my plans worked out for the rest of the summer, I feel settled. I know what’s coming up– work and fun. It has taken me a long time to realize that it is important to make plans for both.
Here’s my mission, pretty much in order:

In exactly 1 month I have 2 [...]

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making peace with a hurdle

I’m pretty stubborn. Sometimes ridiculously so. Sometimes stubbornness is good for me (I rarely give up on anything) and sometimes it gets in my way.
This summer I have one more hurdle to clear (or hoop to jump through if you want another worn out grad school metaphor) before I am free to move on to [...]

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plowing ahead

The next week or so I’ll be incredibly busy. In fact, I might not blog again until I get to the East Coast on the 19th. I’m dog sitting for the next week, and then heading home for my sister’s college graduation the following weekend.
For the next bunch of days while my sister is sunning [...]

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looking ahead (the post in which I begin to stress just a tad about the job market)

Okay, with the way I have stuff presently planned out, and maybe slightly optimistically, I am 2 years away from finishing my PhD. That means I could be on the job market in a year- provided I have 3 writing samples, and a publication ready by then. It is never too early to think about [...]

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finally, some productivity

I don't know what happened, but suddenly, after dragging my heels for months on a specific writing "project", I am actively being very productive and making some serious headway. It is painful and slow, but moving along. Actually, aside from the article draft I finished a couple weeks ago, this is really the first time [...]

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oh yeah

the wait is over. finally.
as my sister announced in her comment for this post…
I passed!

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heading to Boston

It is beautifully sunny here today. I’m sure this stands in sharp contrast to Madison’s weather. Later on this afternoon my parents are driving me to Boston to spend the weekend with my brother. We are spending tomorrow in Salem (where he works) and then Saturday and Sunday in Boston. I’ll take lots of pictures. [...]

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homeward bound

It’s 5:18. The prelim exam was yesterday and I am all packed and nearly ready to leave for the airport in about 45 minutes. So, I have to make this quick. And I am so tired I can barely type, and my ability to form actual sentences is probably all tapped out from the pages [...]

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only 1 week left

There is 1 week until the prelim. 7 days left to cram so much more into my head. I don’t know how it will happen, but I know it will, and I know it will be okay.
I haven’t left the house in 4 days now.
And, just to make studying more fun, I seem to have [...]

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thankful

Yeah, I admit it, I’ve been a bit grumpier than usual this holiday season. I’m far from my family and christmas in Maine, and I am too stressed out about the prelim to really relax and enjoy the holidays here with Jo. Today, though, while it is “macro” day for studying, I am going to [...]

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fa la la la la. bah.

[the title of this post should be read in a snarky, sarcastic way]
It is cleary the holiday season, someplace, anyway. Yes, we have our wonderful tree, and presents under it waiting to be open. My parents sent ribbon candy. There is snow on the ground and more on the way tomorrow. Solstice went by [...]

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oh yeah, happy solstice.

I am staving off panicking about the prelim as much as I possibly can. I sat down today and realized I am 2 days behind in my study schedule. And then I realized that next week is the last full week of studying that I have, and that there are only 2 weekends left. The [...]

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traveling- too soon, and not soon enough.

I just got my tickets to head to the east coast in January!
Here’s the plan: I leave January 5th, and fly to Boston where my parents will pick me up and we’ll drive to Maine. Then, I’ll stay in Maine for until the 13th when I will head back to Boston to stay with my [...]

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the “evil eye” bead

Someone gave me an “evil-eye” good luck bead from Turkey. She said that everyone she has given them to had great things happen to them and that I should carry it with me. Is it belief in the bead, or the bead itself, I don’t know or care, but the really crappy day I had [...]

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bottom hit

Last night I hit (what I hope is) bottom in terms of the stress of the upcoming prelim. I haven’t been reduced to tears by grad school in, oh, a couple months now, so I guess it was brewing. I didn’t get any studying done, but maybe the bottom had to be hit for me [...]

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mollycoddling

I talked with my advisor a little today about the coming prelim. I was really seeking a little mollycoddling, but instead just got some really good advice. Which suffices. If I had wanted mollycoddlying, and had asked for it, I could have gotten a little pep talk. I’ll just take her silent confidence and good [...]

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a few of my favorite autumnal things

In a vain attempt to keep from panicking over all that I have to do within the next 2 months (prelim studying, pre-dissertation paper, seminar paper, stats, work, reading etc…), I am try to focus today not just on the readings I have to do for class, but on the beautiful autumn day we are [...]

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aftermath

I may seem like I am doing okay, but really I am in a funk that I can seem to shake. I see the positive side of things- I know everything is a learning experience, and I am so thankful for support from caring people around me. I just feel kind of blue- thrown for [...]

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joyful girl

this is pretty cryptic and it is all i am saying here for a little while.
i do it for the joy it brings
because i’m a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it’s the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
i [...]

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4 days…

Just 4 days now to try to learn as much as possible before the exam. I’ve followed my study schedule very well for the last week, so being on something of a track is helping me not totally panic. I have no clue if I know what I need to know, if I can remember [...]

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Saturday

I’m heading out to school soon, to hide myself in a library cubicle for the day. That is the only way I am going to start seriously memorizing stuff. No destractions. I’m not even bringing my ibook– just my hundreds of pages notes I finished printing yesterday, paper, index cards, colored pens and a sandwich [...]

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on being bearable

Jo is leaving tomorrow for NYC for a week. Part of me wants her to go so that I can be truly unbearable all by myself without dragging her into it (although she says I am not unbearable, I think she must be an angel for thinking so).
How bearable am I? You can decide for [...]

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