The semi-public shame-log of my thesis progress, 55 days left

The article is finally handed in! Yay!

I am not very happy with my conclusion – there is definitely some polishing missing between the theory and the case study. But I just cannot solve it, I am too involved in the whole thing and have no distance. Hopefully the editors will accept it and maybe they have a solution.

But right now I am just happy! (except there is no thesis progress to report).

The semi-public shame-log of my thesis progress, 56 days left

J sent me her suggestions/corrections for the article which I have been working in. No thoughts about thesis.

Read: “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” by Mark Haddon
Published in 2004 by Vintage, 272 pages

Christopher is a 15 year old boy who has Asperger’s Syndrome. His teacher Siobhan tells him to write something that we would enjoy reading himself, and as he likes mystery novels – besides books about math and sciences – he writes about the murder of Wellington, the dog of a woman in his neighborhood.

He found the dog and wrongly got accused of having killed him. Thus he decides to bring the perpetrator to light. In his narration about his investigation he tells us a lot about himself: he loves lists and patterns, does not like to be touched nor the colors brown and yellow.
During his investigation, however, Christopher makes  an unexpected discovery which changes the plot’s development.

It is a charming book, a wonderful book – and that was what I was afraid about at some point. Haddon draws the picture of a cute and smart boy who sounds just so adorable that I thought it might belittle autism. But I am wrong: he succeeds in the balancing act and gives us a glimpse of the exertion raising Christopher means to his parents: their helplessness and fear and love for him.

The first three sentences:

“2

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed.”

The semi-public shame-log of my thesis progress, 57 days left

Spent a wonderful day with my mother – breakfast and unsuccessful furniture shopping for the child and visiting the Christmas market and lots of talking and laughter.

No energy left for the thesis tonight.

The semi-public shame-log of my thesis progress, 58 days left

Visits from the in-laws and birth preparation class. No energy nor time to even look at the thesis.

# 324

Ah well, thesis again. I guess I need the public humiliation of my failure and thus decided to keep track again of my progress on this blog.

Goal: finish a draft version of _that_ tedious chapter by Jan 31st (unless the child decides to show up really early). That leaves 59 days to do so.

Content: discipline 1 (constructs, methods), discipline 2 (status quo), discipline 3 (normative approaches), discipline 4 (theory as a solution?), discipline 5 (data), my suggestion, conclusion for my study
(Note to myself: NEVER AGAIN A MULTIDISCIPLINARY THESIS)

Structure: That is the big question. Stop thinking about that and just start writing! There will be enough editing time.

Desired length: Uh, dunno? Until I have said everything that is important? No? Alright, how about 70 pages?

State of affairs: 105 pages – some of them are already solid own writing, but most of it is is still in the stage of gibberish: lots of quotes, lots of notes, lots of stuff I will not need and some figures.  105 pages might sound great, but honestly: no. It is like a skeleton missing flesh and fat tissue and skin. And in order to add that I need to read still a lot, as it is a fricking multidisciplinary thesis by now and I wonder if I need to start a whole new degree and graduate in various disciplines before I dare writing about content I did not really study for years.

I will not repeat the structure in the posts, just the progress and my failure – and keep track of the structure on an additional page purely devoted to The Beast.

# 323

I know that last time I had technical problems I said “The next time this OS/LaTex/JabRef/whatever does not work I switch to MS/OpenOffice/whatever”.  But the wonderful BC fixed it and it is running and wonderful and I have no clue what the cause was but I am just happy.

Read: “102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. With a new afterword”

“102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. With a new afterword” by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn
First paperback edition published in 2005 by Times Books, 340 pages

I honestly have no idea why I bought that book – I only know that it was during one of my book shopping sprees at Barnes&Noble. During the last years I had started reading it several times, but always put it aside again. Some weeks ago I started again and finally finished it.

Dwyer and Flynn present us an extract insight into the scene of the Twin Towers, and among the police and the fire workers during the 102 minutes from the first plane hitting the North tower until both towers collapsed (and what happened afterwards as well). The accounts are based on eyewitness testimonies, phone tapes transcripts etc.

