Looking back on 2013

One year ago, I knew this was going to be a big year. I didn't explicitly write "give birth to a healthy baby" on my list of goals for 2013 out of some kind of superstition or because that's not really much in my control, but clearly that was the most monumental event of the year. Adele's birth in May was followed by about 7 minutes of bliss, then the most critical 2 hours of my life completely out of my hands when my uterus inverted and I lost ~3.5 liters of blood, and then several weeks of difficult recovery, re-hospitalization, and physical weakness.

Academic/Career
Finish my dissertation.
YES! I did this. I defended successfully. Sending my dissertation to my committee was, at that point, the most satisfying and relieving thing I had ever done. It is topped only marginally by the first moment I felt my newborn daughter.

Submit two chapters for publication.
Ugh, no. Not even one. I have a chapter that has been nearly ready to submit since FEBRUARY. It probably needs only two or three days of my undivided attention. Between finishing my dissertation, recovering from birth, preparing a different project for a conference, applying for jobs, teaching in two places, and then moving, this just hasn't happened.

Get a job.
Not yet (being an adjunct this fall didn't count). I've applied for 18 jobs and had two phone interviews. The right thing will come along.

Present at a conference.
YES! Adele and I went to ESA with my mom in August. I had a great time and I'm so glad I went.

Update my webpage bi-monthly (and transition to my own domain name).
I did the domain name change, but not the bi-monthly updates. I updated 5 times, but not in a few months now, because with nothing submitted and no new job I haven't had much to update. It's due, though.

Fitness
Exercise 4x per week.
So, this kinda went out the window. My definition of exercise changed radically during pregnancy. I injured myself by moving a heavy box, which shifted my pelvis. This made many daily tasks acutely painful. I started physical therapy and I did the exercises they gave me twice per day until Adele was born (very low intensity but they took about 20-30 minutes each time). After she was born, I had a hard time walking for several weeks, so I didn't get much exercise. I did some kegels. Around September (4 months post partum), I could finally walk consistently at my normal speed for the first time since January. I went back to PT, where I had a variety of exercises that I didn't do consistently at all. Now I'm on a new, low-intensity core-strengthening routine that I am trying to do every day. It's been a physically difficult year! I still intend to write in more detail about my recovery.

Do a race.
No, and I don't have plans to do one in the near future.

Go dancing at least 4 times.
YES! I managed to go dancing 4 times between August and November. I still have some lingering pelvic pain, so I need to be careful about what songs I dance to and who I dance with.

Home
Improve dog's socialization and walking.
No, but as of last week she is living with 3 other dogs until we move into our own place, so that might help improve her social skills!

Do 5 more things on our Big City bucket list before we move.
??? I don't know if we did any more of them at all!

Blogging
Schedule time for blogging.
No. I have so many things that I want to write about, and just haven't made the time to do it.

Metagoals
Refer to this list when I set my weekly goals.
No, but I'm not sure it would have changed things much if I did. I might have blogged more.

Add goals to this list as necessary-- in case I think of something else important.
I didn't think of anything important enough to add!

One year ago I wrote:
"I have no idea where we'll be at the end of this year. Maybe we'll be in Jon's hometown. Maybe we'll be in some small university town. Maybe we'll still be in Big City but getting ready to move."

Hometown it is!

May your 2013 end better than it began!

The Pregnancy

Tomorrow my little one turns 2 months old, so I'd better get these thoughts down before they leave me completely! At the beginning of my pregnancy, I thought I'd want to blog all the time about being pregnant. It turned out that that feeling went away after we started telling people (i.e. right at the time I could have started blogging about it). So for the curious, here's all 38 weeks summarized in one place.

As I've mentioned before, it made a lot of sense to try to have a baby before finishing grad school. My advisor was very supportive of his grad students having kids, and my student health insurance covers maternity 100% (I'm planning a post later about the bills for this baby). We waited until I was finished with field work because being pregnant or bringing a child to Ukenzagapia would have made it even more difficult. Then we waited several months more and tried to time it so the baby could be born in that sweet spot after my defense but before graduation. I went off the pill in June and started tracking my cycles using this book (HIGHLY recommended!). I was anxious that it might take us several months to get pregnant, but I got pregnant in September, which was the first month that I ovulated when Jon and I were in the same place (I was away at that time in both July and August).

