Moving Back to North America

My committee members have agreed on a date for a dissertation defense! At least, it looks that way at the moment. It may well change, since it’s for the end of June, which is a long way away. But how exciting! A dissertation defense date! Scary. I’m guessing that I’m halfway through my last chapter, what with the amount of rewriting I usually have to do. Not bad, eh? And I found an online bookstore that gives educational pricing of software, so I was able to buy the bibliography software that I really really really need.

Yesterday I sent off the Introduction of my latest manuscript to my sister and to a couple friends for editing. It’s time to call in the troops to help me finish this insanity. Hooray! As for what to do when I’m done, I think I’ll talk to some profs at UBC about possible projects, postdoc or other something. Hopefully I’ll find something I can do part-time that’s fun. First priority, though, is getting the dissertation finalized, which will take some time after the defense, I imagine. And taking care of TM – we have to find a school and all that. Then there’s another paper from some of our ex-postdoc’s data that needs to be written. So I probably have enough work to last me for another year or so before I start getting really antsy. And then there’s a really old dataset from my BS that could be written up…

TM and I are ensconced in the Mojave desert, in my parents’ old trailer, where they lived while they were building their desert house. The heating works, thank goodness, and the water pump also works, hooray. It also has lights, and a stove and microwave if I wanted, which I don’t, since we eat in the house. It’s great to have a quiet place to work in the morning while waiting for TM to wake up, and to retire to in the evening when it’s TM’s bedtime. And spring in the desert is fun – the plants are starting to wake up. Of course the little tufty grass, whatever it is, has already come up, and I hate it, since I assume it’s not native and it looks like a fire hazard (I could be wrong). I look forward to seeing more natives peeping up soon.

Kit is doing well. It took him about a week to start eating regularly, and 2wks to start eating normally. Part of the trouble was finding a cat litter he liked. Now he happily guards the trailer during the day, when we’re at the house, and he alternately sleeps and jumps on our pillows during the night.

The movers are in India, packing up our apt. Q and his mom are managing that horrifying mess, and aren’t I simply thrilled that I’m not there! Yes indeed. I’m thrilled. Since TM’s twin cousin comes over every day (same age), they both play and keep each other occupied while I wrestle with data and writing. If I didn’t have TM’s cousin, I don’t know what I’d do. Actually, yes I do, I would be playing with and entertaining a 4-yr old all day instead of working half of that time. Thank heaven for many blessings.

Oh – I forgot – my little AT&T GoPhone won’t call India. Lucky me. I feel really bad for not keeping in touch with my friends over there! I’m going to make an extra effort to try to set up skype so I can at least call them (no video, long latency times with our internet connection here). If I weren’t so busy with work and TM and family, I’d really miss them a lot.

Two more chapters to go

It’s early Sunday morning and I’m not supposed to work today. But that’s really hard when I didn’t work yesterday. I admit that I had a few hours of potential work time, but I used them to clean the house, organize TM’s toys, and read some of HP Order of the Phoenix again. So now I’m wishing I had written something. Oh well.

The writing was going well until I decided the chapter was simply boring. Then I wanted to include some phenotypic data. But…after much analyses, it appears that the phenotypic data will stand very well on its own. So now it’s back to genotypic data on its own. I think I’ll build it around bottlenecks, admixture, and dispersal patterns. I forget what the last incarnation was, but hopefully I can hit it again hard tomorrow. It gets frustrating when it takes so long to write a paper! I don’t want this one to take so long. I remember one of my MS advisors could write a paper in a weekend. Well, she has a lot more practice than I do, I guess. Still, it’s frustrating. I just want to finish this dumb thing!

TM grabbed the stove burner a couple weeks ago… her thumb was one big blister and she cried for about 8hrs straight, despite the constant ice bath. Now you can’t even tell it was there! Kids sure heal fast.

I’m waiting to hear back from reviewers about my last manuscript. Fingers are crossed. I really don’t want to do major revisions again, but with my luck, that’s what it’ll be. No, no, positive thinking! It’ll be fine! Sometimes I’m a bit of a depressionist.

The last two nights I gave up putting TM to sleep and just went to sleep myself. I don’t know when she finally went to bed…but now she has a cough and is complaining of being sick, which probably means she’s sick. Do I brave the Bangalore traffic today for church? Do I just go for the first hour? What are the chances she’ll throw up in church? I guess I’ll have to wait ‘till she gets up to know. At least she’s still sleeping (6:40am), ‘cause she certainly needs it, especially if she’s sick. Not the best time for me to give up on getting her in bed, but I thought it was better to give up than to let my blood pressure keep rising, which is what happens…Hey, she probably got to sleep at the same time she would’ve if I were fighting with her the whole time, yesno?

We’re having some people over for dinner today. I hope we have enough food for them. And I hope they don’t expect wine or anything, ‘cause that’s probably a let-down for most people when they come here (we don’t ever have any). And the coffee/tea is a problem for most people, too, since we don’t know how to make it, though I keep a stock for my mother-in-law when she comes to visit. Ouch. Well, we’ll figure it out.

The house is a mess, of course, which is what happens after a day of being at home with a 3-yr old. But today’s Sunday and it’s our cleaning lady’s day off, so hopefully Q will step in and help out. If not, hey, I don’t mind having people see the house in its natural state. No major skin off my back. I hope.

I tried running SAS and after about 20 minutes, gave up. I’m used to SPSS, and SAS is rather different. Luckily, my advisor picked up the pieces and ran the analyses for me. Yay! He’s great. It was his fault that now, I’m considering writing 2 pprs instead of 1. But I stink at writing, and it takes me forever, so I’m not really happy about that. Oh well. What can ya do.

Hope everyone has a great day!