A Weight Lifted

Since coming to my job I have been aware that eventually I would have to write a proposal and submit it to a national conference. That time, somehow, seemed to be far off in the distance - as most things can for me. Now, submissions are due in one week and I for the most part I am done. It is a small and brief relief. I have written my final draft. I have sent it on to my grad student editor who will then send it on to my boss. After that only a few (hopefully) edits will need to be adjusted before submitting next Wednesday. As of now, the paper is written, the results have been calculated, data run, and discussion laid out.

It is not a complete relief because I still have to actually submit the paper. Additionally, once (if) it get's accepted I will then have to create the actual presentation or poster for the paper, laying everything out in incredible detail. So, while the idea, the findings, the first steps are all major progresses, there is much still a head of me. Even still, it is nice to have the first leg of this project behind me.

Tomorrow I am meeting my sister for lunch as she will be in the city to get her ring cleaned. Then tomorrow night my dad and I are going for last measurements/adjustments for our tuxes.

400th Post!

Somewhere on this blog exists 399 posts. It's amazing that I have written that many times on here. For those of you who continue to check from time to time, I hope this has not been too dull. I don't lead an incredibly interesting life. I think I used to write more interesting blogs but my job and daily routine are so tiring that I find myself wanting to be in bed by 9 pm. I remember I used to see this in my older sister and wonder how anyone could be so inactive. Now, I find myself asking the same question but in the mirror.

I definitely was not made to work the 9-5 life. I am hoping to get involved in some things this fall. They will both make my life, and hopefully this blog, more exciting.

I spent a majority of this weekend working on a paper. A paper? Yes, despite graduating a few months ago, my weekend was spent splitting time between band practice and a paper. Feels like a standard college weekend to me. I am submitting this paper-proposal to be presented at the national psychological and legal conference held in March. This year it is an international conference and that means two things. Getting in is harder, but getting in looks even better. I am submitting research on potential jurors perceptions of risk factors that could lead a juvenile to giving a false confession. The false confession rate for juveniles is scary. It is really an interesting area and I love my research. The paper is due to the grad student overseeing the project tomorrow and then to my boss next week. Official submissions are in September. Acceptance means a huge booster to my resume, experience, and a free vacation of sorts to Miami Beach. Yes on all accounts, please.

Band practice went incredible well this weekend. After a dilemma of losing our drummer, potentially having to drop the show, cancel practice and can the reunion, we were able to enlist my drummer from high school to fill in. He came up with his kit from DC to practice with us and it was a lot of fun. It was the first time a band has practiced in there in 5 years - wow! It felt like it had been only week. The show is this saturday at a BYOB swim club party.

This is definitely a very very busy time for me right now. Work is in overdrive with assessments, this paper-proposal is a big deal, and the show this weekend is right around the corner. September is now not only looking nice as a break from the heat but also a break from the work. Hopefully, if things die down and I really feel comfortable with the day-to-day I can stick to the plan of finding a clinical setting to volunteer my Saturdays. Fingers crossed!

(As I am sure I have mentioned on here before, I always find a way to be really productive doing anything else when I have pressing work due. Today I spent my day cleaning out the pantry and refrigerator of foods we don't ever eat/were stale/had expired. Here is a picture of condiments I removed from the door of the refrigerator. This was not all of them. Yeesh!)

Hello, old friend

I have been in college for almost 4 full years now. I have written at least one, but most times, two or more term papers in a given semester. You might think that after that many times of working last minute, the wee hours of the morning, or afternoon prior to the start of the class it is due in, I would learn how to pace myself better.

Unfortunately, the lesson I have learned through these experiences is that:

A - very rarely is there a paper length or topic that is outside the realm of being completed in one night
(last semester I completed an 18 page paper in the course of one night.)

B - the more last minute a paper is done, the better I do on it
(one semester I made sure to get one term paper out of the way a week early to have time to do the other - the earlier one elicited a B, the one completed 4 hours prior to class received an A)

C - no amount of deprived sleep or frustration with an assignment outweighs my intent to procrastinate even worse on the next one

As such, it is 1 am the night before my biggest paper of the semester is due and I am about halfway through it, still needing about 10 more pages before I can rest. It's been a few months, but me and 5 am are about to become reacquainted.

A little dissapointing...

So last night I decided my picture for today would be of my printed out cover to my final paper which is due tomorrow. I knew it would not be out of the question to finish it and at a decent hour since i had already found the studies I was going to use and this paper only had to be 7-8 pages unlike the last one that was both in unfamiliar territory as well as longer.

Unfortunately, I did not finish. To clarify, the paper is complete text-wise, just not formatting-wise. I still need to do all the in-text citations and such before I can click print.

I am also putting my social anxiety to the test. Out of annoyance with the second part of the assignment 'i think itd be great to have everyone give a 5-10 minute presentation on their paper so that the whole class can learn about what you researched and what you found' sure on some level itd be nice to learn a few things the class never covered but wait a second that means more work. Specifically it means adding a class presentation to a research study. Instead of putting in all the hours it would take to prepare a formal presentation and powerpoint slideshow I am just going to wing it. I mean its part of the paper grade so how much could it really hurt my grade?

*Collar tug*.

