So I just realized it's been about a year since I've posted anything to this blog. Don't say you weren't warned. I. Suck.
Wow, how do I recap a year now? Do I just say forget it? Move on to something else? I guess I'll try to fill you in on what happened, which can be summarized in one word: statistics. Which suck more than my consistent posting ability.

Let me double-check to make sure I'm not making something up. Nope, statistics still suck. Actually, that is what has prevented me from posting. Not my being burned out completely from work and school. Nope, not at all.

So after my last post I started
Quantitative Research Methods. This I really, really hate. Quantitative research is like...science. Control groups, variables, and tests upon tests upon chi measures.

Different fields shoot for different things:
Sports professionals want a shoe named after them.
Pinstripers want a brush named after them.
Skateboarders want their own brand of board.
Statisticians apparently want some test named after them. Problem is that apparently only people with really long names are successful at this.

The people that really bone out over this stuff usually lose sleep over things that put me to sleep. It's like a secret club where only other statisticians know the secret handshake.

I thought I would seek help with a book called Taking the Fear out of Data Analysis written by Diamantopoulos and Schlegelmich. Shit, I'm in trouble just with the names of the authors. Real book. No. Kidding.

So I suffered through and survived. Still couldn't tell you the difference between Chi-square and t-test. (statisticians laugh at this obvious difference) If you laughed, don't ever invite me to a social gathering of your closest friends. {crosses fingers for:qualitative}

Qualitative Research Design
Okay, this I get a little. Artifacts, interviews, talking to people. Finding out why they do what they do. Bingo. I can make this work for my topic. I find out through my yahoo group that most qualitative designs are being rejected, or at least drug down the first two levels of hell, really having to justify what they are doing. Damn, I barely have a grasp on it. No way I can defend that. Besides, I'm relatively lazy.

I understand that the dissertation isn't really my thing, but the thing that my committee does with my name on it. I can live with that. Besides, I work with a hardcore statistics lady who is willing to help me. Bummed out, but hoping for relief with easy passage by paying homage to researchers past through the "normal" analysis.

Survey Research Methodology
This ends up being pretty ok. Hey, I'm a marketing guy, remember? Surveys and me play nice (just turn them over to the nerds to run the numbers)

It's during this class that I receive word that the program is changing. Mostly in the dissertation process. For. Everyone. I have four classes left, which now looks like 6. SIX. 6, meaning I'm not going to graduate by June. Glory.

The new organization looks pretty ok. I stop where I'm at, take a "transitional" course and finish off in the new course organization. whew. I would be pretty pissed if I was in my course order and didn't plan ahead. Perhaps its why so many poor saps on Yahoo were always complaining about stuff getting rejected.

The new structure starts with comps, into the rsh courses, then the diss courses, all centered on a topic. I had a topic in mind, so all of my "pretend" to develop and test a survey type work was focused on that topic. Cut>paste>cruise into concept proposal.

So for all of you traditional types: yes, this is a strange thing. NCU has classes for the dissertation, wich is really just the stepping stones of the chapters. Next class for me, between the research and dissertation courses is my comps. I'm ABD (all but dissertation) but not technically, since I haven't had comps. Even though I'm done with my normal classes.

Next comes my first shot at real work: finding a committee and developing my concept proposal, which is the paper that defines my topic that I work from. I C-R-U-I-S-E through this. cut>paste>cruise, remember? Like bar of soap on a prison shower floor kinda cruise.

Instructor has very few comments on my CP, but says I did a great job were most people get stuck. I find a committee in four days. I get a list, email people, they reply. Fill out form, done. Now very confident, I laugh to myself at the people on Yahoo who complain about going a month with no committee. Or going through a dozen revisions on their proposal. Big, belly jiggling kinda laugh. If I had a big, jiggly belly. Which I don't. Picture Santa Clause on a 6 month crank bender. As a pirate. Not very loud. Kinda scary. More like that kinda laugh. But still fun when people-who now seem like incompitent schmucks, mind you-are having troubles with their stuff.

{This is getting really long.}

hey, I'm trying to be humorous here! stick with me...I'm going through a whole year, remember?

ah, so now I'm in the thick of it. 2010 is here. My year. My fucking year. 6 months of subtle hell, graduation, a week drunk out of my mind in Mexico, and then 5 months and 3 weeks of life. Like real life. With friends. And social activities. And. I forget...it's been so long.

I chose my chair with great strategy. I looked for an angle (go figure, right?) and found one. Ha. I had an issue with her in a previous class over a paper I thought was stupid. Which as you all know, was. Because I said so. But she was direct, thorough, and held nothing back. I shrugged off the fact that I have a 3.94 and not a 4.0 because of her. One other teacher caused that as well, so she's my 3 hundreth of a reason why I can't wear the Kappa Delta Pi stole at graduation. I still getta wear the rope, though. I still get to wear the rope.

So my committe in one hand, my concept proposal (with very little red ink) in the other, I'm off. Let the dissertation dog and pony show begin. The first thing I need to do is submit the proposal to my chair, revise, and then start chapters that go into my concept paper. I'm as cocky as Kid Rock with an armload of midget porn about right now.

She declines my proposal. Like "I'm disinclined to acquiese to your request" kind of declined.

H
O
L
Y

S
H
I
T
what just happened? Karma you say, karma. well, I'm not really sure. I start to panic. Did she just remember our email exchange about that stupid assignment which really was stupid because I said so assignment? I email her a rebuttal to how it really does illustrate a gap in the literature, I did examine what I'm talking about, why learning styles aren't important to this study, etcetera, so on, and so forth.

no reply.

for a couple of days. I email again.

no reply.

I don't have any idea what to do. Her comments were vague enough I don't know if I can revise the topic or if it's as dead as the hair band ballad. If it's dead, I've just traveled in time back to November 2008. remember, it's 2010 now.

I call her.

twice.

I take a blind stab at a revised topic, call my advisor saying it isn't cool that I haven't heard anything. My chair emails me back my second revision 2 days later. She thinks it will work, but doesn't fully understand it.

whew.

So that brings us to now. I just submitted my Measurement/Assessment of Variables/Constructs. Yeah, quantitative stuff written by people with really long names. We will see how it goes. I'm like Edward Scissorhands with statistics, and I just moved the stuffed bunny over the hole in the waterbed. Wish me luck.