I could tell (from charting my temperature) that I was pregnant several days before taking a pregnancy test. I also started having mild nausea almost immediately-- about 10 days after ovulation, around the time of implantation (which is also right after I did a triathlon!). Mostly the nausea didn't make me really want to throw up, it just make me feel gross and made my relationship with food desperate. Thankfully, a friend of mine (and reader of this blog!) mentioned that it's an EMPTY stomach that usually makes you feel sick. This means that when I was most hungry, NOTHING sounded appealing. When I felt the empty stomach nausea coming on, I tried to find the closest food that didn't sound gross. These foods for me were pretzels, tortilla chips, banana chips, and carrots. I needed to eat something little like that to calm my stomach before I could think about something like cooking dinner (which otherwise sounded disgusting and totally overwhelming). This made me diligent about packing snacks for myself if I was out and about. Thankfully, the nausea for me mostly went away after 5 or 6 weeks.

I saw a midwife for all of my prenatal care. As long as I was in the university hospital system, everything was covered. I didn't really have many options, but the one option I had ended up being a good one! Many people asked if we were planning a home birth when I mentioned seeing a midwife, but these midwives all attend at the hospital. I didn't have much interest in a home birth, and I felt like delivering with a midwife at a hospital was the best of both worlds for a low-risk pregnancy: the low-intervention philosophy of the midwives but all the specialized OBs and facilities in case something went wrong (which it did).

I intended to have an active, fit pregnancy. I rode my bike to school (at least occasionally) until about 5 months, and I stopped then mostly because of the weather. After that I walked or took the bus. I kept going to group fitness classes and swimming until I injured myself right around 5 months. I did exactly what they tell pregnant women not to do. Please, let this be a cautionary tale.

I was alone at the office on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (January 21). In a fit of office cleaning, I decided that a box of magazine left by some former grad student that had been in my office for YEARS just HAD to go. That day. And no one was around to help me. So I tried to be careful. I carefully moved the box from the floor onto my wheelie chair, pushed it down the hall, and then moved the box from the chair onto a table. Later that afternoon, I noticed a little bit of pain in my pubic bone. I went swimming later that afternoon and felt the pain a little when I kicked on the breast stroke, but didn't think too much of it. I knew my pelvis was supposed to be widening and I figured that's what I was feeling.

But after just a few days the pain was much worse. Walking started to hurt. Having to catch my balance suddenly. Dragging something with my foot. Getting dressed. Getting in and out of bed. All of these motions made my pubic bone hurt, and not a sufferable kind of hurt, but a stop-doing-that-immediately kind of hurt. It wasn't getting better, and I was quickly feeling extremely limited by the pain.

My instinct told me there was a way to make it better and that I didn't just have to wait it out for the next 4 months. I emailed a friend and colleague who had just had a baby a couple of months before and was still in physical therapy for severe post-partum pelvic girdle pain (PGP). I did some reading about it when she ended up back in the hospital (!), and it seemed like what was happening with me too. She told me to get help as soon as possible. I had to get a referral to physical therapy, and PT couldn't schedule me for almost 2 weeks after that which felt like an eternity to start treatment. So, I scheduled an appointment with a chiropractic school nearby, because they could see me the next day and it wasn't terribly expensive.

To make a long story short, my pelvis was out of alignment which caused the PGP. Best I can figure, when I moved that damn box, I braced it against my thigh, and the pressure indirectly exerted on my pelvis via my femur shifted it. Normally, the human pelvis is not so easily shifted, but the hormone relaxin loosens up those ligaments that normal hold everything in place. This is why they tell pregnant women to be careful with heavy objects and new exercises. It's not really about injuring the baby but injuring yourself. I could feel that the two halves of my pelvis were slightly uneven where they meet in the middle of my pubic bone.

I went to the chiropractor and physical therapist nearly every week for the rest of my pregnancy. Both did some adjustments, which definitely helped. After the first few weeks of treatment, my pain was more manageable. I had good days and bad days, but I had good days! The pain level seemed to change most radically overnight, so I talked extensively with the physical therapist about how to sleep. I got a memory foam pillow for between my legs. The PT gave me exercises to do in the morning and night, and I did them religiously. The only other exercise I was doing was a water fitness class, and even there I had to be careful and there were some moves I couldn't do without pain (so I didn't do them).

