Excited. About. Work!!!

OMG, how often can I say that I'm bouncing up and down because I'm so excited about my work?! Well, I am. I just finished the first draft of one of the key tables in my paper, and I'm just so happy! It looks so pretty (it's Arial font size 11 and it all fits on one page)! It holds so many ideas! I'm sure my committee will tear it apart, but right now...I don't care!

Happy. Funny how one good project can make you feel so good...I'm...stuck on a feeling!

On an unrelated note, why is sunblock white? When it dries it makes me look like my skin is flaking off! I'm trying to practice what I'm (supposed to be) preaching, so I'm wearing SPF 15 whenever I'm out in the daylight. I know, I need Vitamin D, but I do consume fortified dairy and I do expose my skin to UV light.

On another unrelated note, I just had a good and quick conversation with my dad. He's such a trooper. He took the trouble to read my paper and comment on it, and call in the middle of his work day, even though everyone knows the financial system is in complete disarray. Go awesome dads! For some reason, talking to my dad makes me miss my brother. Maybe I'll give him a call later today. Da boyz: gotta love 'em.

On Writer's Block...and How to Un-Block ItI

I am overwhelmed with this thesis right now. As everyone warned me, qualitative data is immense, and complex, and not easily whittled down into a normal-sized paper. And I have at least three separate research questions. I probably could do a traditional 30-page research paper, but what I really want is to be able to boil it down to its essence. Call it the positivist scientist in me, or maybe just the pragmatist. People do tend to lose focus after 10 pages!

So here I am, trying to figure out how to move past the panic into a more functional mindset. And I have come upon a discovery that works, I think. Instrumental music. I can't focus on music that's particularly loud or that has lyrics while I work, because it distracts me and I can't think over the thoughts the music is generating. But if I listen to soft instrumental music, it helps. And it unblocks me.

Now I have theory as to why this is. Instrumental music (especially jazz, but also classical, etc) is all about complex patterns. Qualitative research is all about finding patterns that reflect the complexity of your data. So it makes sense that listening to patterns would help align your brain and get it ready for pattern-finding. A lot of analysis and work that I do is pattern finding, so maybe that's why I've always liked working to instrumental music or just silence.

I'm going to go test this theory on myself right now. If you're reading this, good luck with whatever you are working on, too!

Planners and Papers and Meetings, Oh My!

I'm down in LA, staying with B. He started school this week, and so I'm mostly at home during the day, immersed in a world of thesis. Today, I found a paper on PubMed that did exactly what I'm doing -- only at a different site. Phew! I seriously almost choked when I thought I had been scooped. Luckily, so far, so good. But it's a really, really good reason to finish my work efficiently and with attention to detail.

So I'm checking stuff off in my brand-new Moleskine planner, which is International Orange, the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't usually like orange, but this one just attracted me. I love new planners. This one is amazing. I don't know if I'll ever want another planner. It was worth every single penny.

So anyway, it's Tuesday night (technically Wednesday) and I'm putting the finishing touches on my background paper. Of course, now I have to work this other paper in. I am kicking myself because it was published in 2008. I should have seen it. It's in a journal I read. I came so close to missing it. Yikes.

Which would be my bad because...I've been invited to speak at a conference! It's this spring, it's the premier conference in my field, and they gave me 25 minutes. I'm so excited. I wonder if these almost-scoopers will be at the conference? That would be amazing! They are students in sociology. I wonder if they'll think I'm a complete fraud? I'm using a sociology theory but I only minored in it, and that wasn't the classics. But if they are there it should be fun. We're making a tiny little research field! Yay!!

Now, I just need findings. You know, to present at said conference. I think I've answered my research questions, but I really just need to solidify and read. And come up with a plausible discussion of these findings, complete with a beautiful model.

Sigh.

It's like Murray said in the timeless 1995 film, Clueless: "Just relax and drive, baby. Just relax and drive."