I Haven't Missed...

1) the library

2) the endless e-mails with profs and secretaries for scheduling

3) the constant stomach ache

4) the loneliness

5) the dissertation

These are the top five things I didn't miss when I was on my "break" during Sept. and most of Oct. I am back at it after finally meeting with my bossman. Blah.

We had our first sit-down together on Saturday since submitting my dissertation in late Aug. Yes, the man wanted to schedule a meeting on Sat. This is not new. We have had them before. He believes in a six-day work week.

I felt like I was going into battle and it was appropriate. It was not pretty. I think most of you are familiar with what I will coin "the academic fight". We didn't raise our voices. We didn't swear. Nobody cried (I was quite proud of myself on that count). We did, however, make it very clear to the other person that each of us was in no way happy or pleased with what the other person had to say.

The third party member, we'll call them TDC, didn't show. Apparently, Sat. meetings are not the norm for TDC and TDC didn't check the TDC schedule on Friday afternoon. So, there was no moderator. Also, the moderator (TDC) had told me that s/he would speak with bossman prior to the meeting.... but didn't. This became painfully apparent when I asked bossman if we should wait for TDC before starting the meeting. He was completely taken aback. This did not help the "tone" of the meeting.

I won't go into the gory details but will instead focus on the positive... there are some good things that came about from the meeting.

1. I now know what journal "we" are submitting the manuscript to and can, therefore, write it more appropriately by fixing the text, length, figures and citations to match the journal's format.
2. The article needs only to be submitted, not submitted AND accepted before he will sign off on my dissertation.
3. I can go ahead and format my table of contents (apparently) because when he said that I had a good 1st draft - that meant he wasn't going to make any big changes. News to me and happy to hear it. Unfortunately, he still has not given me a single page of the stupid thing back with comments. I am just praying now that he does not broadside me with major comments/changes after the defense.
4. I am "allowed" to try to schedule a defense. Given the short time before I need to be done (according to our graduate school policy on dissertation submissions), this will most likely be a problem. I have already been informed by one committee member that my two week window is being whittled down to three non-consecutive days owing to his schedule.
5. I didn't lose it - no crying or yelling. Almost, but not quite. Yeay for me!

So this is where I am at. I need to do major revisional work on the manuscript. I need to format my table of contents. And I need to (basically) rewrite my abstract because it is entirely too long and "clunky". We talked about the dissertation abstract in the meeting too so at least I have a fairly decent idea where to start with that revision as well.

Overall, I think it went as well as I could hope except for not getting back any written dissertation comments. I don't care how many times he wants to say it is a good first draft - I want to see that he hasn't bloodied it up. Also, he's made it clear he isn't available until after Nov. 4th so that puts me in a tough place as far as corrections/revisions to anything dissertation-related before I need to give out copies to my committee. But, I don't really care. My committee certainly won't. They are both too busy and too "important" to read any of it word for word. At least, I would be fairly shocked if they did. Not the normal protocol for either of them.

I'm actually a little freaked out. I feel like I have been waiting for so long. Now that it looks like it is going to happen - I don't entirely believe it. I do, however, believe all of this work I gotta do. Ugh! So, there you have it. It doesn't suck nearly as much as I feared it would! Still sucks but not as much as it potentially could have! Well, maybe I better shut my big mouth. I still have over a month for things to get wildly horrible.

Wait... is that a light?? A light at the end of the tunnel?? Oh, sweet brightness!