The government got in the way.

I was set to hopefully meet with my advisor today. Nut she was selected for jury duty, so my meeting was postponed to Friday at 1:30. Oh well...A couple more days of prayers that it can be my final draft before it gets sent to my committee.

I just sent the second to final copy

of my dissertation to my advisor. I am hoping, that is. I have a meeting with her on Wednesday and have asked the day from work to finish. My goal is to have a final copy printed and to each of my committee members so as to set my defense date. This largely depends on my gracious advisor who is very intelligent and very (hmmm) picky. So, I gave a great big sigh, and clicked on the SEND button. Now, its just time.

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I liked them so much , I printed them out and blew them up as a constant reminder that I've got lots of love in my corner. I could almost here the Rocky song when he's training.

Late night update

Okay...maybe posting my daily advances will allow me to avoid procrastination.
I just emailed my advisor a second draft of my chapter 4 (discussion).

For those of you that have no clue what a dissertation looks like:

Abstract : brief synopsis of researchhypothesis and findings

Chapter 1: Intro and Lit Review - An extensive literature review that answers the question "What is aggression? What is the current research? What are the accepted theories? Why will your research be innovative? On what theoretical framework are you basing your hypotheses?" (By the way, we don't just say hey researching THIS or THAT would be cool... ;) )

Chapter 2: Methods - Describe the participants (subjects), the assessment techniques, the analyses to be run on your data and the reasoning behind why you decided to use these statistical techniques versus others

Chapter 3: Results - The jargon most people skip. In this section, the nitty gritty statistical results are presented. You see most of the tables inthsi section with brief explanation of what was found.

Chapter 4: Discussion - THE WHOLE PURPOSE IN WRITING THE DISSERTATION. hehe Here you say what you found, why you think you found it, what it means for future research, implications for practice, and limitations to your study.

So there you have it...some dissertations are broken up into 5 chapters...others into 4. They should all have the same information. At this point in time, I have completed Chapters 1-3, and my discussion is approaching completion fairly quickly. The full thing is approaching 70 pages. FUN.

For those you are who just got completely bored reading this...I apologize...I need to find motivation to do this. If this doesn't work, my promise not to play Wii MarioKart until I finish should do the trick.

Dissertating updates

Alright guys and gals, this is it!!! I have a meeting with my advisor next Wednesday and I have to have this done by then. I need all the prayers I can get.

The following patron saints are on my list of intercessory prayer list:
Saint Joseph of Cupertino (test takers)
Saint Christina the Astonishing (mental health professionals)
Saint Dymphna (mental health professionals)
Saint Expeditus (against procrastination)
Saint Thomas Aquinas (academicians)
Saint Jude of Thaddeus (hopeless causes)

The countdown begins....

I have a friend

His name is Seth. He is an internmate here at HISD with me. I admire this guy because he does a great job in "keeping it real". We can debate issues, and then laughs when we disagree. There have been long lunches and slow afternoons that we tend to pick up some topics such as politics, religion, public schooling, homosexuality. You name it, we have talked about it. Although Seth is a bit more liberal than me, we agree on a variety of things.
Today we talked about alternative schools. For those of you who don't know, when a student comits a pretty bad offense (bring a weapon to school, multiple suspensions, drug use), they can be temporarily "expelled" to an alternative school. The school is military style, where students walk with their hands behind their back, eat alone, and can't talk to peers during class time. Sounds great, right? Well, not really. Research has shown over and over and over and over again (yes! that many times) that putting kids with behavior problems together in a school makes them worse not better. So why do schools have this faulty system? Well for one, principals get these kids out of their school. (Out of sight, out of mind. Second, kids have to have "consequences" for bad behavior. Okay. So principals want to shed some responsibility and the way to do this is tough love. The state of Texas has a rule right now that if you go to juvenile detention 3 times, you get sent to boot camp for 3 months. sigh. Dear Texas, stop using my tax dollars for "preventing crime" when its actually making it worse. Seth and I talked about this over lunch and agreed there has to be a better way. Some people have suggested turning schools into business andhanding out vouchers. Well, if kids keep on getting kicked out, then we come back to the same problem.
If the US is moving towards empirically supported interventions, why hasn't this changed? Oh well. I guess this is why I still have a job :)

A bit of sarcasm

Alrighty guys and gals, I have changed camps. I voted for Hillary in the Texas Primaries. I have switched my affiliation to Osama, I mean Obama.
After the debate yesterday....I think Obama would be the best Democratic Nominee. I think that with big names behind him like Rev. Wright and Wiliam Ayers he is easily the next one to beat McCain come November....not to mention his patriotic wife.

So...Democrats...do me a favor...vote Obama...

and I will see YOU in November!

Kicking for gold - Sports

Check out my most wonderful, talented, incredibly sexy husband!!!!!!

Kicking for gold - Sports