I had basically no nesting instinct. In fact, our place was so messy that I probably had an anti-nesting-dissertation-finishing instinct. The last 4 months of my pregnancy were also the last 4 months of my dissertation. I worked like crazy. I got up, did my exercises, went to school, worked on my dissertation, came home, worked on my dissertation, did my exercises again, and went to bed. On the weekends, I got up, did my exercises, worked on my dissertation, did my exercises again, and went to bed. I wrote much of my dissertation sitting in our guest bed. If I was struggling to stay awake at my desk, I took a nap on my office couch. Some days I had midwife, chiropractor, or physical therapy appointments or went to water fitness. Some evenings I hung out with friends, but nearly not as often as before.  I had hours upon hours of uninterrupted time (and I needed it!) to work on my dissertation, and I knew it would not be that way again any time soon. I was so motivated to finish before the baby was born.

There were so many things I put off until after my dissertation or defense! I just wouldn't let myself near the edge of the preparing-for-baby rabbit hole. I sent my dissertation to my committee 31 weeks 4 days into my pregnancy and defended at 34 weeks 4 days (babies are considered full term at 37 weeks and 'due' at 40 weeks). During those three weeks in between, I hosted a baby shower, had a baby shower, filed for a tax extension, went away for a long weekend, applied for and interviewed for a job, and prepared my defense seminar. I felt like I could really start thinking about being pregnant!

I never got to the point where I was done being pregnant and I thought I had at least another week. In the week before Adele was born, we went to a breastfeeding class, wrote a birth plan, bought a car seat, unpacked the zillions of hand me down baby clothes, bought nursing bras, and had a cleaning service clean the apartment. My water broke at 37 weeks 5 days and she was born about 28 hours later. But that's a post for another day.

Back in the saddle

Adele will be 8 weeks old on Thursday. Yesterday I submitted a job application-- the first new application since my defense. I'm almost caught up on my email backlog. I'm planning to go to my office 1 or 2 days this week. At home, I can work at my desk while bouncing her in her bouncer with my foot or wearing her (still getting used to that). I can tell I'm feeling better because I'm thinking about work again. I'm my own boss, and I'm choosing to get back to work which makes it less overwhelming because I can do it on my own schedule.

Dr. Karina Anirak!

I passed! I think the revisions required for my dissertation are miraculously minor (although it's not 100% clear to me what they are yet). I did it. This crazy beast is 99.9999% done. I should be able to finish the revisions in the next few weeks, and then I'll hold on to my dissertation until I have a job. My committee has endorsed my backup plan of staying on as a TA in the fall if nothing else comes through.

One question that I think my readers can answer for me- when do I officially get to be called Dr.? Now that I've passed my defense? When I get my diploma?

Defense!

Today's the big day. One hour public seminar and then 1-2 hours with my committee. At this point, I am not concerned about my committee and just concerned about giving a good presentation that people enjoy and understand. I am going to be so relieved when this is over.

Here goes the distillation of 6 years of work!

Hands off

Herb, my committee chair, is on sabbatical this semester. I've emailed him about my chapters, mostly to get his final approval on sending them out to the committee after Sam has already been over them. I haven't seen or had a conversation with Herb since December, and won't see him until the morning of my defense on Tuesday. Seemed like we should have some kind of meeting before my defense, so we just had a 5 minute phone conversation. Herb is a hands-off advisor indeed.

He said, "Well, it looks like a dissertation, it smells like a dissertation, so I think it's a dissertation." He doesn't think I'll have any problems. That's a relief.

For the last 3 days before my defense, I'm focusing on preparing the best presentation I can.

My first postdoc interview

I had a Skype interview (with video) for the aforementioned postdoc. I told them I'm pregnant when they asked about my start date. As far as I could tell, they didn't bat an eye. They said they'd rather have the right person start later than a less-than-ideal candidate start sooner, so it's good I applied.

I am really, really excited about this project. I had a great time talking with them. I hope I get another interview! I still have many logistical questions, but it at least seems feasible and that there is some flexibility in terms of how the postdoc configures their responsibilities.

I have a few doubts about how I answered a couple of questions and wish I could go back and say more. I hate second-guessing myself on these things. But overall I feel good about it. I think they liked me and they seemed happy about my excitement for particular challenges of this project (e.g. data management).

Sounds like they have a couple more interviews to do and they might have a second round. Hopefully I'll hear something after my defense next week.

