Poster time!

So, I spent today throwing together my poster for the grad conference next week. I'm not willing to spend too much time on the thing...but I do want to win the iPOD. Essentially I'm willing to dedicate one day, and one day only to the thing. I'm pretty happy with how it came together, but we'll see how it turns out when printed large-scale. Anyhoo...that was my day...pilfering images off the internet and trying to distill 45 pages of writing into 3 concise textboxes. Fun stuff.

Other than that, I think I may be coming down with a cold...which is a huge bummer. I think I am just going to mentally decide NOT to be sick, because of course I have lots of fun things coming up in the next couple weeks.

I was glad to hear that your first day of work was good Sarah, and Marianne...I hope you found the exam room in time!

Talk to you ladies soon!

Claire

Writing again

It's nice to be writing again. Especially since it's new writing, not fixing-old-stuff writing. Which definitely needs to happen, just...not now. 

I've been on the morning shift with Rob which is really nice, though I'm still not adjusted to the sleep schedule yet. Either way, I actually feel good and am really happy to have something to say again!

Mary Louise is super busy at the moment, but expects to meet with me next week and then  soon after that she expects to be able to turn more attention my way. Which is definitely good, but now I have more reason then ever to have something to show her. So I'd like to have a chapter three filled in outline for her to see next week so she can guide my progress. One of the issues with doing such an  exploratory thesis is there really isn't very much structure out there, I need to create it and that's nerve wracking and I want lots of authoritative reassurance! 

Anyway, if she likes what she sees enough then I can continue and finish chapter three, fix chapter one and two to reflect the newish focus of my thesis and then...just maybe...do some interviews. heh. Better late than never!

Other than that, I've got my summer bike out and feeling good about that. I started going through the sports closet and have moved all the winter coats and snowshoes to the basement and will be do a camping inventory soon so see where we are in terms of spring/summer getaway gear. Sarah, a roadtrip sounds like lots of fun, we should take advantage for sure.  

And we will miss you sarah! Be sure to let us know how your new schedule is treating you and how you like the new job. 

And that's it for me. Keep on truckin' ladies!

xo

Rainbows!

Awwww....I can't believe tomorrow is your last day here at ERS Sarah!! Wow...that came up fast! We'll definitely miss you around here. I hope that your new job is super awesome...and I know that you'll do a great job!

Right now I'm staring at a rainbow of highlighter colours. I'm using Lynz's coding technique, and so far is fun because all my interview notes look like a big rainbow.

That's it for news from me...besides the fact that I am officially DONE with data collection. Last night was my last council meeting...thank goodness! It has been a long time coming! I now have absolutely no excuse for not finishing up my draft in the next 6 weeks. WHOOP!

Keep in touch ladies!

It's starting to hit me...

It's starting to hit me that tomorrow will be my last day as a regular frequenter of ES. I start working full time Monday so I obviously won't be around during the week. My evenings and weekends will be filled with "thesising" .

I'm really happy that I have this blog as an outlet, and a connection to you at ES. I will try my best too visit Waterloo as often as I can, perhaps during the weekend, or the occasional evening.

Also, my parents are going on a trip for two weeks starting April 29th. Road-trip anyone?? Maybe just a 'day-trip'?

Anyone up for a few drinks tomorrow night??

job update

Ok... I heard back from the OPA. I have to go for another interview in TO tomorrow at 3:30pm.

Wish me LUCK!!

Happy Monday

So, I didn't get that much work done this weekend, but that's ok ;)
I had a really good weekend. I had brunch with friends, took in the spring weather, had a visit with my parents. And, Pete and I reorganized my living room with 'new hand-me-down' furniture from my parents (and we did that without arguing!!! what a change!)

I did mange to find some really good articles about mix-methods research, which I'm now reading and summarizing. These articles will come in handy to help justify my mixed(-up)-methods.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the OPA. I don't know what I'm going to do... I'm scheduled to start with the City of Guelph next Monday... so I don't feel like I have enough time to give them fair warning if I decline their offer. There seems to be pros and cons to both positions. The OPA position starts later, pays more.. but the commute will be hectic. The Guelph job pays less but has less responsibilities and virtually no commute. I may just take the Guelph job now, and return to job hunting with the OPA at the end of the summer.

weekend review

So, I got some comments back from Ian...and I don't feel horrible!! Yay! Overall, his comments were positive, but if you look through the pages there are A LOT of comments/suggestions/changes to be made. So, there's still a lot of work to be done, but my first three chapters aren't a total "do over". The plan for the next week is to scan through Ian's comments, but generally put them aside for now. I want to write chapter 4, and make my stupid poster for the grad conference on the 21st. Of course, I am also supposed to be a presenter at a conference in Oakville that morning, so I'm still hoping to make it back in time for the poster judging (I want that iPod!!).

Otherwise, the weekend was good...although not really school-productive. Agustin and I rode our bikes out to Elmira for the maple syrup festival...which was soooooo satisfying because we got to wiz by all the people stuck in the traffic jam. Marianne's b-day dinner was also lovely, although I was completely tired by 10pm. Also....yay me...I learned how to do basic HTML coding for websites. Agustin is really into this, and I learned how to do basic web design. You'll all get to see my work soon enough, as our website will be launching at the end of the month!

Last but not least, I finally got to experience funk night with DJ Charless....and it was definitely as fun as promised.

So, hope everyone had a wonderful weekend enjoying the spring weather, and we'll chat soon!