Status Report

T minus 28 days....

• Project X is out the door again (yes, it came back for revisions from another author as I knew it would)--no big deal this time, not such difficult changes to make and I actually wrote a real discussion this time (much better than the previous "this will do for draft #1 discussion)
• Article #1 feedback is several days overdue from journal editor (which I've decided is just this way this editor works)--however this will mean a short deadline when it does appear again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they liked this version--I am so happy with it--the major remodeling in the last revision produced a great paper (at least in my humble opinion).
• So...now I actually have time to come back to the dissertation--> I'm reworking paper #3 and have some minimal progress on the discussion (chapter 5). I'm plugging away and still praying that I make it. I will have completed chapters--it's just a matter of if they will pass the DA stamp of approval.

Meanwhile, after reading over comments on my last draft of paper #3 from my dissertation writing group...I'm trying to figure out how this group is really benefiting me. I've wondered about this before. I often feel at the meetings that the input I get is pretty minimal. They are great people and I like them very much...I sometimes just think my area of interest is a bit too far from their own interests for them to really be able to give a lot of helpful comments. I do benefit from their comments about lack of clarity in my writing in general and this is a great help... so I don't really want to sound like I'm complaining here. I guess I just wish that I had a group that could engage more in my topic as it seems we are able to do with topics of other members in the group. In some ways, the difficulty of "getting into" my topic has to do with my own writing presentation and I am working on this; however, I also think that in some ways my topic is really just too disjoint from their work and it would be "out there" no matter how I wrote it up.

All in all, what I am discovering is that I am just really ready to be done and move on--it's time and I'm ready. Let's just tie up all the lose ends on this baby and call it complete.