Saturday 8:57

So as I promised myself, I sent an email to TF this morning. The text is basically the same as this (without the bracketed section, since I don't know if it is true). I'll let y'all know what happens...

I did just realize though that now I am waiting to hear from 3 men all of whom can't give me what I am looking for from them: ET, RL, and now TF. Academics, jobs, and love.

Will my life ever go anywhere?

I was surprised that finishing my draft last night just made me want to cry. I feel beaten, not victorious. Maybe that is because I am tired and still can't stop working because I have the papers to submit to conferences and then the references for the fucking teacher career path paper to do and then the note from my school site visit in May to write up.

Then I can rest. Maybe.

6:48

Done.

6:11

I'm so close to being done I can't believe it. It is now coming down to deciding whether to cram in my last zingers and bright ideas or to just be the fuck done with the damn thing. My good intentions and ambitions for greatness are rapidly being overcome...

1:05

Just drove the sister to the airport. Must get back in the groove. I wish I were on the plane...

Friday 10:30

This is utterly ridiculous. Still no word from the UK. I actually went to their website to see if there was some announcement "We regret to inform you that our colleague RL was hit by a bus". No such luck.

Am feeling MUCH better than yetserday about the dissertation though. I see light at the end of that tunnel. Maybe even today???

4:38

I seem to have pulled myself out of my funk, more or less, with my mother's help. (I called her up and cried for awhile.) Engaging with the substance of my dissertation does cheer me up, thank god.

Did you know that WorldCom claimed its internet traffic was doubling every quarter? That is an annualized growth rate of 800% (UPDATE: errr, I was parrotting an article, but unless I'm smokin' crack, doubling every quarter is an exponential function, and therefore their annualized growth rate was 1600%, right?). In reality, the very fastest growing providers were experiencing 150% annual growth rate. But since everyone thought WorldCom was making out like gangbusters, they all thought broadband infrastructure development was a good deal. Remember the broadband bubble? The $1 trillion collapse? Blame it on WorldCom.

Did you know that in 2002, the AICPA (the professional organization of auditors) issued an updated standard that was shocking in its audacity: it requires auditors to be skeptical of the executive management of their client companies. (There goes the golf games!) It also requires auditors, including the engagement partner, to actually discuss how a client might be vulnerable to executive (and other) fraud. How long have auditors been in business? What were they doing all these years?

10:37

Oh and my vacation was supposed to make me feel so much better, and it did for a day. But now I am back to the ball of stress and feel like bursting into tears in the middle of this very hip coffee shop.

10:26

Oh! I hate this! I hate it when people don't return phone calls or emails and when they don't do what they say they are going to do when they say they are going to do it. It is so unprofessional! And it makes me feel like a nag or a fool or a chump. RL still hasn't written me to tell me what is going. This is my FUTURE! A future that could happen in a matter of weeks. Doesn't he understand that I want to know?!?

And I am still on slow boil about ET. I have stopped trying to talk with him--I just don't have time at this point. But it pisses me off that he still hasn't returned my prospectus signature sheet. He said he would sign it, even though he was wishy-washy and had the temirity to suggest that I wouldn't take his comments seriously! But then he doesn't sign it. I sent it over a month ago. I'm sure it is just because he has more important things to do, but for fuck's sake, it takes thrity seconds to sign and put back into the helpfully-provided self-addressed stamped envelope! And he knows that it is holding up everyone's pay check. The asshole.

And I got a call finally from NR yesterday to tell me what he knew about the Harvard lead, and it doesn't look very good. MR, the guy who might want to hire me, was going on about how it was too hard to deal with the distance between LA and Boston. For fuck's sake. NR pointed out the obvious and said that if ET had talked me up enthusastically, they would have found a way to deal with the LA-Boston issue (hello, it is called a telephone). But no... I don't really want to go to Harvard (I know, call me strange) but it just sucks that I have gotten myself held hostage to an arrogant prick who doesn't listen to me and says he'll help but then doesn't when the shit hits the fan.

Fuckers. All of them.

8:39

I decided to go to the coffee shop near VS this morning. I may need to go to the law library later today, but I am still holding out hope that I'll get some info about the job by email, and I think I'll get more done where I have easy constant access. I hate it!

I do have a good record of productivity here, though. I had a fantasy this morning of just charging ahead today and finishing everything. I suspect that is unrealistic, but it was a nice thought. Hence the coffee shop before 9:00...

Thursday 7:11 am

STILL no word from the UK. How friggin' annoying. And I did send him a short email yesterday. I wish I could stop waking up early to go check my email...

4:41

I have a sneaking suspicion I am not going to get any more done today. It is hard to maintain momentum after finishing a chapter, though I did just write the introduction to the next one...

A little piece o' heaven

Montana, north of Yellowstone.

1:42

Done! The chapter is done! Yippee!!! My dissertation is now 212 pages long. Now all I have to do is write the last 2 chapters (I do think it will be 2 chapters, though one will be short and perfunctory.)

Think I can do it by the end of Sunday? (Along with enough bibliography to squeak by and an excerpted paper to submit to conferences?)

A sense of adventure

I just got the following job announcement via email:

I'm forwarding a position announcement with the ****. They need someone who can manage survey research and analysis for a large public opinion survey. Note that the position requires relocation to Baghdad. Benefits include something close to 4 weeks of vacation a year, with transportation out of Iraq as part of the benefits package. I talked to the recruiter and learned that their personnel are stationed either in the Green Zone or at Camp Victory..... You are not required to leave these areas to conduct field work.
Clearly an opportunity for someone with a serious sense of adventure.

Someone sent out this reply:

But does it come with an all-expenses paid vacation in Lebanon?

Wednesday 9:57

Was up until 11 pm working last night, and got into the office at 8:30 this morning. Ouch. But I'm back over the 200 page mark (I dropped down to 160 or so when I cut out the chapter that needed major re-organizing and re-writing).

Still no word on the job. I feel strangely reluctant to send a nagging email, though it would be entirely appropriate/understandable to do so. Maybe I'm just afraid of bad news....

6:02

I went home, took a very deep-sleep nap for 45 minutes, and then have been charging through the chapter. I only have the section on how the auditors have invested in ways to reduce the penalties they suffer from audit failures....

Then on to the LAST CHAPTER (well, maybe two, but the last one will be a formality...)

1:47

My committee chair just basically told me he wouldn't call ET to try to get him to be responsive. Grrrr.

12:05

Making very good progress on the model extensions chapter (finally!). I think I have found the organizing principle and now it is just a matter of implementation.

No word from the UK. I think I will send an email at the end of the day asking what is up...

9:21

I will NOT think about jobs. I will NOT think about jobs.

I will write my fucking dissertation.

Tuesday 8:54

I just tried to upload a picture from my trip, but blogger seems to object. Will try again later.

No word from the U.K. yet. I am hoping he will try to call once it is past 9:00 am here...

I actually got a little bit of substantive work done in Montana and on the plane home, so I hope I can build on that and get back on track! It is hard to be back though...

Monday

I'm sitting on the floor at a Southwest gate waiting to board my flight back to L.A. The trip was great, and emotional. Maybe I'll blog more about it later...

The royally annoying thing is that I haven't heard yet from my UK job opportunity...he said he would know today if he had funding for me. I'm not sure silence is a good sign....