Whoot!

Oh, the past is a perfect predictor of the future, provided you keep living in the past an not move on. Yours truly being a prime example.

Count me among the people who need to print that out and put it somewhere I'll see it EVERY DAY.

Yay GC!

Yay Barb!

Yay Sean & Date Girl!

I'm getting all stressed out about my dissertation. What if I can't finish it? What if it's not good enough to pass? Right now, I've kind of got two big results, and my advisor keeps saying that, once I find a way to link them, then I'll have a thesis, but I can't find anything to link them in the way that he thinks they ought to be linked, and if I can't find that, then will he say that he can't recommend me for graduation? I don't know if he's right that what I have isn't enough without that link. I've found some smaller links, but not the sort of thing he's talking about. What if I really can't do this? I feel like I've been working my ass off and getting a lot done this summer -- I've written at least ten pages, which brings me to a total of about thirty, and the thesis is supposed to be about 100, but a lot of that is background stuff, and I've got at least another five to ten pages worth of results that I haven't written up yet -- but he starts off just about every meeting with, "I feel like we haven't accomplished much this summer," and he's got to be a better judge than I am of how significant the work we've got is.

::crickets::

I've never dissertated, but I don't know that I'd trust his judgment on much of anything. I'm not sure his mental version of your work conforms to reality in a meaningful way.

he's got to be a better judge than I am

He's really not. A major part of the PhD/diss process is that you're in the process of becoming the expert on your particular research, not him.

Which doesn't mean he won't be a condescending tool or try to throw up bureaucratic roadblocks, because some advisors are just like that, and he sounds like one. But don't believe it when he says you're not getting any real work done.

yay for both first kick and wibblies with date!girl.

I got nothing else. Another evening of workout. My groin pull didn't hurt all that much, so I guess I did the proverbial "walk it off" over the past 2 days. But I only did front abs set instead of front and both side sets, just in case. But I somehow managed to ride farther and burn more calories on the bike in the same 30 minute allotment. Yay.

OK. I'm trying to calm down some.

My shoulder got taped up this morning again, but I think I was sitting too hunched forward while the physical therapist was putting the tape on, and it ended up pulling the shoulder out of the joint more than keeping it in, so I took the tape off.

I've been looking at job listings. There isn't much up yet -- most of them will probably be posted once the semester starts. I need to write a teaching statement and a research statement, and get letters of recommendation. There have been a few jobs posted so far that look interesting. A few that look perfect. A few that are probably out of my league. A few at universities where I can't work because I'm the wrong religion.

RIP Les Paul. Thank you for your audio inventions, and your music genius.

A few at universities where I can't work because I'm the wrong religion.

Really? Ones that are über-religious and wouldn't hire you? Or just you wouldn't feel comfy? I'm just curious.