Ph.D. Candidate (!)

Yeah.

I would never in a million years call the proposal defense "fun" but I will always treasure the moment when that I realized I'd passed and could attend to my committee's questions in a more relaxed manner. They were very supportive, made good suggestions (of the "why didn't I think of that?" variety that I will be delighted to follow), and really seem to be enthusiastic about the direction I'm headed.

A very close second is the cycle of disbelief, excitement, glee, and the realization that I'm still literally glowing. I'm eager to get back to work on it, but I'm sure that my adrenaline spike is just about played out for the day.

posted by: schoolsmelt at 13:39 | link | comments (3) |

Ahh - it's finally here

Eventually, I hit the point where I feel completely prepared for what's to come. If I'm not quite excited, at least I approach the coming test with a fatalistic sense of calm.  With my exams, this happened two days before the actual event. This time, the feeling didn't completely arrive until about 24h before the presentation, but it is here now.

The good news is that I'm now past the point of needing to psych myself up. I am psyched up, excited, ready to present, ready for their questions, ready to get a move on. Once again, it all comes down to the feeling of being ready to walk through the door. Once you pass the threshold, you've arrived--no matter how much further you still need to travel.

posted by: schoolsmelt at 10:05 | link | comments (2) |

counting down...

posted by: schoolsmelt at 08:37 | link | comments |

16 years, today

I miss my Dad.

posted by: schoolsmelt at 19:00 | link | comments (3) |

coaching dreams

Scene: Three women (Id, Ego and Superego, obviously) were in a classroom or boardroom. Unsurprisingly, I was inhabiting the ego persona. Id and I had been assigned some kind of "The Apprentice" type task, which we didn't complete or otherwise messed up. Id (frantic, out of control) was yelling at Superego (who was a smoking hot and mature businesswoman dressed to the nines) about how poorly set up the task was, and that she should've been mentoring us better, and it was her fault, and we could've done it if only she'd done her part, blah blah blah. I thought Id was overreacting and was in general pretty calm - no big deal, so we didn't do the task perfectly, we'd get it next time, we're still in the game.

Superego took the stage, explaining gently but very firmly that failure was built in to the process on purpose. The task had been specifically designed so that we would fail at this stage, and that that was the whole point. When better to learn from failure than under such supervised conditions, and when it doesn't really count? We'd be better players because of our failure, we learned a lot more than the teams who got it "right" the first time and so stopped thinking about the task, and since we had been analyzing what worked and what didn't, we would doubtless turn in a much stronger performance in the real world, when such things do count. 

In retrospect, I'm almost insulted at how very blatant it all was. Perhaps my unconscious just doesn't want me to have to work too hard in order to understand the things it's created to help me.

Confidential to IHE readers: Hello. I can see you!  I have not talked to the professor yet, but I will make an extra effort this week.

posted by: schoolsmelt at 21:25 | link | comments (1) |