dissertation support group

I'm already getting out of work a little early on monday.

Will you be in town that weekend to celebrate?

how bout 30th? a little gathering at my house?

Halloween party?

Politically Incorrect Joke Alert !!!



That;s good actually, considering he must be well versed in dealing with stiffs

<sorry if I offend anyone>

hahaaaa! i knew super G would not leave that one alone!

hmm, dag, I thought your topic might be something I knew a bit about.
But, alas, no. Know nothing about central European strife and, after Gautum's comment, it's not a subject I'd want to touch with an 8" Pole.

Well, off I go to the big tawk. well, first i teach for three hours, then fight sleep for two, then tawk. then collapse somewhere and sleep for 17 hours.

you will be drawn to visit your dissertation , in the library , some day in the future. You will open it, marvel at how it seemed to be produced by a monk using a quill pen and then you will say.
"This is an incredible piece of crap"

It feels good to then know that youve moved beyond what you felt was an important milestone. The greater adventures present themselves soon after you get thhe damned thing signed.

Well, time to resurrect this ole thread. Greetings from Bratislava, all. I am headed to Vienna, my prison camp, where I am to be trapped for half a year to finish that 'incredible piece of crap' as farmerman put it. the silly fools are even paying me to do this. musn't grumble, i suppose. I will be back with updates, virtual walks through Vienna, grumbling, and more... will be exciting. or not. we shall see.

Glad to see you put your nose to the grindstone... and look forward to dispatches.

Weren't you going to India this summer? Been already?

am going in two weeks, osso. i shall resurrect my Indian Diary as well.

Oh, good. I thought of you when reading about the monsoon that hit Bombay. Started a thread on that monsoon somewhere..

well. i'm doing it. finally. writing the diss.

first few weeks were of course spent in a bout of furious procrastination before the 'creative moment' arrived. and i noticed one thing: as soon as i started working hard, i forgot about food. what's up with that? i can go all day without food and not even notice, while before i would think about food from the moment i wake up. now THERE's an idea for a diet. The book-writing diet. good things could come out of it. maybe i'll write a book about it next...

Biggest hurdle cleared! Just getting started, or re-started after a sabbatical.

Next comes furious activity and "I can do this!!"

Next comes the stall -- the inspiration dries up, it's a slog, and no significant progress is made. Despair sets in.

Next comes procrastination.

And a bit more.

Then dip a toe in, find that the muse is in the neighborhood, and embark on a period of furious activity.

Rise, repeat, until you and/or your loved ones are insane or the damn thing gets finished.

(Good luck!)

ugh, that sounds dreadful. luckily i've been through a few of those and this should be the last stretch, hopefully. i do have to get one chapter ready for a magazine to publish next month, so there's new motivation, too. plus people at the institute work like crazy, all they do is write write write, and there i am, with my bicycle and boxing and music and german classes, feeling like a green alien with antennas on her head... strange people.

The cycle has gotten shorter and shorter for E.G. as he goes along. It went through maybe I dunno 25-50 iterations as he finished his Ph.D thesis, but now he's able to write papers with only 2-3 iterations.

Getting adequately prepared for teaching classes is the next hurdle. Sigh. (E.G. on the first day of class -- "I'm prepared!" E.G. on evening before next day of class -- "I have to get ready to teach tomorrow." Me: I thought you were all ready as of last class? Him -- "Sure, I was ready for THAT class! Now I have to teach another one!" Ay-yi-yi.)

oh, classes schmasses. i can prepare now with the left hind leg (is that another slovakism?) for a class i've never taught before. or with a finger up my nose (well, another one i s'ppose).
and with papers - i have a looooong freeze, than i can usually go in one go. day and night, day and night, for weeks if need be. so it seems that's where i'm at, kicked into gear. yay.

He did fine last year with seminar-type things, now he's teaching introductory-level science classes to hundreds of underclassmen(women) -- takes a bit more discipline than he's used to.

One hand tied behind your back is prolly the American version, but I like the Slovakian versions better.

Kicked into gear, sounds good. May it take you as far as you need to go.

Dear all,

if you see me loitering about during my daytime at any given day - so, say, between 3am and noon American time (EST), please kick me in the shin, yell at me and make me go away. Thank you very much in advance,
signed,

Shirking in Vienna

Hey, can I join the club? I got a fiction thesis due in March.

And here I am dickin' around on A2K. It's like flypaper.

I gave myself a dream schedule this semester. No classes, just dissertation research and thesis hours. I got a teaching fellowship so that I only have one comp class of 23 kids, three times a week. So everyday is wide open to write. And still I'm writing at half the speed I normally do?

Help me, baby Jesus.