On This is a Safe Space to Talk About Your Dissertation
So far my PhD dissertation is going ... pretty well. I had to apply for an extension of time to graduate based on a series of crises last year, but now that that's past, I've got drafts of three of eight chapters to my two main committee members, and two of the three got minor revisions only! Yay!
As I am the world's worst procrastinator, it's been helpful to have had to establish deadlines for turning in chapter drafts (that was part of petitioning for more time to degree).
I also came up with a writing process thing that works great with my kinesthetic/visual learning style: index cards. As I mentioned upthread, I keep a packet with me at all times and write down ideas as I think of them, notes on published literature, points from my data I want to include. When it comes time to start drafting a chapter, I pull all the relevant cards and move them around on my floor to come up with a skeleton outline. This can then be pinned on a corkboard where I can see it while I write, or transferred into the virtual index cards in Scrivener (a fantastic writing application).
My undergraduate thesis was ridiculous ... my advisor was an ass and pretty much totally uninvolved (one of his grad students was my de facto advisor), and he got into a fight at my defense with my second reader, who was defending my side of the point of contention.
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On This is a Safe Space to Talk About Your Dissertation
@mlle.gateau This is great advice! I keep a packet of index cards with me to write down notes and ideas -- when it comes time to work on a particular chapter, I pull out all the applicable index cards and shuffle them around on the floor to create a skeleton outline. Works great for me.
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On Can We Do Red Velvet v. Carrot Instead?
@anachronistique The ones we've done at my bakery someone does know -- often one of the grandmas has received the sonogram results and orders the cake. Or I guess they could ask for the results in an envelope to bring in to the bakery? I feel like if I were a sonogram technician, I'd be annoyed about the cloak-and-dagger aspect. We want you to diagnose the sex! But we don't want to know it! You can tell this other person, and she will indirectly tell us through the medium of buttercream in a few days!
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On Can We Do Red Velvet v. Carrot Instead?
I work at a bakery while I'm finishing my PhD, and we've started to get these orders. I'm always tempted to put in the wrong color, or make it ambiguous. I guess it's whatever floats your boat, but I'd rather not have an audience when I receive news like that. Also, the people ordering them always act like it's the most amazing, delightful, original idea for a shower, and we have to squee along. I want someone to have us put an Aliens-style chestburster on a baby cake. That would be a fun shower.
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On Can We Do Red Velvet v. Carrot Instead?
@Equestrienne I think it would be awkward to have an audience for that sort of thing ... not like someone is likely to go, "Ugh, really?" when they find out it's a boy or whatever, but more like it's a private moment that you want to celebrate with your partner before the whole world knows about it?
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On Can We Do Red Velvet v. Carrot Instead?
@beeline96 "Yes! It's a baby!"
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On Beauty Q&A: Hangover Face, Nail Wraps, and Pimping Your Ride
@chickaboom Hahaha! Probably.
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On Beauty Q&A: Hangover Face, Nail Wraps, and Pimping Your Ride
My dad gave me a great hangover prevention tip when I turned 21: sleep warm. Drink a bunch of water and then pile on the blankets when you go to bed. You will not get a good night's sleep, because you'll be too hot, but you won't get a good night's sleep drunk anyway, so no loss there. I don't know why it works, but it seems to.
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On UTI News
"The results revealed that the standard method to catch urine in a cup poses problems, because bacteria from the vagina often contaminate these specimens. In contrast, urine collection using a catheter or a needle was effective and comparable between tests."
... I really do not relish the idea of facing a catheter the next time I need to be checked for a UTI.
Also! I was getting a million UTIs for awhile, but then I started taking vitamin D supplements because I hypothesized that its role in immune regulation meant it could help my asthma and allergies. I haven't had a UTI since. My lung guns (rescue inhalers) now last over a year instead of a month, too. Not sure if that's correlation or causation, though.
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On This is a Safe Space to Talk About Your Dissertation
@lalaleandra STOP feeling guilty about what you haven't done so far. This is obviously easier said than done, but it is the first step in moving forward instead of staying mired in past regrets about work not done. Then pick some kind of small, easy task -- anything -- that counts as data collection. Do that task one day. Do another one the next day. Try doing two or three the day after that.
If starting small doesn't work, try thinking about why you're having trouble moving on it. I had this with data analysis for my last chapter: I spent about 4 weeks procrastinating and doing nothing, and when I finally got going, the actual analysis only took a week. I think it was because I was scared (a) that the analytical method I'd proposed wouldn't work for the data, (b) that I would have trouble getting access to the statistical package I said I'd use, and (c) that the results would disprove my hypothesis and I'd be screwed. But then I realized (a) if it didn't work, I could use an alternate method or qualitative methods, (b) that I could use a different, freely available stats package instead, and (c) that I actually had really interesting things to say whether there was or was not a statistical difference between my categories. So none of the things I was anxious about were dissertation killers. That got me off my ass finally. So maybe think about alternate, bail-out scenarios if your data collection doesn't work out?