Entry 19: In Which We Speak Math-ese and Get A Little Flaky

I spent all of Tuesday and half of Wednesday working on the results section of my thesis and am now up to my ears in the discussion section. I need to take a little break from all this writing.... wait, maybe blogging isn't the best way to spend my break.... ah well, here goes anyway.

Typically the results section is extremely technical, just spitting out the data in a rather raw format. Then in the discussion section you repeat all the same information, but in pretty language and with lots of explanation about what it means and why it matters.

Results are reported in their own sort of bizarre dialect that blends English with, I don't know, Math-ese. So I spent all day Tuesday writing crazy sentences like:

"A significant main effect for time was found (Wilks’ Lambda=.902, F(1, 188)=20.399, p<.0005, multivariate eta squared=.098), but the interaction effect for time and labtype was not significant (Wilks’ Lambda=.997, F(1, 188)=.492, p=.484)."

Then I would read them over and blink a few times, amazed that I could understand, let alone write, something that disgustingly technical.

Writing the discussion section now really does feel like translating from a foreign language, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit more than I enjoyed writing the results.

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In other news, while I am still on target to finish the actual thesis by April 13, I may not be able to defend and get everything officially signed off by then. My advisor and I decided this morning that it would be better to have the thesis bound a few weeks late than to cut corners and try to push everything through quickly.

A few extra weeks means that a) I do not have to drive myself completely insane trying to finish in the next three weeks, b) I do not have to rush my committee members in their review of the paper, which would probably make them cranky, c) I can still leave school at the end of the semester, and d) I will not officially receive my degree until August. I won't really be needing it over the summer anyway, so I think it's an acceptable delay. And it's only a delay on paper; I'll still be finished with school at exactly the same time.

I was starting to get a little panicky, and was relieved to hear my advisor make this suggestion. I feel a little flaky pushing my degree date back for the second time, but this time it wasn't my idea, and it does seem to be the most rational solution.

Already I can feel the weight lifting off of me.... I'm still going to finish as quickly as possible, but I can now afford to do a few other things like sleep, cook nice meals, and maybe even go to a movie once in while. Ahhhhh..... happy Sarah. Flaky Sarah, maybe, but at least I'm a happy flaky Sarah.