Preludes And Nocturnes

I’ve been trying to put this together while also putting together my christmas shopping list and it has all gotten rather confusing. I figured I may as well just start jotting things down here and then I don’t need to keep trying to remember my own wish list *wink* Just have to now try and get a handle on all the remainding shopping I’ve to do in the next few weeks.

• Glycerin Silicon hand cream in little tub (London Drugs has one called Herbacin Kamille)
• Tea: green, rosehip/ hibiscus, green with peppermint or spearmint, orange mandarine spice, Tazo Passion.
• Magazine subscription: Allure, Glamour or Oprah’s mag (Amazon.com seems to have a good deal on this but seem to only ship to the US. I’m confused. If anyone knows of how to order US mags in Canada for a good price, I’d be interested. I’m not wanting a $40usd per year subscription to Glamour.)
• Socks: I like stripes, I love fuzzies.
• Gloves: I like cheaper ones cause I lose them like crazy
• Gift Certificates: Reitmans, LaSenza, Victoria’s Secret, The Bay
• Hair Product: Liquid Varnish, Joico Hi-Rise, Redkin All Soft, Paul Mitchell shampoo/conditioner
• General Girly stuff: sephora, lush, body shop, london drugs – I love the chocolate/coffee warm or spicy smells, bath products – bubble bath or bath bombs, lotions. I also love that Ombra brand in the brisk flavors like Juniper or Lavender.
• Make-up Brushes: Blush brush, eyeshadow brush, eyelash comb
• Books by Robin McKinley: Sunshine, Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits
• CD’s: Odessa by BeeGees, Blood Red Cherry by Jann Arden, Soundtracks to Red Violin and Amadeus

Let’s just put this up and see how that goes.

Edited Friday Nov 26th to add:

• Nice new shoulder bag as the one I have right now is about to cack’er. Brenda just came into the office with a new one and it was all pretty and black with a padded strap and a few zippered sections to it and a main big section in the central bit. That would be cool too as the one I have right now is actually more a laptop bag I think and the main part is all sectioned off into three - leaving each section too small to fit some of my wider items.
• A Diskman carry case that could maybe be both a shoulder carrier or around the hips all secure-like.
• Sparkly pink lip gloss.

So I just had a most excellent meeting with my supervisor and she’s very happy about how things are going. *yay!* I’ll send her and my committee my completed rough draft on January 5th. See, this is the good thing about actually meeting with your supervisor - they’ve done this so many time that they know the process in a way which can’t be compared to you and your buddies sitting in the grad office trying to figure everything out.

She pointed out that nobody will look at the work over Christmas and that it would suck to even ask them to take it at that point. Also that between my schedule and her schedule the soonest we all can meet is the end of February. This means Jan 5th will give them all lots of time to look the draft over and comment. She’s supported my idea of rough draft done by Dec 16th, but then I get to take a bit of time to let it sit and do another run-through before sending it off to the committee. Also gives some play time for all the formatting issues which ALWAYS pop up at the last minute.

As for this whole other schedule with the uni deadlines and all that - she stressed that I need to not worry about those issues right now. If I finish by date X, great. If it is date X plus two weeks - well, I’m still done my thesis and ready to move on. We’ll talk again when I’m finished the draft and see how things are going, but quite frankly my committee could end up asking for two revisions and then all my planning flies out the window. My main concern is just getting this done. So a great meeting, and lots of super duper feedback and I’m on the right track and she is very firm in saying to me “you are done this - so just finish ”

Oh, and Chuck has just climbed into my lap demanding a nap and for me to stop typing *awwwww*

xoxo

Okay so tuesday became lazy day (but still at school), wednesday became prep to do chapter 5 day, and today was go visit Cali and baby day. Also add in some tutoring on tues and today.

But I feel so horribly guilty about not ‘working’ on my thesis. Despite actually getting a couple pages typed on wednesday.

Goal: tomorrow I’m doing a big push. Making what I have work for now and if I need to add more later, I’ll add more later. I want to hand this chapter in next monday even if it is kinda far from perfect. I really need to just get some rough pages ‘done’ so I can get started on revisions.

To do over (hopefully) next two weeks:
-Finish roughing out ch 5
-Pull together ch 1 from all I’ve already got done on it
-Finish Intro
-Sketch Conclusion but leave till feedback on other stuff is done

Oh yeah - and then there are all these things like getting my christmas cards done, christmas shopping done, christmas gifts I’m making done, booking plane ticket to see Jim, and we really really need to sweep and wash the kitchen floor.

Today? School is stupid.

well it is 1pm and I’m taking a bit of a quick break. Ah gods, my head is spinning. I am going to send in my chapter today. I just AM.

I’ve been working on it all last week, all weekend, and all today. I’ve just printed it off and done the final read thru with the brutal corrections. You know, that part where if something isn’t working I have to sit there and stare at it until it does work - or just take it out. And facing all those horrid sentences which run something along the lines of “the importance of this structure is located within the importance of the notion of colonization and the impact thereof” - bloody hell. I mean, I’d love to claim that was a silly example - but it really isn’t.

