Tuesday, June 12, 2007

An Excursion to Chicago, then Back to Work

This morning, I was in Chicago with Post-Doc, where her alone-ness was more fun than most people's parties. Thing was: I woke up in Grad City. I was in my PJs, sitting at my computer the whole time. Then, of course, it was back to work.

So because I signed up for a professional development class (that I'm contemplating not going back to because I know too much already), I was on Grad City U campus yesterday, where I got much mail and an appointment with PA!

So today I will talk to PA about these comments. Here is a brief outline of Gnarley Problem. In an early draft, I included a discussion of Important Locating Keyterm in the Intro. PA tells me that it doesn't need to be there. So I move it to the opening of Chapter 1. (You know how hard it can be to open up chapters!) PA says: good job. Reader 1, whose comments were basically fix a different thing and be done with it, said: good job. Reader 2 said: I need a discussion of Important Locating Keyterm in the early pages of the Intro. So here's the thing: PA has already had me move it once. Here's what I'm not going to say to PA: I don't wanna move it again. I don't wanna! You tell Reader 2 that you've already made me move it once and you're not going to make me move it again, even if it does totally makes sense. Reader 1 thought it was fine. Waaaaaa. Waaaaaaa. Waaaaaaa! And PA will likely not say: How totally unreasonable! What is Reader 2 thinking? Let me email Reader 2!

So I have to figure out a way of approaching the whole thing so I can not have to move that thing around. Tricky. But I have a feeling I'll come home tonight hacking and chopping at my Intro to make Reader 2 happy. Oy! I know that doing what Reader 2 says would allow me to include a proactive argument as a rebuttal to many comments that Reader 2 and even Reader 1 said. But I don't care. I want it to be done. And I just don't care! I am not Dr. Adjunct Whore or Maude Lebowski, the former who has won a diss award, the latter who has been told by her advisor that her dissertation could become a great diss with a bit more work. I don't care about my diss anymore! It'll make a great book -- LATER! I just want to be done already! Let me pack people!! Please!!! Grrr.

What else? I finally got stuff from Cool Institute. There's a lot of reading. Ooof -- it makes my head hurt. I'll go to campus and print it out. Maybe they are each one page long (I hope).

***Update 4:16pm***

No such luck. This poor printer has been working overtime on all these pages! Sigh. Missed the professional development workshop anyway. Oh well.

Also, Peppy Advisor said it's a good professional habit to get into to try to address and incorporate all your readers' comments. So I'll be working on that Gnarley Problem after all. Luckily, PA and I also talked about it, so. . .(big sigh). . .I hope it won't be as bad as I think it might be. I thought of something to take out and put elsewhere, so. . .(another big sigh). . .well. . .whatever. A month and seven days baby to the defense!

6 comments:

gwoertendyke said...

here here, ee--fuck it, finish it, we all know you're fabulous!

Maude said...

i'm going to totally concur with dr. whore! go girl go!! you've only got one month and 7 days to defend!

and you already know how i feel about reader 2, so fuck him for causing you grief!

Maude said...

i mean, one month and 7 days until your defense.

Sisyphus said...

Yeah, get it done as quick as humanly possible without actually ignoring R2's comments. BTW, Flavia and Dr. Four Eyes have been blogging about articles and reviewers' comments, so ... eh, I don't know how I was going to link to this. Read them for advice on how to respond to reviewers? Read them to know that this shit never ends and look what you've got to look forward to? Ugh, not that. I think I need a drink.

post-doc said...

I must be tired. I got all excited and thought that if you were in Chicago too, we should SO get together for lunch or good coffee or drinks! But, no. So now I'm disappointed.

I agree with everyone about the dissertation though - put in the last efforts and get the sucker done. You're plenty impressive without it being perfect to everyone who reads it. :)

Hilaire said...

Good god. Why don't your readers just lay off?? Seriously - this is *your* project. As long as you have the key term somewhere in there, that should suffice. That's what I think...

Which is another way of saying, go, you!!

(Sorry to be uncharacteristically mad...It's probably because my committee was all, like, "this is your project...we're making *suggestions*...not telling you what to do" and I absorbed that ideology.)