As usual, long breaks in the blog. However, I am realizing that this is ok given the amount of writing (and thinking about writing) that I have been doing every day. You see, part of the dissertation process is intensive interpretation of your findings, i.e., the dastardly discussions. I've written 4 of these discussions already and I'm on my 5th now. This is where you get to recap your findings, explain what they mean, align them with the work of others and suggest what contributions you have made to research and theory.......theory. Theory is the bane of my existence which is very interesting given the fact that I have such a speculative and curious mind. Somehow, the idea of having to explain how my work confirms or disputes a theory makes me want to go to the corner of my office and assume the fetal position. Give me numbers! Give me statistics! And especially ... give me graphs! These I can interpret and work with to develop new experiments. But theory.... ugh.
Ok... so before you point it out, obviously without theory there wouldn't be any really cool ideas and I wouldn't have any reason to do my experiments in the first place. But somehow along the way I have become very attached to my data and I am not inclined to explain its theoretical significance. I have an idea (hehehe... a theory?) that this is because I am approaching the end of my writing process and I am so tired of it that its ultimate meaning escapes me. Those of you who have done grad school will know what I am talking about. There comes a point where your work appears to have no realistic purpose whatsoever, seems endlessly trivial and and is on a downward trajectory toward a state of permanent drivel. And since drivel has no meaning, how can it be explained from a theoretical vantage point? Haha! So its all about elevating the drivel... I must believe in the meaning of my work before I can explain it adequately. Apparently this is the last writing hurdle.... will keep you posted:)
Meantime, have you seen this?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/07/06/tech-dns-changer-virus.html
Check your computers!