Thoughts from the dissertation home stretch

In the last few weeks before submitting my dissertation, I needed every moment and as much energy as I could muster. Self-care was essential. I slept as long as my body needed (usually 7-8 hours) and napped if I was starting to nod off (this actually didn't happen much in those few weeks). I ate lots of chocolate or whatever sounded good and tried to eat regular meals. Still, I was fairly emotionally fragile and volatile (mostly I blame pregnancy for this). More than a few times, I overreacted to things people said or wrote to me, often when they were trying to help or at the very least weren't trying at all to upset me. So, I severely limited who I interacted with and how. I stayed at home or hid in my office. I didn't reply to emails. I ignored phone calls. This meant that there were plenty of things I wanted to post on Facebook or here on the blog, but didn't because I could not risk overreacting to something written in response. I also didn't want to be obnoxious. Instead, I kept a document where I jotted down things I wanted to share but didn't, which gives some indication of how the last 3 weeks and chapters played out. If you want to peruse the roller coaster of thoughts, read on.

Dissertation due date (DDD) minus 18

-I guess I'm supposed to be feeling like I'm wandering around in the fringes of what has been done and is known.

-You know you're at the edge when your Google search returns no results.

DDD minus 17

-Sometimes, you reinvent the wheel. But now I know how to build a wheel.

-Turns out it's a different kind of wheel.

-It's hard to ask for help.

- >75 hours of brain work in a week is far, far too much.

DDD minus 16

-Might have just made a MAJOR breakthrough!

DDD minus 15

-I'm trying embrace 'good enough' instead of striving for 'best'.

DDD minus 14

-Reference manager, you suck. Why are you so disagreeable? Why do you want to add extra citations where they don't belong?

-I don't know if I can do this.

DDD minus 13

-Small victories :-)

-That moment when I can't decide if I should stop a process in R because it's never going to finish, or if I just need to let it run a little longer.

DDD minus 12

-I mostly need to not interact with people right now, lest they say or write the wrong thing.

-Today it feels possible.

-I think the baby is trying to get a foot massage on the edge of my ribs.

DDD minus 11

-I think I can finish this chapter tonight. If I do, I will have written the vast majority of it, and re-done/done all of the analyses in one week. 

DDD minus 10

-Ran out of steam last night and went to sleep. I need my rest to keep up this pace for another 11 days. 

-I need to know when to stop tinkering and a figure is good enough.

-Seriously? Another undiscovered paper by this guy on the same topic? I thought I read just about everything!

-Why does writing involve so. much. reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaddddddddding?

-*sobs* WTF, Papers2. CITATION_IS_EMPTY??? And then you stick wrong citations ALL OVER THE PLACE?! I want to love you but I HATE YOU!!!!

-Found the data for my last chapter. That's a start.

DDD minus 9

-Here I go on the last chapter. 9 days until the deadline!

-It could totally be worse- at least the data are all entered!

-I think I'm going to make it.

DDD minus 8

-And now the CITATION_IS_EMPTY problem is crashing Word. *headdesk* I think I'm about to go manual with my citations.

-This is why my autosave preferences are 2 minutes.

-At least there's no one around to hear me freaking out at my computer.

-2:40 pm- I've officially started writing my last chapter. The methods section. Brand new document.

-I am such a terribly impatient and selfish person right now. I really shouldn't be allowed to talk to people. Must. finish. Don't I have "8 days to do way too much work" written on my forehead?

DDD minus 7

-Fourth chapter sent to Sam! Fingers crossed. I think I can make it.

-This last project is lame. Where's the story? What a dumb project.

DDD minus 6

-I dreamt about how to analyze my data.

-I'm getting some results!

-I finally feel like I've got traction on this last chapter.

-Oh my God. I just realized why I've been hung up for the last hour. I couldn't use a function that worked last night. Turns out I essentially DELETED R's ABILITY TO SUM by assigning sum as a vector of other crap. I shouldn't be allow to do that.

-So much frustration over an extra comma. CURSES, COMMA!

DDD minus 5

-It's nice to hear Sam say, "this chapter should demonstrate to the committee your advancement in a number of big ways, so i think you will be super fine." What a relief! I should still be able to pass even if this last chapter sucks.

-Why couldn't I just have 4 chapters?

-Oh God I'm so close I can smell it. Except that I still only have the methods written for the last chapter. That's crazy, right?

-I AM GOING TO MAKE IT.

-Today: results & part of discussion. Tomorrow: Intro & send it to a friend.

