Holiday Break Update!

Happy Winter Solstice!

We put up our tree over the last weekend. Every year I think that I'm going to decorate the tree with white lights. White lights are the way my mom and I always did our tree. But my husband's family only does colored lights. I am the victor in so many "discussions" in our marriage. There are some, though, that I lose every time....so here's our tree. I think that it looks awesome. I also think that it might make a good qualitative study to investigate how and why certain decisions get negotiated the way they do in marriages!

KitKit sitting in my desk chair. Since it would be cruel to move him, I read my novel on the couch instead of working.

I have a very large project that I am working on during the break. I try to work on it for a few hours every day in the morning. In the afternoon and evening, I act like I'm really on winter break. I'm making progress on my project, but I'm not where I wanted to be by now. As I've been thinking about the last quarter, and the things that increased my stress, I realized that this project looming over me really was a huge weight. Because it's still hanging around, I haven't felt as relaxed as I was hoping that I would during this break.

Throughout my life, I've heard some of the disparaging remarks about people who move from practice to academia. You know the ones I'm talking about. "Those who can do, do, those who can't teach." I've known enough nursing professors, and read enough nursing research to know that those sayings are all bunk. But, I didn't really believe that it would be harder to work in academia than to be a bedside or clinic nurse. It is harder. Much harder. This involves being auto-didactic, self-motivating and self-directing, able to remember that it is important to stop and go outside once in a while, able to take routine rejection, and also able to recognize when an idea just isn't ready for public presentation. It involves being competitive without alienating your colleagues. And it involves writing. So much writing. It is really, really hard to convey what I want through scholarly writing. All the profs say we'll get better, but right now all I've become is more critical of my own writing.

KitKit demonstrating his plans for the holiday break.

But, it is still winter break. So, while I'm still going to work, I'm not going to go nuts and waste an entire four weeks worrying myself into a state. Instead, I'm going to balance the work with resting and relaxing. Since next quarter we start statistics, I'm probably going to need it!

"Dot it, file it, and stick it in a box marked done, okay?"

I submitted my last paper minutes ago. The quarter is done! Like all women, though, my work isn't done. I still have lots and lots to do on my other project, but I definitely feel lighter.

I thought that it might be time to do a quick summary of the quarter, both the things that went well and the things that I need to improve on next quarter.

Positives/Things I Learned:
1. From my nursing theory class I have learned that theories are both a good foundation for nursing research and also a good outcome of research.
2.I'm still no fan of most nursing theories, BUT, the Theory of Emancipated Decision-Making is a nursing theory that may be potentially useful to me.
3. I love qualitative research. I love it the same way I love literature and music and wine. It is a desperate kind of unrequited love.
4. I have a better grasp of the methods that are used to do good quantitative research. My grasp isn't *great* yet, but I can at least read a quantitative article and ask appropriate questions.
5. I know what scientific philosophy guides my view of science. I am a scientific realist! Isn't that cool? Oh, I need to add a caveat: I am a scientific realist UNLESS we're talking about reproductive health. Them I'm a radical feminist postmodernist....
6. All healthcare can be looked at from a policy perspective.
7. Write papers early! I did this and it gave me time to both reflect on the papers and make multiple drafts.

Negatives:
1. I still don't know what my specific research question is going to be. I only know my area of interest.
2. My newly found love of qualitative research has only muddied the waters.
3. I have to figure out how to coordinate school and some semblance of non-school stuff. Like eating regularly. Or sleeping. Or going for a jog. (Drinking wine while reading research studies does NOT count.)
4. Endnote is a crappy piece of software. But I bought it, so now I have to use it. Blah.
5. I won't have my final grades until immediately prior to the start of the next quarter. I need the feedback to be certain that my good habits worked....
6. I think that I'm going to have to buy a filing cabinet to store all the articles I seem to be collecting.

Finally, a chance to rest.

PS - Extra points to anyone who can name where the quote came from without googling it!

Blathering

Currently Reading: Zeitoun  by Dave Eggers (the one book, one city selection)

Two big events are about to occur today: I'm turning in 1 of my final papers!!!!! And, I'm meeting my adviser to discuss my classes next quarter. (This one doesn't get an exclamation point....)

One of the first things that the more advanced students will tell a new student is that the relationship one has with one's adviser is a very personal one. They will also tell a new student that the relationship will be unique. What they don't tell  a new student is that it won't always be....fulfilling....

Some of my classmates came to this program to specifically work with the person who is their adviser. I came because this university has lots of people, from many disciplines working on my area of interest. And I came because I was particularly interested in working with a particular researcher at a university affiliated research center. I am working with her, but she is not currently on faculty at the nursing school. She makes me cookies when I visit her home to discuss our project. She knows my previous mentor, who I will love forever. She is wonderful.

So. Since she can't advise me about school stuff, I have an adviser in the school of nursing and she has me.

One of my other classmates told me how her adviser always hugs her. (I'm not a hugger, so it's okay that mine doesn't). Another one of my friends told me how supportive her adviser is. (This will be the second time that I've met mine.) Which leads me to today's goal. Build a relationship with my adviser! This is the person who, if I finish the program, will hood me at the ceremony. This is a person who will sit on both my candidacy exam committee and my dissertation committee. This is a person who I need to have a good relationship with, and today I am starting on that road!

I hope that she's ready for my enthusiasm.

Classes are done and yet the quarter drags on

I have completed draft 2 of one of my papers. Perhaps it would sound better if I called them iterations? Blah. It doesn't matter what they're called, they need to be worked on for longer than my current attention span can manage.

I'm now at that stage where the excessive amount of schoolwork that I have to do has become paralyzing. I have lists of what needs to be done, and instead I've cleaned the house and perfected a Christmas Carol on the guitar. (The irony of that will not be lost on my close friends.)

Both to fulfill my need to find tasks that prevent me from editing papers and to work through some issues from my undergraduate years, I've joined a campus organization! Yay! However, in my spasm of school spirit I seem to have also elected myself as a new leader of some sort within this group. That will teach me to be enthusiastic. It will also teach me to join campus organizations at the start of the quarter and not at the end when I have other crap to do.

Please send me your motivation. I just need to borrow it for a couple of days. Thanks.