We get introduced to a lot of people, read a glimpse about their lives, and where they are when the planes hit. Some will make it, and a lot will not.
It is sometimes heartbreaking to read that someone decided to stay with his friend until help might show up.

Nonetheless, the authors do not simply present a tragedy but weave a lot of astonishing background facts into the storyline. Two things stuck out to me: the first was about the building codes.

• In 1968 a code reduced the required number of stairways as well as the minimum fire resistance for shaft walls.
• The number of exit stairways does not vary regarding the number of stories.
• Whereas in schools for example exits have to be on opposite sides of the floors this was not required for office buildings, and thus the shafts were bunched tightly together as more space = more rent.

The second thing that surprised me is the ongoing rivalry between the fire workers and the police to the extend that they did not have a communication system installed serving both. (With the result that whereas the police outside was aware that one tower had collapsed, they could not deliver the information to all the fire workers inside the North Tower.)
We outside watching TV had more knowledge of what happened than the people inside the towers.

And reading about the structural and technical difficulties and problems makes the book indeed a tough read, because it leaves you just shacking your head uncomprehendingly.

The first three sentences, skipping the author’s note:

“Prologue

8:30 A.M.
North Tower

First into the office on the 89th floor of 1 World Trade Center, as always, Dianne DeFontes shut the door behind her, then locked it with a bolt that slid up and down, into floor and ceiling. The lawyers were unlikely to arrive at the office of Drinker Biddle & Reath for another thirty minutes. Until then, DeFontes, the fifty-one-year-old receptionist, would serve as the early voice of a humming, busy law firm engaged in global-trade litigation.”

# 321

Today is one of the days I wish I had stayed in bed. A gray, cloudy sky and lots of rain. I broke one of my glasses and that money could definitely have been spent much nicer. Suddenly my thesis file does not compile without error messages and warnings. Half the references are suddenly unknown – and I did not change anything from the last time I used it (when it complied just fine) and today. I am wasting so much energy and time on this crap which I could use for reading and writing that thesis. Maybe I just should have used OO like everybody else instead of JabRef and LaTeX. And I am unhappy with the picture quality of the Husband’s new camera which is just the icing on this day. And I am still waiting for the proof-read version of my article which I sent a month ago. I am so grateful that my friend reads it – but she wanted to send it back a while ago and is suddenly out of office and I have no clue when she will be online again. I hope the editors will still accept it. And of course I am still frustrated about the rejection for the Referendariatsplatz – now I need to go to the employment center and tell them I will be unemployed soon.

On the other hand I know that I should stop complaining immediately as everything else is wonderful and we are happy and healthy.

Additionally I am able to cross off a lot on my to-do-list. I am almost done with commuting. The meeting with my thesis advisor was fine. She liked the first two chapters and waits for more. Me, too. I really need to get a huge chunk done until the end of January.

I cleaned most of my office, organized the department’s Christmas party for the last time, and postponed my farewell party after Christmas. I only need to write a bunch of evaluations for my students and file them.

A couple of days ago I received a really nice CD as a present – Bach’s Mass in b minor and enjoy listening to it very much.
Speaking about music: The Husband and I decided that we will spend a weekend in Berlin, meeting friends, and visiting a concert: the Weihnachtsoratorium performed at the Berliner Dom. Tickets are already purchased.

And I am finally, finally done moving all books from my office and my apartment to our apartment. Each week I filled the trunk with books which was easier for me than organizing one big move. Last weekend The Husband and I have sorted all books into the new shelves, finally merging our assets.   And of course we sorted them alphabetically, so in my short what-have-I-read-reviews I could now add the line “putting the book back to the shelf between book a and book c” -  as seen on Isabo’s blog.
It is good that I am done by now as I had to realize last week that walking down the stairs with small piles of books is fine, but walking up the stairs without books but my growing belly becomes exhausting after a couple of turns.

Being pregnant is awesome. I love it.

# 320