-Nevermind about that goal above. Still too thin; need more analyses :-( Today: hopefully get most of the analyses done.

-Oh bleepity bleeping bleepers. Just discovered some really glaring problems in the data for the chapter I thought I was done with. I think I need to redo all of the analyses and figures before sending it to the committee :-( Yikes.

-I *definitely* need to redo all of the analyses and figures… after I draft this other chapter.

DDD minus 4

-I hope the baby likes all of the chocolate I'm eating.

-Still not done with these data. The story sucks. Super lame.

-2:19 pm. Ok. I think I have my crude, rough draft figures nailed down. Five main figures. This is what I have to go with.

-3:31 pm. Skyped with a friend about presenting GLM results. Time to start writing this up.

-5:37 pm. Passed the 2000 word mark!

-6:40 pm. Uh oh. Gamma distribution doesn't like zeroes. Model isn't actually working! Gah!

-8:25 pm. 2100 words and figure captions written. Moving on to tables.

-11:09 pm. Discussion has some rough paragraphs and a rough outline. I'm calling it a night.

DDD minus 3

-Ok Saturday morning, let's do this discussion thing.

-I need to consciously remind myself not to be bitter and jealous of all of the people doing fun things right now. I'm so close. I chose to finish this now and not later. Oh God I want to be done...

-This last chapter suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucksssssssssss.

-Don't. panic.

-Hold it together. Hold yourself together. You can do this. Break it down, break it down, break it down.

-Remember: If this chapter is the only one that sucks, you won't fail.

DDD minus 2

-I've dreamt in other languages before, but never a programming language. This morning I was dreaming about data manipulation in R.

-Each of my last four chapters has required largely separate bodies of literature. This writing requires so. much. reading.

-HAHAHAHA! I'm glancing back at the review I started 5.5 years ago (and haven't touched in 2) because it might have some useful bits for this chapter. I wrote over 8500 words!!! There has to be something useful I can salvage from EIGHT THOUSAND WORDS and over 100 references cited.

-When I get cranky and blue, I need to remember that reading damnyouautocorrect can always make me laugh.

-These last few weeks and especially days are so mental.  I have to spend so much energy managing my unhelpful inner monologue.

-I am so ready to resume being a normal person instead of a crazy person. 

-I suppose this chapter could be worse. I kind of have a story (at least I have some statistical significance…)

-Crappy draft emailed.

-Sam says (less than 1.5 hours after I sent it) fix some small things and send to Herb. I'm cautiously relieved by this but I still know it's crap.

-Good news: Reanalysis of the other chapter without problematic data doesn't change much. Bad news: can't figure out how to remake my figure. Just keeping the old version instead.

DDD minus 1

-Today is Monday? I have lost most sense of what day of the week it is.

-Did not set one foot outside all weekend. I did open the door a few times.

-Time to tackle the changes from Sam and send this last thing to Herb.

-I get SO emotional when I think about being done with this. Gotta stay present, stay focused, stay here.

-11:45 am Abstract written!

-Eating ice cream while I compose this email to Herb about my last chapter.

-12:17 Last chapter sent to Herb. Fingers crossed.

-Walked to school and got to my office. Turns out I am totally exhausted.

-I think my brain and body are protesting the breakneck pace of the last month. It knows I'm getting close.

-Herb says SEND IT OUT! I am DOING IT! I AM GOING TO FINISH MY PRE-DEFENSE DISSERTATION TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-I think walking to and from school in the same day was too much. It hurts.

DDD minus 0

-One Day More!

-6:53 pm SENT!

I am proud of myself for avoiding an emotional meltdown. There were a few days when I was on the brink, and I calmed myself down and got back to work. It wasn't easy, but I knew that it would be more exhausting if I let it happen, because crying is exhausting and doesn't get work done. It was such a relief to be able to cry after I hit 'send'! 

Pre-defense dissertation complete!

I did it. I wrote my last two chapters in 2 weeks. I analyzed the data and wrote the last one in 8 days. I just sent the whole formatted shebang to my committee, 3 weeks before the defense. More than 200 pages, i to vitae. I cried after I sent it. In fact, I sobbed. I did it.

Turns out I'm exhausted. I've got plenty of half-formed blog entries in my head and I look forward to getting them out over the next few weeks as I resume something like a normal schedule and catching up on all the life things that I've been putting off for weeks and months to finish my dissertation by today.

