My Journey:

Well... let's see.  January.  2006.

OK... so I spent the first couple of weeks at a Cisco Network Security training near Chicago.  Makes the month go by much faster when you spend two weeks out of town, living in a hotel.  By the end of the two weeks, the hotel starts to feel like home.  Training 8:30 to 5:00 or so each day, dinner and an hour break (watch TV), and there goes all my motivation.  But I did manage to get up each morning and get a little bit done before I went back to class.  The hour difference (Central Time) helped here.

Also, I finally (after 3 1/2 months) have a dissertation committee.  Progress seems so slow.  Back to motivation issues again.  Arg.  If only I could spend more time doing genealogy.  That's my kind of research.  I have begun (minimally) to put together a draft of my dissertation proposal.  Still hoping to be done with the whole thing before the end of September.

Wow... it's been a full year since I started writing these.  I have to go back and ask myself, "why?"  It seems that I keep slipping more & more.  Time has gone by so fast this last year.  Trips to Mexico, Vegas, San Jose, Richmond, & Albany kept me very busy last year, along with the Chicago trip I mentioned.  A couple for fun, the rest for business (with a little fun when possible).  Not sure where this year is going to take me, but once I get moving on completing the PhD, the stress level can go way down.  Then I can enjoy these trips more, and take less with me.  It never seems to fail, I take dissertation work with good intentions, but don't do anything.  Was the same way during the summer of last year with my comprehensive exams.  At least I can say I got through that (yes!), and so now I need to do the same thing.  Finish writing & be done.

last modified February 6, 2006

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