Okay, so far today I’ve finally input all the final tidbits from the texts to back up the discussion, created the final necessary paragraphs at the end, and made these three horrid pages into two logical pages. At noon I printed the full 25 pages and started slugging my way thru the last edit before I send it off to my supervisor. With that said, I’ve FINISHED pages 1 thru 11. I have pages 12 thru 25 to go. And based on this gut-level feeling of dread, I’m going to have to break the 12 thru 25 into a couple bit-sized pieces with rewards at the end of each. You know that feeling of just saying to yourself com’on, please read that paragraph.. I know you just read the first sentence and your entire being screamed ‘NO!! I’ve read it too many times already today!! Please, please make it stop!!’ Yeah. That’s kinda where I’m at.

But sending this off today will be the happy dance like all get-out. And with that, I might even get a day off this week. Crazy but true.

I figure two 30 minute stints will do it. And then leone and I are going to the gym this afternoon. Should be interesting as I think my ass has totally fallen asleep on this chair. Let me just poke it and see… Yep. Asleep.

Wow, this is a really entertaining show I’ve got going here eh?

*rolleyes*
jenn

So I was just sitting here thinking, if the grad office were a reality TV show - which character would I be? I mean, don’t we all want to be the sympathetic fully-realised character? Quite possibly I could be the bitchy one, though. Depends on who you talk to up here. I tend to give death-glares to those who seem unaware of the five or so people trying to write and who insist on chit-chatting at full volume. This one guy was projecting his conversation to the whole office yesterday and I think this one girl was about to throw him off the balcony. What does this all mean? It means I’m trying so so so to finish this chapter. I am but a few hours away - I can feel it. But this damned structure is bugging me. Oh, that and that I think I have a fever. I’ve been fighting off a cold for weeks, actually. And yesterday it arrived while I was busy looking for duct tape.

Or something like that.

All in all it has made it’s little bastard germy way into my life - well, my throat and sinuses to be exact. Although I’m thinking the sinuses are the deal, and the throat is the side-effect. But everything is all muffled and I’m sure I’m driving people crazy with the sneezing and the blowing of the nose. And my voice is all raspy. Which should be interesting as I’ll be on the radio tomorrow morning and I hope the raspy comes across as sexy *grin*. I was asked about most important political issue blah-ditty-blah so I went on a bit as I can do at times. S’all good. Yeah, I totally have a fever. I promised myself I could go home once this chapter was done, but then I start thinking maybe I should just go home period. I really really want to send this one off, though and don’t want to give myself another pass. You know, there is such a fine balance between pushing yourself and being firm and.. well.. being counterproductive.

Right, the chapter. It’s the damned April Raintree that is getting me bogged down right now. As we’ve talked about when I chatted with Dani, the text can be… difficult to peg down. I think it is a perfect example of what happens to identity construction when Native children are not give positive representations or supportive family structures - in this case due to foster homes and orphanages. I also think that April and her sister Cheryl are actually a single person attempting to come to terms with both their Native and non-Native identities and what society can tell ‘them’ about what it means to be one or the other. It is just a tough text because April’s character spews amazingly self-hating anti-native comments at every turn. And right now I’m having trouble knowing what all to say at times. I have a feeling my supervisor would just tell me to write that - the contradictions of working with a text such as this. Maybe I’ll go do that now and see if I can go home then.

Look at me, blog update!

Bugger. Bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger.

See, if you hang out in the grad office and chat with your friends and you all get an email from the Uni about graduation application deadlines… you all start doing some math.

Let’s work backwards, shall we?

• Graduation Goal: April 31st 2005.
• Need 30 days to complete revisions and get thesis bound and take care of some paperwork stuff so must defend by: April 1st.
• Uni needs six weeks to schedule defense so completed thesis must be into Graduate Studies office by: Feb 15th.
• Thesis committee revisions and feedback process takes at the least six weeks. Therefore rough draft must be into committee by: Jan 1st.
• Seeing as there is this whole family/Christmas/gathering thing that goes on, I head home and must actually get my rough draft into committee by: Dec 16th.

It is November 3rd.

Bugger.

Need to do:

1. Wrap up chapters four and five (both are sitting at about 20 pages). They really just need to be fluffed up a bit and given some polish. Goal of 22-23pgs each.
2. Conclusion. Goal of 5-8pgs.
3. Introduction. Goal of 5-8pgs.
4. Revamp Chapter One (kinda done, but kinda needs work because a whole lot has changed since I wrote it the first time and it is too long at 25pgs). Goal to cut to 15-20pgs.
5. First run of revisions. This is Chapters One -Five, Intro and Conclusion. My Chapters Two and Three are ‘done’ and currently sitting at 30 and 25pgs, respectively. Yes, my thesis is too long. Why do you ask?

My thesis should end up at 100 pages. I’m currently running at the 140 mark…

I really really really want to get to my first run of revisions by Dec 1st. Dear me, please do this. Please get to 1st revisions by Dec 1st…. please!

So my mottos are as follows:

• Good Enough
• This is not my PhD
• Do not read further sources, just footnote the bastards
• Min 3hrs a day of writing, every day.

I’m currently working on this thing five days a week - but I’m going to cut out the quality control and just go for finishing. Because I’m not paying this university for another freaken semester of tuition.

What I know is enough. And the main thing I know is that I want to finish this and get the hell outta here!

If I don’t phone or email you for the next six weeks, I’m very very sorry.