By Any Other Nerd

Estimated Reading Time:  12 minutes Week 13 of  the updates  and here we are!   Dissertation MJ In the Mirror And this week was a win!  I completed my 25th (out of 24) interviews (yes, you read that right; I was aiming for 24 but for better sampling, I ended up doing one more).  All I can say is that DAMN! It feels so good to have been able to accomplish this.  25 interviews in 49 days, discussing a topic that can be hard for people to comfortably talk about in the open. While I still have a bit to go, the completion of this has never felt more in view!   Work While I was mostly back to shape, there's a lot of sickness going on at work; colds, flus, COVID, and the like.  Lot of folks trying to both rest and also get work done (which I get) and worried about how the winter will be.  I'm also, once again, trying to get back into a rhythm.  Monday-Wednesday are office days and also later days because of class on Tuesday and W...

Estimated Reading Time:  13 minutes Week 12 of  the updates  and here we are!   Dissertation Imitation of Life (1934) Well--if this week goes according to plan, I will have completed my final 3 interviews (25 in total) and be done with the data collection portion of this process.  Holy shite!  Seriously! I somehow had done all my data collection in under 50 days; almost one interview every other day.  It feels so energizing to be at this point this quickly and while I'm eyeing the next few weeks of catching up on the transcribing and pivot to data analysis, I'm still in awe of things that I'm at this point and feel moreso than ever that this is gonna happen and soon!  So, cheers to that!  Work This week was a little frustrating.  I had a bit of FOMO and a bit of falling behind.  I got to work on Tuesday and noticed a flutter in my throat.  I figured it was from the bike ride and slight chill that morning.  However, by...

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes Week 11 of  the updates  and going strong!   Dissertation The Halloween Trio 19 interviews completed and several more scheduled; I still need 2-3 more tenure or tenure-track faculty. The final mile definitely is the most challenging so I cannot emphasize it enough, if you can share the call with people, please do!  I f you're looking to help, feel free to learn more on  the research study page  and consider reaching out to your faculty or consider resharing/reposting my calls on  Twitter ,  Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or  Reddit .   For more information,  you can always check the research study webpage . Work I think I've found my rhythm this week and was able to do day-to-day work as well as make progress on the bigger stuff.  I also had some great interactions with students.  One student (in her first semester) shared with me her project (this past week, all students did presen...

Estimated Reading Time:  10 minutes Week 10 of  the updates --I made it to double digits!   Dissertation Things are slowing on the research front. the challenge is always the last few miles, right?  I've got 16 interviews completed and another five or so scheduled but ideally, I need to get to 24 participants and need more representation by tenure-track or tenured faculty. If I can get 3 or 4 more of those to complete the intake form and schedule an interview, I can be done with data collection; if I can do it by November 8, it will mean I completed it in 2 months. If you're looking to help, feel free to learn more on the research study page and consider reaching out to your faculty or consider resharing/reposting my calls on Twitter , Facebook , LinkedIn , or Reddit .   For more information,  you can always check the research study webpage . Work Closing the Garden The best way I could describe returning to work was that I was stepping back into...

Estimated Reading Time:  9 minutes Week 9 of the updates   and here we are!   Dissertation A view of Fairmont Le Château Frontenac and a wall of life-preservers Despite being away for much of the week, I still managed to get in another 5 interviews, bringing the total count to 13 interviews and another 7 scheduled.  So I still have at least another 4 more to do and in particular, I'm looking for tenure-track or tenured faculty who may be using platforms like LibGen and SciHub.  For more information, you can always check the research study webpage . Work Not much going on because I'm still on vacation.  In fact, by the time this blog is posted, I should be at my first day back in two weeks.  I'm actually looking forward to it which tells me that the vacation served its purpose in getting me away from work and into other things and also, that I'm working at some place I enjoyed.   What I'm Reading Not as much reading as last week but ...