Good enough?

I've spent most of the weekend trying to grasp the quirks of 4 different poorly-documented programs that only run on Windows/Linux and the literature surrounding them so that I can figure out what of those has been implemented into 3 or 4 different R packages so that I can appropriately finish some analyses. At this point, I'm probably going to have to settle for something imperfect but 'good enough'.

I have 3 chapters that look like chapters. One of those still probably needs a day of work, but I can afford no more than that. I have 16 days to produce the next two chapters before I send my dissertation to my committee. I'm counting on those needing a lot of revision after the defense, but I hope Herb will find them defensible. They just have to be good enough.

Flash of insight

To put you in my frame of mind, I have three months until my defense and three chapters to analyze data for and write about.

All week I've been working on chapter 5, which is about the database. At my committee meeting in December I presented some very rough data explorations along with the general idea for what the chapter would be about. I did emphasize, however, that the database is a virtual gold mine of projects so the most important thing for me to do is pick one doable piece for my dissertation that will mark my interest in the field, then continue with this line of research post-PhD. I pointed out that there was a fairly major complication with my chapter idea and I wasn't sure how to adjust for it. No one had any suggestions. Chip didn't really like the idea I presented, and pointed out some holes in the theory it was based on. He suggested something else instead.

Unsure how to implement Chip's idea, I spent this week forging ahead with mine. I spent hours in R paring down the data. As the dataset shrunk and the complications became even more obvious, it became clear that my idea won't work. We don't have the data for it yet.

On Thursday night Jon and I talked about the dismal situation: I had no idea what to do with these data, but I had to figure something out quickly. He suggested a variation on Chip's idea that tackles the complication head-on. I didn't know what to do that wasn't completely descriptive.

On Friday I had a meeting with the database team and Sam. I told Sam that I didn't think my original idea was going to work, and I had no clue what I was going to do instead. Sam said that a strong conceptual hypothesis-testing paper would be great, but he said he doesn't care if I do something descriptive and Herb doesn't care either. I just need to do something with the database. It was liberating news.

So I mentioned some kind of lame ideas and we contemplated those. Meh. Sam asked about an approach used with this kind of data sometimes. I said that I'd thought about it, but I just didn't see how we could possibly do that with our data without some crazy, totally unrealistic assumptions...

...unless...

...we did it at a totally different scale... And if we did it at that scale, then we could include far more of our data... It could work!

And so an idea was born while I was explaining why it wouldn't work.

I spent my Friday night finding the appropriate R packages and getting the data in the right format for a test run. I think I'm on to something big.

Done and undone

After more than a year in review and revision at the same journal, my first chapter, this damn manuscript, is undergoing yet another round of changes. It was reviewed, revised, reviewed again, revised again, then finally accepted with the instructions to "shorten it somewhat." So we shortened. Another committee member read it. We resubmitted the "final" version. I considered it in press.

Then we got an email saying that the editor made some changes that we need to approve. Well, the editor cut several hundred more words, including one entire component of the manuscript. The piece that got the axe was, we thought, the reason it ever got reviewed (let alone accepted) by this journal in the first place. It gave it context. I spent what feels like ages on that part. I meticulously detailed the methods in the supplemental materials. And poof! It's gone like a line-item veto.

Sam is appalled. He said he's never seen an editor make so many changes after a paper is accepted. Has anything like this happened to anyone else?

I don't think we can fight this-- I don't think it's worth it. I need this chapter truly done and published more than I need that section in the manuscript. We're going to make the changes and resubmit asap. But my dissertation will have the penultimate version that Sam and I both prefer.

Looking forward to 2013

2013 is going to be a year to remember*.  I'm going to finish my dissertation, have a baby, find a job, and move. That sounds like quite enough! But, only one of those things is going to happen whether I plan it or not, and unfortunately it's not my dissertation. I've got some goal-setting to do.

Academic/Career
Finish my dissertation. My defense is scheduled. My committee thinks I can do this. I have one chapter done. Now I just need to finish the other four... in the next four months.

Submit two chapters for publication. I'm trying to be realistic here. Ideally this would happen before I defend, but I'm not sure that's possible now. We'll see.

Get a job. I have lots of work to do on this front, too. I've applied to only 2 jobs so far. My backup plan to stay in Big City has some holes. I need to find a job.

