The streak is over Friday, Jan 5 2007 

Course-Related Stuff and Rantings, Annoyances, etc. plotinus 4:45 pm

And it had just begun. Oh well.

It’s Friday. It’s 4:41. It’s about time to go home.

It’s hard to come back to work after having 5 straight days off… and then having to work for 4 days – rather tiring.

Classes start on Monday – my last term of coursework. I cannot wait to be done with classes and all the bullshit associated with professorial egos.  Granted, my goal is to join the ranks of the professors, but as a student, I’m sick of dealing with the “I know more than you” attitude. I know they know more, which is why I want to learn from them.

Anyway, two classes, one on dissertation research stuff, one one how adults learn.  Should be interesting.  Prelims later this semester, proposal meeting early summer, data collection early fall, data analysis mid-fall, write write write until March, defend in late March, graduate in May 08.  Here’s hoping that all works to plan =)

Have a good weekend, campers. More next week… this weekend if I’m inspired.

 

New Year’s Excitement Tuesday, Jan 2 2007 

Course-Related Stuff and Fun! plotinus 9:14 am

So I got married in early 2006.  To someone I met on the internet courtesy of match.com. On the first day of 2005.

Two days ago, December 31, 2006, we learned that we are not alone.  Nope. No longer just the two of us.  My wife is pregnant!  Woot!

 We figure it happened around the 16th, making for a mid-to-late-September due date. 

Now, the dilemma (if there is one). My wife, as expected, is super SUPER excited.  Me? I’m excited.  But I’m mega-anxious.  I’m in the middle of a job search to move me from RBI in SRN to a smaller institution in Urban Somewhere.  That move, if all goes well, will happen in May or June.  I’m also completing my coursework for my Ph.D. this semester (god willing and I don’t kill my department head (more on that another time)) and will be entering dissertation mode shortly thereafter (Prelims are *tentatively* scheduled for April, barring a murder…).   How do I match my wife’s excitement in light of the turmoil of the rest of my life?

 Thoughts, if there are any, are welcome.

But I’m going to be a daddy! =)

 

Classes and Prelims Thursday, Jan 12 2006 

Course-Related Stuff plotinus 8:39 pm

So I’m taking two courses this term – one on legal issues and an independent study on theories of development for college students.

Now, I had a course on the same development theories while I was completing my master’s at a RBI, but as I’m pursuing my Ph.D., and the dream of teaching in this field, I’m finding that I don’t know as much about the theories as I ought.  I can have an educated discussion about the theories (for the most part), and if pressed on it, I could probably even speak intelligently to a group of students or colleagues about several of the theories and those who devised them.  So, in working with my advisor (a wonderfully supportive and intelligent woman), we have developed an ogre of an independent study.

The task: go back to the original texts in which the theories were defined.  Read said texts, which have been divided into three “families” of topics: cognitive development, psychosocial/identity development, and spiritual/ethical/moral development.  (There are a total of nine books, three books in each family.)  Journal on the books (easy), discuss each book with the wonderful advisor (easy), write a synthesis paper on each family of books, and then complete some undefined project/paper/something after having read and discussed all nine books. Whee.

I’m looking forward to reading the original texts – I think they’ll be highly enlightening and informative… I’m even looking forward to the discussions with my advisors.  I can write, so the papers won’t be difficult, per se, but kind of one of those things to show that I have comprehension of the content. 

If there’s anything I’m worried about, it’s the fact that all this information, plus anything I’ve already taken and the things I’ve yet to take, will be fair game on my prelims (target: July 2007), which my advisor wants me to take as a blind exam (rather than getting the questions and 2 weeks to write and polish multiple tens of pages on the questions).  I’m all for the prelims, just not sure how much I want to sit in a room and write for 8 hours.  I think my hands would fall off and then my writing, which isn’t alway legible, would be awful.  Whatever…  It is 19 months from now. Are there thoughts on this from the gallery of those who have successfully survived the tests that are prelims?