Then again...

Please disregard that last post, turns out, I was being a little overambitious.

As of this morning, my dissertation defense has been rescheduled for the fall. This decision was all mine, though whole-heartedly supported by my advisor. Unfortunately, as I came down to the wire, I realized that there is no conceivable way I can both write this and do it justice in time for a July 17th defense. There is too much data and there are too many details to push it.

(As an aside, all of this is particularly true given the other events that are mucking up my life. I have been so busy working I have hardly had time to mention here that we are in the process of buying a house! But that is another post for another time.)

So, a graduate student I remain for a few months longer. We will reschedule the defense as soon as I have hit a number of benchmarks. Molly expects a October defense. I would love it to be sooner, but I am OUT of the prediction business, and it will be done when it is good. (Note that said "good" and not "perfect"...I want to graduate EVENTUALLY). In the meantime I will continue my intense schedule of work.

In the meantime, I will try and post SOMETHING once a week. You shouldn't all be deprived of cute baby (dare I say TODDLER!) pics just because I am still working on this dissertation!

The final countdown...

...I have a defense date! YAY!

On July 17th at 1pm, I will be defending my dissertation.

I have 70 days to finish the document and get it to my committee, and then 2 weeks to prepare the presentation.

AHHHHHHHHH!

And. Go.

I FEEL good.

(In my best James Brown impersonation...which is NOT good I can assure you)

It is so nice to feel good again. All Praise Antibiotics! No snot, no fatigue (other than Russell deciding to get up at 5:30 this morning...) and no sinus headache! Yay! After two full weeks of being sick, this is the best. thing. ever.

AND yesterday, as I was nearing the end of all the uckiness, I even made progress on my dissertation! Yay X2!

So, when will you get cool/cute/funny baby pics and a REAL blog post that isn't just about the state of my illness. I'll see what I can do about that asap. But in reality, I've been sick for two weeks, I need to do laundry, I need to vacuum, I need to do dishes...

...maybe I need to lie down. :)

Prepare for radio silence.

OK, I have a week (6 days to be precise) to process the rest of my most important data set for this dissertation before my next trip to NY on Sunday night/Monday morning.

I also have had a sick baby for the last three days.

If you don't hear from me for a week, you'll know why.

See you on the other side.

Running out of time.

My runs are becoming more important than ever. I NEED them for two reasons,

1) Stress relief: I don't talk about it much here on the blog, but my dissertation is starting to kill me with the stress load. It really should be done by mid April, at the latest, if I want to graduate in May and EVERY piece of it is taking 10 times longer than I want it to. I don't know if I will ultimately be successful or not, and if I am not, it will feel like the BIGGEST failure. I don't deal well with failure.

and 2) because of the constant feeling of failure here, my runs have become my only source of success. Each time I finish a run or a week, I feel so much better for a while. SOMETHING that goes right every time. Which is good.

So, I got out for my run again today, and it felt good. To be fair though, the stress from everything else is making them harder (not to mention a certain lack of sleep last night due to a very cute baby). I may choose to repeat a week or two here or there just to make sure I don't rack up a fail in the run department too. I don't know if I can handle that right now.

Walk/Jog C25K Week 3 day 2.
Start time: 10:00 AM MST
Run time: 35 minutes
Distance: 2.29 miles
Pace: 15.02 minute mile

Notes: I am tired. I felt it today in every part of my body as I ran. At least the weather has cooled back down to seasonable temps though, so it was the perfect temperature for a run.