Y?

Harumph

OK...so after much kerfuffle - if i get my abstract and final 5 pages done and proofed tomorrow, and my thesis  done and in tuesday, I will get it back wednesday with final comments and then it will go to my committee thursday AM... which is when I plan to go camping for the weekend in Alberta.

Then and only then will I squeak in the deadlines with not a day to spare and get everything to everyone in time for everything...and I can defend on Aug 30th.

Can I do it?

Do I have a choice?

I have to try.

Here we go...

Well fucksticks

So I may not defend until september after all.
One of my committee retired and can't be bothered to return for it. The other will be in Europe so we may be short people even if I can get my thesis in on time.
Know what?
I give up.
I'm just going to work my ass off this weekend (at the lake with my dad...I didn't want to visit or relax...that's for normal people) and hand in my thesis next week if I can and then take whatever damn date they give me. I'm not going to get excited about anything to do with this anymore. I just can't take this emotional rollercoaster. Whatever $$ it costs. I will believe nothing until I get it in writing.

I absolutely hate this whole process with every fibre of my being.

Useful Instructions

Back to the future

For a minute there I thought that today is the day Marty McFly went to...
Oy world - I would like to point out my lack of shiny plastic pants and flying car!
Get with it huh? :)

LATER:
Wow. I have been reprimanded by pretty much everyone I know and most of the internet!
Yes...if I wake up from my thesis induced, sleep deprived state and pry my eyes open with toothpicks I realize that Doc and Marty go to October of 2015 not June of 2012. 
Oh the shame...I am the victim of a crappy web hoax and have opened myself up to weeks of mockery (since usually I'm the one ranting against hoaxes...).


I did not mean to cause such a kerfuffle!
Feel free to  mock me mercilessly.

You Can Do It

Picked up a print of this at ComicCon.
So very much wish I could hang it in my office.
It will go in my mad lab at home instead...

Image by Kyle Burles. He does some amazing stuff.

Dare I hope?

I have just learned that an expert external reviewer for my thesis has been found (whew) who is agreeable to a teleconference review in August. And....there may be a tentative date in the last week of August for my defence.

It hasn't been rubber stamped by my supervisor yet, I will know soon. And then.
Then?

I have to submit my thesis by mid july and then prepare for the speech of my life. And an oral defense.

Meep.

Firefly

Went for a long walk this weekend with J at dusk. Saw fireflies! A rare treat. It was like nature knew we needed a break together...we saw (and heard!) bats, many types of birds (one I've never heard before sounded like some kind of scifi laser), fireflies, snakes and even a lumbering porcupine! (and mosquitos...he heh). Spent all saturday with J. It was amazing. Felt like a kid in skooshy love again.

I've had this song in my head ever since...

I was up until 4 last night proofing a thesis draft which was completely overhauled by my supervisor in TO and it is really coming together into a tight, fierce package 'o science. I needed to give it back to her to go over one last time before it goes to my local supervisor for what I hope will then be the last once over. My local supervisor is currently trapped in BC with his wife due to flooding and road closures so I have an extra day or so to work :). Things like that happening have changed my perception a bit -I'm just doing all I can on my end so that whatever happens time-wise I know I've done my best. What will be will be. Maybe it's the 3 hours of sleep talking, but I am weary of trying to force the world and others in it to do my meet my demands for August graduation. I am simply going to do all I can and hope for the best. Life will go on and I will finish in the end.

Courage.

Open letter to the cats

Dear Gavin and Geek,

I don't know which one of you is doing this (altho I have my suspicions), but I want to ask you both: could you PLEASE stop randomly pooping under the table? I don't have time to shampoo the rug and really have other things more pressing to look into right now. I know you're both very old, but I ask that you try to keep it together if you can.

If you do not desist I will take a dump in your food dish and see how you prefer it.

Charmed I'm sure.
Geo.

Time

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. 
~Denis Waitely

jesus mary and joseph on a pogo stick

Once again, grad school farts in my face.
Seriously, my supervisor has had my discussion section since friday and only started to revise it tonight (she was "busy") and only sent me 1/3 of the total revised, when it was to be completed tonight. And it gets better - she feels there are "extensive" revisions remaining.
I am pissed.

But the thing is, I can only get so pissed, since all her revisions she has sent me are really good. They honestly make things WAY more clear and concise than I wrote them to be. They make the thesis better. She is the expert int he material and although my other supervisor has gone over them extensively and corrected for flow and grammar and general "making sensiness" she has the real nuts and bolts of it all in her head and is far better at making sure it all is expressed clearly.


It's just all the delays I can't bloody stand. All the back and forth. All the sending it by two people crap. She is so busy, that she just drags things the bloody well length of a football field out as far as time goes. She comments on all my hard work and asks why i don't involve her earlier but I do, in stages, when I can and she generally approves things before I go forward...and then revises the ever loving shit out of them again. Revising her own comments.  It's always for the better...but seriously.
Seriously.
I thought the point of a final draft was that you were almost done.

*I had a lot of bitter angry rage here but I deleted it...cause I'm a bit calmer now and I don't want to put that kid of spite and anger out there for you to absorb. And I"m calmer now...so think about a bunny K? OR a piece of pie...

Mmmm...pie...