Thanks for all the advisor talk. It helps me know what I can pitch to my advisors. I feel at quite a disadvantage being so far away from my advisors. I'm definitely more comfortable stopping by office hours or meeting at the coffee shop, rather than emailing purposefully (or actually using the phone). But I need to get more bold. When I mentioned to one professor that I didn't want to bother her, she said (quite forcefully) that no professor should ever be grudging about talking with a grad student about their work; that's the whole reason they're at a research university--to work with grad students. So I need to take that to heart.
SafiaK, I like what you said about accurate planning. I think it helps to look at over all patterns, too (not just pages per hour). For instance, I tend to read much more slowly at the beginning of a project while I'm trying to get my bearings and find a thread to follow. I get much faster as I know which bits of information I can forget quickly. Also, I found it helpful to identify works that were likely to be slower for some other reason. Example: I had to read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for one exam, and Middle English (especially this rare dialect) is not my strong suit. Even with a facing page translation, I spent hours on it--all hours that I was paying a babysitter and spending at a coffee shop (and so buying food and drink). I added up the total cost one time, and got so depressed I had to quit counting. I think I paid over $300 for that one poem. I think it would have been much less stressful if I could have just planned for it to be a $300 poem.
Speaking of time: last week was Week 2 of serious dissertation reading. I did manage to get through Spenser's Mother Hubbard's Tale. It was only 1400 lines, though, so it seems like a tiny triumph. I'm hoping to expand my evening reading hours this next week and get through Merry Wives of Windsor and parts of Anne Clifford's diary. I also need to make a deadline to contact my advisor, whom I haven't emailed since last December. Maybe I'll give myself a deadline of next Friday, and this can be my first contribution to the wall of shame. :)
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Did you ever look into that cubical/daycare gig? What are your plans for the kids and school? Is Evan going to go to preschool? Are you thinking of homeschooling at all?
I haven't gone to the cube-land yet, but plan to go to an open house in the next few months. I think next year, I'll put Evan in a preschool right around the corner from Cubes and Crayons, and then Natalie and I will head over for study and play time. That will give me an additional 7.5 hours a week (but I'll have to drive to Menlo Park during the end of the morning commute--the 15 min. drive could get really long). I'm not sure yet what we'll do for school. At this point, I'll need the time to work on the diss. Our best option so far looks like a Co-op elementary school in Mountain View. We'd have to be in the classroom 2 hours a week, but Trev can do half the time according to his work policy. I would LOVE to homeschool, mostly so Evan wouldn't have to spend so much time waiting around for things to happen (he's pretty wiggly) and so he could have more free time. But I crave time for myself and really need to finish my dissertation before my time limit expires, so public or charter school it is. We are looking at school start times (later is better), a no (or limited) homework policy, and some emphasis on individual learning plans or differentiated instruction. The Co-op school meets all our criteria--10am-2:30pm, limited homework, and lots of small group time because there are always at least two parents in the room to help out. I do want to stay flexible enough that we can homeschool later if we decide it's the best option.
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