Another year and decade (!) gone...

I can't believe that it's 2010! Some friends online have been tweeting about the exciting things that happened to them this past decade. They've said things like meeting that special someone, getting married, having kids and it's a little depressing that those are all things that happened for me during the previous decade. If you want it to sound *really* bad, they happened in the previous century!

While I don't think the decade itself has been depressing, the great things that have happened in my life haven't been as grand as the things that happened in the 90s. But, I wanted to spend some time thinking about what the great things of my past decade have been. I hope I can remember. :)

I was able to take some great trips: visited family in Seattle with Maranda a couple of times, visited family in NYC once, visited family in Colorado a few times, and this past year took a great vacation with our camper through Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas and Missouri.

We moved from Lincoln, Nebraska to Green Bay, Wisconsin and while we were sad to leave the friends we'd made in Lincoln, we really like Wisconsin and for the first time in 8 years actually live fairly close to an actual relative of Mark's. Mark has been able to enjoy snowmobiling a lot more than he could in Nebraska. And, there are actual bodies of water here! They were sometimes hard to come by in Nebraska. :) Plus, I've noticed that a home in Wisconsin seems to be a much more attractive vacation spot for people in my family. My sister and her family NEVER came to Nebraska in 8 years. They've been to Wisconsin twice in the past 3 years!

I started my graduate work towards a Ph.D. Hopefully, I'll complete it in 2010! But, the journey I've taken for this step of my education has been very fulfilling. I love being in the classroom and I can't imagine not being a student in the classroom again. I will always seek out ways to learn more. I really believe that we are all lifelong learners.

I've made some great friends. Most of them no longer live nearby and as Maranda gets older, it's more difficult to make friends with other kids' parents because these kids are getting too old to be accompanied by their parents anywhere! But, even though we live far away from many friends, technology makes it so much easier to keep in touch. And, in fact, that technology has helped me make other new friends, some of whom I've gotten to meet in the past couple of years.

I can't believe that Maranda is a teenager and in high school! So, something to look forward to in this upcoming decade is her continuing adventures through her education from high school on through college. I can't wait to see what she decides to study and becomes more and more the person she is meant to be.

The other thing I can't believe is that Mark and I have been married for over 15 years. At the end of this decade it will be 25 years. In some ways, the years have flown by. In other ways... :) No matter what, it's always interesting.

So, here are some things I'm looking forward to happening in 2010:

1. Completing my dissertation & graduating with my Ph.D.

2. A graduation party in Lincoln with the opportunity to see lots of friends there.

3. Summer vacation, hopefully with friends coming to visit us here.

4. Publishing an article in a journal based on my dissertation research.

5. Going to lots of Maranda's softball games this summer.

6. Spending summer days out on the boat that Mark just bought.

Well, a Happy New Year to you and yours.

Dissertation worries...

If you've been following my status updates on Facebook, you know that I've been counting down interviews that I'm doing for my dissertation research. As of tonight, I've done 34 interviews and have 6 left to go. I've got to have a minimum of 40 interviews for this to work, according to my committee. I've been providing mp3s of each interview to a medical transcriptionist who I'm paying to transcribe these interviews. I pay her by the hour and based on what she's done so far, it's going to cost me about $3,000 to have them all transcribed. But, I think she'll have them all done for me by Christmas or New Year's and it will save me a ton of time. I think it'll be totally worth the money.

I've got this niggling doubt in the back of my head that makes me wonder if I'm getting the information I need from these interviews. I've got to get information from the students I'm interviewing that will allow me to assess what developmental stage they're in and I'm not completely sure I'm asking follow-up questions that are really challenging them to the point of being able to pinpoint that stage. If I have to do these interviews over (which will actually mean finding 40 different students, because I won't really be able to ask the same students again), there's no way I'll be able to graduate in May. I think I've got what I need from the interviews, but I also think this sinking feeling is required of all doctoral students. At least that's what I've heard from a few people. I don't know...

Once I get all these transcriptions done, I've got to start analyzing the interviews. Plus, each person does a short survey that I'll have to look through. Then, I've got to do the part that really scares me...the statistical analysis. I am so horrible at numbers and just thinking about the statistics almost make me begin to hyperventilate. When I'm to that point, I'm going to have to identify some strong support systems.

Earlier in November, I got a letter from the University saying that I'm officially a candidate for my Ph.D. It included an analysis of my transcript and they reminded me that I've got two courses with Incomplete grades. They were both seminar courses that are like Independent Study, so I've got to come up with what I should do for the credit. My advisor says that it's got to be something that could theoretically be publishable. So, basically, I have to write two publishable research articles. I don't have to actually submit them for publication, but that would be kind of cool. However, I'm not sure that I have time for all that. I'm hoping to get one article done in the next couple of weeks while I'm in the process of analyzing the first few interviews and waiting for the remaining transcriptions. I'm starting to narrow down topics for my first article, but I'm not too sure about what the second one will be.

Right now, I've got 5 interviews scheduled for this week which leaves me to figure out one remaining interview. I've got emails out to about 5 or 6 different people asking them to help and they won't respond at all. I wish they'd at least tell me that they aren't interested. That would help to have them tell me that they don't have time. But, I can't really go seek out other random people with the way I've set up my research question, so I'm going to have to be really annoying and keep asking until they say yes or no. This last group has been asked 3 times already. Frustrating...

I still think I can get all these done before the students start their finals week on Dec. 14. Well, there's all my worries about this dissertation thing. It helps just writing them down.