Monday, August 16, 2010

8-14: Getting up to speed

Okay, this is long overdue, and much has happened since I ruminated wordily about iPods ... I mean like, my droid win has never looked cooler, the Giants are poised for a postseason push, and would you believe that Don Draper?

I'm just kidding, I have done some work on my dissertation since I moved back to Palo Alto.  I throw grant money at transcribers as soon as I can process and account for them.  I'm reading lots of articles, I've given Endnote (bibliographic software) another chance to impress me.  But yes, it's still summer, so I've also been watching my share of Jersey Shore and many of those articles come from things that likely won't make my bibliography.

Mostly, I want this blog to get back closer to live.  So about that "Dissertation Boot Camp" I enrolled in a month ago?  Had to drop out.  Moving got to be a little more hectic than I thought it would—and truthfully—I made more out of my last weeks in LA that way.  Plus the class was intended for dissertators who are a little farther along than me.  No problem.

But also no excuses to not get started myself.  Well ... one.  I'm still working for the Office of Residential Life as a researcher for the rest of the month.  For now, I'm organizing myself, taking lots of notes, piling through old notebooks, sorting post-its with crazy, random, vaguely drug-related ideas, that are just crazy enough to maaaaybe fit in my dissertation somewhere.

Actual examples:

- What if Batman needed Ritalin?
- Ross.0 presents: Weed vs. Salvia: the drug policy challenge.
- How ADHD meds made Ian Kinsler (Texas Rangers) and Andres Torres (S.F. Giants) into awesome baseball players.
- Stimulants, economic stimulus, and Terran stim-packs in Starcraft 2.

I'll admit, I ran out of steam a little on some of those, but those are actual posts that represent actual pieces in development.  So get excited, I have a shit-ton of drug related thoughts to blog about.

Working on: what I call two-a-days: reading two articles a day, processing two transcripts per day, and recording two cases per day from this survey on treatment-seeking prescription drug users (interesting stuff, way more hard core than my own research).  All while finishing my job.

Listening to: a "dissertating mix" on iTunes.  It is 2.3 days long, and won't fit on any of my aforementioned iPods.  I also saw Arcade Fire on the Daily Show—I thought it was a rerun since Jon Stewart didn't have his beard anymore—the second song sounded awesome, and I liked their last two albums ... anybody have that one yet?  Is it good?

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