Friend of the Project

I just read something on the national communication obits that I think is a really great thought. Dawn Braithwaite writes that she once asked the late Dr. Ernest Bormann how a scholar handles harsh criticism, and he replied "that he appreciated criticism when it came from a "friend of the project." He went on to explain that a "friend of the project" is motivated to make the work the best it could be, rather than self-aggrandize." This is a a simple but important point, because too often people think that criticism has to be "harsh" to be criticism, which tends to bleed over into showing how smart you are compared to this poor person you're criticizing. But truely constructive criticism doesn't feel like criticism at all; it feels like scholarly dialogue. The critic for that moment becomes a partner in your project, wanting it to succeed just as much as you do. I had this experience during all of my oral exams, where people weren't trying to play gotcha because they were invested in making my project better and what I publish out of it more useful to the world. I think this notion is a good thing for all of us to keep in mind -- particularly when doing those anonymous reviews that can so easily slide into snark.

Dr. C in da hizzle

Yeah, I passed. Defense went great; no committee members succumbed to stuffy hot sleepiness.

PhD!!!

25 minutes

Okay, we're going for 25, and I feel fine with that. The confirmatory factor analysis results were a mess to try to present anyway, and I cut my interactions in half to the really interesting ones, so I probably have a better talk at the end of the day than when I thought I had 40 minutes.

The confusion is not mine

My advisor was laboring under this notion that my thesis defense was not open to the public in any way (so a shorter talk would make sense, because why talk for 40 minutes to people who have read your dissertation). I feel like the department academic advisor: "Doesn't anyone read the handbook!" It's on the school calendar. I told everyone to come if they hadn't heard me blather already.

So maybe I'm talking for 40 minutes, maybe for 25, maybe for 10 if no outside people show up. Who knows! It's a mystery.

Don't bother to be prepared, kids, cuz you're just going to have to wing it anyway.

(Lest anyone think otherwise, my advisor is great... I'm just not very thrilled with this misunderstanding).

Defense tomorrow

So, I was all prepared for my defense and utterly unnervous about it as a result (esp given the context of having presented most of the material already to questioning audiences and of planning 22 lectures for my class). Then my advisor told me Friday that I should really cut my talk to 25 minutes from the 40 the committee chair had suggested when I emailed about it 10 days ago (for the purposes of, you know, having my act together), and then lectured me about not coming off as too casual. You know, casual like a three day lead time on advice about important parameters for my important talk when I emailed about it 10 days ago.

Goodbye grad school. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of my life.

ABD!

That's "All But Dissertation" for the uninitiated. It makes the dissertation part of this whole PhD enterprise seem like some afterthought to all the hoops you jump through before that. Other terms: I can now be called a PhD Candidate instead of just a plain ol' PhD student. I can also register for thesis credits for next term!

All this is a result of passing my schoolwide orals, which were today at noon. Sarah had decreed the schoolwides to be easier than department exams, but she also only had one new committee member for schoolwides. I had three sharp cookies who hadn't already seen the presentation, so they asked lots of questions that were good. Some were hard to answer, not because I didn't know the answer, but because their questions pointed to difficult realities I've been banging my head against for a while now. So this exam left me with a less fuzzy feeling than the department orals, but it's just a reflection of the reality that I have a lot of work ahead.

Two of the schoolwide committee members commented that it seemed like a short time to go to Malawi and that they predicted that I wouldn't want to leave. I was glad Joe wasn't around to hear that and have several heart attacks.

On a meta note, at G's request I have set up an RSS feed for this blog. I like to procrastinate by visiting every page I read, so I've never used such a thing, so let me know if something is broken.

Nothing to see here

I didn't hear anything from the IRB today, nor did I hear back from the field about whether they like the new plan for me to postpone qualitative research until I have more money. So, still no flight.

Today I've been reading about the history of HIV and politics in Malawi, along with the intersection between HIV and poverty, in prep for orals.

Unqualified

I will be taking my second and final oral exam next week, the schoolwides. After I pass (fairly sure thing), I will be deemed qualified to complete independent research.

Hahahahahaha.

In reality, I'm really only qualified to fake it at this point. And it would be one thing if I were doing my research here. I could fake it pretty good here. But I'm going to be doing my research in this totally strange and faraway place, and I can barely begin to do basic things like figure out a budget. How much will a research assistant cost? How much will a room cost to do the study? I have no idea. How far away are all the places I need to go? If I knew I had to travel from Baltimore to New York, I would know how to do that and roughly what it would cost. But if I have to travel from Lilongwe to Blantyre or some little village... I have no idea. Basically I'm diving into independent research in a situation where all the regular parameters are unfamiliar.

It's nuts!