Moving forward with Project Walk Toward the Light

I haven't been here in a month... i think that might be because i have found my groove a little more and seem to have some momentum building. This is good because I am about to activate what I am calling Project Walk Toward the Light.

My husband likes to say that grad school kills the spirit... and the light at the end of the tunnel they speak of when you get close to finishing is really just the finishing off of your soul. Oh I love that man. ;)

So I am just done. I want to be done. I am visualizing being done. My beautiful sister just got her MD this past weekend, and my equally beautiful sister in law finished her undergrad, so the spirit of matriculation is with me strong right now.

I've crafted Project Walk Toward the Light over the past couple of months and I think I am about ready to launch. The quarter is nearly over, so my work obligation (and pleasure really, i love teaching grad students) is coming to a close. My first chapter(s) of my dissertation is finished (in draft form- editing iterations to be completed). The last of the baby sweaters I have had to knit for friends babies is cast on. Cold season is finally passed and J has learned to say 'Im hungry' and 'all done' and 'blanket' and other such useful phrases, so the pain of sick or frustrated baby is subsiding.

Here it is:

• Following the close of the quarter, my last two weeks of childcare are devoted to finishing up the analytics for paper #2.
• Second two weeks of June to be dedicated to finishing up and submitting my prospectus. It's all there, just needs to be pulled together and updated
• Starting June 29, I am sequestering myself in the home of my parents. 3000 miles from my beloved. :( Jackson will have a summer of fun with the grandparents in the country and I will have all the childcare I need and use of a fabulous office my dad set up for me.
• For 6 weeks I hope to data crunch and write. My goal is write paper #2, complete the analytics for papers #3 and #4 and make progress on the vague idea I harbor for paper #5. If I can get some writing in, that would be great. But I know this is a tall order already.
  
• The final 6 weeks of the summer will be dedicated to celebrating my 5th wedding anniversary in Maui and writing paper #3
• Start the first quarter of my 5th year. This year, I hope to take one last econometrics class to complete the sequence for the emphasis, take what promises to be an awesome development class with our department's newest addition, attend lots of seminars, and write paper #4 and possibly (maybe) paper #5. I reeeealy wish a fairy would come bless me with enough money to not work this year. but that won't happen.
  
• To give me a fighting chance, my childcare arrangements have been increased from 4 hours to 6 hours per day 4 days per week, Christmas travel nixed in favor of another several weeks of isolated work, and I plan on requesting the same class assignments I had this year. (discussions already written, material already mastered, hard work already done ... )

One year from now, 3 additional papers, one more paper in my dreams, and maybe possibly three more letters after my name?

The big bummers are that this summer will be spent apart from J and i really will have to be strong to not just abandon work and do fun things with the wee one every day. summer time in my childhood stomping grounds could be so so much fun!

this is a reaaaalllly naive plan and goals that will never be met. But I figure this is my best case scenario. I have in the past worked like this (pre children obviously) and I have the support of my family on this plan. I am desperate to finish. I want another baby and I don't want to have another baby with this giant monkey on my back.


so there it is.