Present at a conference. I really want to go to ESA with 2-month old baby and Jon, but he thinks I'm crazy. I'm planning to go ahead and submit an abstract so I have the option but we'll see what happens. If we can't go (and August is probably when we'll be moving, too), then I'd like to attend a different conference in the fall.

Update my webpage bi-monthly. I'm "on the market" so I should have a nice and up-to-date website. I should also transition to my own domain name at some point this year.

Fitness
Exercise 4x per week. I know that there will be many weeks when this won't be possible, but it's important for me to keep going to the gym, even (especially?) when I'm stressed and pregnant. Prenatal yoga videos count, even short ones.

Do a race. Could be a short triathlon or even just a 5k. Something. Sometime in 2013. Probably after the baby is born.

Go dancing at least 4 times. This might be difficult. I think I might be able to go this month, but then I'll be too big and that will be awkward for dance partners. This might give me a good excuse to get out and do something after the baby is born, but then if we move somewhere with no dance scene this will be nearly impossible.

Home
Improve dog's socialization and walking. She needs to be better about meeting new dogs, and we still need to work more on not pulling. These are both important and should happen before the baby is born.

Do 5 more things on our Big City bucket list before we move. We're not going to get to all of them.

Blogging
Schedule time for blogging. I can use it as a reward for getting dissertation work done and it will hopefully result in more posts than the previous two years.

Metagoals
Refer to this list when I set my weekly goals. My weekly goal setting and daily task breakdown is going to be very important to finishing my dissertation and applying for jobs.

Add goals to this list as necessary-- in case I think of something else important.

I have no idea where we'll be at the end of this year. Maybe we'll be in Jon's hometown. Maybe we'll be in some small university town. Maybe we'll still be in Big City but getting ready to move. We haven't been in this position since 2007 when I was still waiting to hear from grad schools. It's exciting and daunting at the same time, since so many decisions remain up in the air until we have a destination. What kind of work will Jon be doing? What will our childcare arrangements be? Time will tell!

Happy New Year to all of my readers!

*The last really eventful year we had was 2009, but I hope that 2013 has less tragedy.

Priorities: finishing or getting a job?

Applying for jobs is a lot of work. A few weeks ago I decided that I was more worried about finishing than I was about not having a job by August, and I don't feel like I can both finish and apply for lots of jobs. I've applied for one job, and I'm not planning to apply for anything else unless it seems like a great fit because staying here a little longer didn't seem like a bad idea.

What's my backup plan? I figured that I could spend the rest of 2013 in Big City and teach here. Jon can keep doing what he's been doing, and I could maybe be a TA in our department (people have done that after finishing).

Slowly but surely, holes are being poked in my backup plan. First of all, Herb told me that the average completion time in our department is so high now that not everyone will be able to get a TA position. This has basically never happened-- they always bring in extra students from other departments to TA the classes. This makes it less likely that I could be a TA in the fall. I'd probably have to teach instead at a smaller institution in the area (I suspect it would be more work for similar pay, though it would give me valuable "real" teaching experience).

Then I started worrying that I might not get my August check if I officially graduate before payday. I talked to a staff member about this and she doesn't think it will be a problem, but I don't trust her opinion 100%. I'll get a second opinion on this.

But then there's health insurance. If I finish in the summer, my coverage only goes until mid-August. I thought I could use COBRA to extend it if we stay in the area. My student health coverage is great, but it turns out it's not technically insurance, which means that I can't use COBRA- I'd have to be enrolled as a student. Our baby is going to be on that plan for the summer, but then if I don't have a job by mid-August we'll have to find something else. Jon has super high deductible insurance since he has no options from his employers. I suppose that's what the baby and I will do, too, as a temporary measure. What a pain in the ass. Can we please get our heads out of the sand as a country and offer single-payer, universal health care?

With the incentives in all the wrong places (e.g. graduation= losing affordable health care), it could turn out that my best option is to not turn in my dissertation until September and stay on as a student TA. Hopefully not.

Defense scheduled!

I had a committee meeting last week, and it was the most drama-free meeting since my prelims (e.g. last meeting). It turned out that Chip couldn't make it, but everyone else was there. I presented on the progress of all four unfinished chapters (one done = 5 chapters) and tried to be clear that I have a lot of work do to but I really want to finish. No one told me I couldn't defend in April, so we've set a date and time. I have a deadline. Tuesday, April 23, at noon.