Finish my PhD

I had a self-imposed deadline of the end of the month to get my dissertation to my advisor (or possibly my committee).

Not going to happen.

But I am still chugging away. Expect to give my first chapter to my informal reviewers this weekend, the second next week (Graphics will hold things up there). After a pass through those people they go to my advisor. Final chapter to someone by next week’s end. Fingers crossed.

Well, Ill be collecting some new data by late this week or early next, so things move again.

Well my plan to get out on three publications is dead in the water as the second publication got rejected by the journal (flatly) and the other experiment is on hold for lack of funds for now.

Still planning on getting out this summer.

Grad school sucks. Grad school sucks even for a death march.

I have got to get out of here. Leaving at the end of June, or at worst midsummer, but it is over soon. The end of the road is coming, one way or another.

I have got to get out of here. Leaving at the end of June, or at worst midsummer, but it is over soon. The end of the road is coming, one way or another.

I so need to get out of here. My boss seems to think that if I can get three papers published (or at least accepted) by the end of this year, I’m good. Hopefully not a lie, my boss keeps changing the lab’s priorities and that is screwing me again and again…

Have one paper out, and just submitted #2. Number three is getting written up this next week or so, had an idea for another quick one today. Wish me luck on that!

My TA-ship is getting in the way of this goal this quarter. I will have to take the next quarter off from TA work to get caught up. Still expecting 3 abstracts this year and possibly at least 2 papers in the publication pipe.

None of them are based on my thesis, though. Maybe I should do some work on that! :-)

Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online, already. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my damn IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online. Finish my IRB submission online.

Finish my IRB submission online.

The sabbatical thing I wrote about before is still in play, but at least I am close to submitting my finalized IRB forms. This will allow me to conduct experiments on people for my research. I start putting the paperwork on the school’s website this weekend. Yay!

This is a complex topic. My boss may decide to take a sabbatical in one year, starting at the beginning of next summer. If he does, it will be about 16 straight months before he returns. This is of great concern to me. I don’t feel that I can really be completely done by the beginning of next summer, but I do have to be out completely (that is out of school completely) by June 2010.

Now, if my boss splits at the beginning of summer 2008 and comes back just before Fall of the following year (late September/early October 2009) that will kind of leave me in a strange situation. While I am well on my way and don’t need a lot from him for specifics of research, it is unsafe to be in graduate school without someone who is looking out for you. (even small technical points like who do I go to in order to sign up for thesis credits? Who defends me at the department discussions of grad students? Who keeps the money flowing and the floorspace available?)

More concerning than that is how will the laboratory be managed during his absence? I am not technically the senior grad student in the lab, although I am usually treated as such. I have no authority to run things, nor does anyone else. To make matters worse, other people need to use our laboratory resources periodically. Who handles that?

Ugh.