Finish my PhD

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.

Helping my boss write a National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant (R01 for those who know) is hard. I know people who are really good at it and I want to spend time with them. My boss is trying very hard but this is his first NSF grant, he used to be paid by other sources that have less stringent application requirements. Good skill that I want to learn before graduating!

I am going to be able to get back to work on the software for data collection and analysis around mid-July. I am looking forward to that. There is some money for paying participants in the studies, enough to get started. So all will be going well on this one by the end of the summer.

I have just applied for summer funding for my research. If I get the money (there is one award for who knows how many applications) then I will have managed to get enough money to fund about 2/3 of my dissertation research needs. Keep your fingers crossed! :-)

Well, here I am. I’m advancing to candidacy on June 13th (or finding a job on June 14th!). After that it is just research, publish a couple papers more, and finish. I can’t wait—defending my dissertation proposal is the last major (scary) step in my program.

So close.