See you tomorrow night when I can officially say 'I am done with classes for the semester'
Only get to say that one more time. For now I'll leave you with 'Last Day of Classes!'

A little less apprehension, a little more confidence

So yesterday I spent from about 1 pm to 5 am this morning working on my term paper for my capstone course/senior values course. This class is both the final Core Requirement for the school and the last tier in the Major Requirement. As such, the final paper was not going to be easy, and it was not. It was probably the most dense paper I have ever written and the longest (not including my chapter by chapter analysis for my lit class which was less a paper and more an extended list of descriptions) I have written. While the length was '10-15 about' my paper ended up, with title page and references - at 20.

As of 1 pm yesterday I had written only 2 of those pages. I am impressed with myself. At the same time, I did not do a very close proofread of it and it may be reflected in the final product exactly how last minute I did this paper. I essentially had finished the paper by about 2:30. From then until 530 I spent writing the references and placing the in-text citations for that paper and another paper also due today - a treatment study paper for my clinical psychology class. All together there were probably over 20 references and with 28 pages between the two papers - there were alot of in-text citations to be made.

Accomplishing such a task in the time I did so makes me feel a little less apprehensive about my one-day thesis paper i will write. If i am able to knock out the number of pages I did in the time I did, writing that many pages is definitely doable - not easy - just doable.

One paper left.

oh..and 4 finals - but I have time before them.

(todays picture is of a lamp outside of a building i passed walking to get a milkshake in the city. upon further inspection it was noted that this was no ordinary lamp as that is actually a flame. this area of the city was being lit by flame lamps - awesome)

the awesome power

of casino royale has caused me to be late tonight. i could blame it on the work. but for the last 15 minutes i was planning on posting and i started watching the final act of casino royale on USA. drat.

picture brought to you courtesy of 3dollarsubs

papers papers papers

pretty much what i looked at/what i saw all day today and will be looking at all day tomorrow.

oh the weather outside...

well it might not be exactly the same as the song has in mind - but it is looking like it might get cold soon. and today felt a bit more bitter than normal - even if i was still able to get away with a lighter jacket. guess we can blame it on the rain.

so i am officially at T-minus 2 days for the big Law and Psych paper. guess that means i should start it tomorrow. luckily i am totally done my clinical paper (still needs some minor edits and a references page but that's mindless).

will be skipping work tomorrow. it pains me to say it. i just think about the class and i want to be there so badly. but i know i have to buckle down on this paper and if i only get 5-6 hours of sleep and then have work i will be losing steam before i make much progress and tomorrow has to be a majority of the work so i am not fighting time wednesday. for once let me not be writing the paper until the final moments.

the picture i am posting has to do with a snafu of sorts that occured today with the United States Postal Service and a piece of pink vinyl I have been looking forward to. Most of you know what happened already so I am not going to go on an on about it. Let me just say that if you think you can fit it in the PO box and it feels like in doing so - you are bending something that is putting up enough resistance that it probably is not supposed to bend - would you do it anyway? apparently someone who works for them would. hopefully the band gets back to me about it. agh

overkill, in a good way?

as i mentioned on my twitter earlier i, in what could be a good way, went overkill on my paper i am working on. what only needed to be 3-5 pages describing a few treatment studies on a common disorder and then summarizing them turned into about 20+ hours of work. i researched the studies, i researched the studies they based their studies on, etc - and read them all top-to-bottom. even though i was only presenting the cliffnotes of each (3 pages isnt alot) i still was strangely interested enough to thoroughly read and annotate all of them. and its a holiday break right now. sad? maybe. promising sign that i am in the right field? remains to be seen.

what can be said is that for what might not even be a better grade i have put way more time into this than i intended or needed to purely because i was interested in the information i was reading about. the same will not be true about the law paper i will start tomorrow. (maybe secretly i was so interested in this because it meant i could put off moving onto the law paper longer while under the guise of being productive).

cheers.

breaks are a tease

not to say i am not grateful for it/them. but this sort of break is really just a few days without class so that i can actually get significant work done on the papers i have due. it was more obvious when we were younger - teachers would assign big homework over time off so it essentially was no longer time off.

ah well - thanksgiving is awesome - day dedicated to food and football - cant complain about that.

just have to buckle down on the other days

less like high school

remember how highschool got easier in senior year. once you were accepted to a school and all that was taken care of all you really had to do was not screw it up. other than that - things were pretty much wrapped.

college isnt looking to mirror that at all. or maybe this search for a job is like the search for your college. maybe im just lazier now than i was then and so its not the work thats harder but motivating myself. i dont really know. either way im staring down this Insiders Guide to Clinical Psych Master/PhD path and i think im gonna lose this battle.

In other words - not working tomorrow, and hoping that in my new found free time (yeah i told myself this last night about my classes cancelled today) I will start working on something whether it be a job search, this insiders guide, or starting to plan out any of my papers for the semester before i get behind. anyway out hopefully by the time i go to do one of these tomorrow night I have accomplished something on that list.

with that said im jumping in bed. here's to a productive tomorrow - for everybody!

cheers

(the picture is of our refrigerator after going food shopping today. its a bitter sweet feeling to have a lot in the apartment again yet have alot less in the bank. hopefully this lasts...)