Thursday, June 29, 2006

As of Tomorrow evening, I should be done with revisions....

Well, I have been working pretty hard at getting all of the revisions done on my dissertation...I have nearly finished with all of the suggestions my chair has made. I think I can pretty much finish it up tomorrow evening and send it to him for his review. Of course, I am sure it will require even more revisions. It sometimes feels like it is never-ending. :(

I was hoping I could have finished tonight, but I need to track down some of the confirmatory factor analyses that I conducted to list the goodness of fit indices in my dissertation. I also need to put a lot of thought into my discussion section, directions for future research, etc. As my chair put it, "we don't want to end in a whisper." But what does he know??? I really do want to end in a whisper and be done. :)

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Depressed

I am depressed because I found out that if I don't graduate in August, I won't be able to make very much money until I do graduate. It used to be that you could complete all of your requirements and then use a letter from your program indicating that you were completely done, in lieu of a diploma (received in December); however, Utah has now made it so I have to have the official document in order to do any work as a psychologist. They swing back and forth on this from year to year, so why do I have to be "not graduating" on the year the pendulum swung back to "No?"

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Locked in Jail

Yesterday I went to the jail to do a competency evaluation and placement recommendations on an inmate with documented schizophrenia. I was in a rush because I had to get to the jail, do the evaluation and be back within 90 minutes, which is pushing it. I got in the jail fine, and through clearance with no problems. Then I went to the F-Pod and the door was shut. I pushed on it and if felt as though it was locked with an electronic lock. I sat there for 10 minutes and started getting irritated that the control room wasn't doing anything. I walked back down to the speaker to the control room and pushed the button...no response. I found another box, pushed the button, no response. I went back down and leaned against the door pushing on the push bar that opens it. it still wouldn' t open. I had heard that the jail personnel can be jerks at times, so I started getting upset. Finally after another 5 minutes, I went out to the front and informed the lady that the door was locked and the control room operators wouldn't open it. She said, "Oh, it sticks...you just have to push really hard." I went back down, hit the door, and remarkably it opened. I bet the guys in the control room did think it was funny that I was sitting there, but it wasn't their fault. :) I had to smile at the situation...

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Delayed doctorhood...

IT is looking more and more like I won't be graduating in August and will have to wait around for a December graduation. I got my dissertation draft back with about 100 significant changes I need to make. I don't think I can get them done before the 7/7 deadline. :( Especially since the document would have to be done by 6/30 to get out to reviewers. I am feeling frustrated with the process...and wondering if a different chair might have been less demanding. :)

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Blasted Dissertation Chair Changing his Mind and Rendering my Efforts of Yesterday Nil

For all you academicians out there...I need help on how to format my correlation table for my dissertation. It needs to be in APA format which requires that it be in size 12 font. Well, my chair has now decided, after my several hours of work yesterday, that I need to add the individual subscale totals into the correlation table which will require 44 columns. How the heck am I supposed to fit that onto one page? So, my question is, should I just make 5 or 6 portrait correlation tables instead of trying to make a landscape one with size 2 font. :)

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Moving Time

This week has been too much fun...we moved the kids back to Utah to be with my wife for the last 2 months of my internship. I lucked out on loading the truck, as I had training on Friday that I couldn't miss. We had loaded about 1/3 of the truck on Thursday night and were planning on loading the rest on Friday night and Saturday morning. Luckily, Melissa decided she wanted to leave Friday night and by the time I got home from training, she, the kids, K***** boyfriend and his dad had the truck completely loaded. I felt a bit guilty that I hadn't been able to fulfill my familial responsibility, but relieved that I didn't have to do all that back-breaking work. :)

I had a wedding reception to go to on Saturday, so I didn't leave until Saturday night at 9PM. K****** was with me. I hate driving big trucks at night when I am incredibly sleepy. I had to pull over about 4 times to take cat naps. It took us 15 hours to get home. When we arrived in Highland at 1PM the next day, the Elders Quorum from our ward left priesthood early to help us unload the truck. It only took 40 minutes and they put most of the furniture in the rooms in which they belonged. That was a huge help.

We have spent the last 2 days trying to unpack. What a pain. However, I got out of most of that too because I am at BYU right now putting the finishing touches on my dissertation. I have been doing descriptive statistics, frequencies, and correlation tables all day. I am currently writing up the description of the correlation table and I think I will be ready for my meeting with my chair tomorrow at 3. If all goes well, I might just pull of my oral defense by 7/9 and graduate in August. If things don't go well, my graduation will be delayed until December. Let's hope and pray for the prior.

On another note, it is nice to be back together as a family in our own home. It is nice to have someone to share a bed with again, and someone with whom to co-parent the children. I have become pretty jaded with the older kids this year with their limit-pushing, disrespect, rule-breaking, dishonesty, sneaking, bickering, etc. I will enjoy my 6 week break when I go back to California.

Monday, June 05, 2006

I want to hold you...

My 2-year-old is constantly saying, "I want to hold you" with her arms outstretched...Does she really think she can handle a 225 lbs. fat man?

A walk in the park...

My 5-year-old daughter and I went to a park yesterday and saw a lot of wildlife. We saw a bunch of frogs...and when we would throw little rocks in the water, the frog would dive and swim to the place the rock had hit...not sure why. Maybe he thought the rock was a female frog with whom he could hook up ? We saw a mother cat andher three little kittens. We saw a mother skunk and two little skunklings (don't worry, we didn't pull a Fred and try to take them home with us). :) We saw peacocks and she chased a peahen (why are female birds so ugly again?). We also saw dragonflies. It was fun to spend a little time with her in the park. She didn't want to go home she was having so much fun.