Just a few happy-making things today! Most pleasingly, things are progressing well, I think, with my dissertation proposal — woohoo! I’ve sent in the rough drafts of the Introduction, Methodology, and Literature Review, and received commentary back. In all the cases there’s a lot of polishing to do, of course, and a few bits where I was told this was a very interesting point and I should develop it further — which is very encouraging to read! But I didn’t receive any requests for major re-writes or do-overs, which is a great relief. I’m guesstimating this should be all completed on my part in about a month, tops, which will include sending in the proposal, the dissertation committee paperwork, and the ethics committee paperwork. Whew! I think I’m gonna make it! ;)<\/p>\n
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Speaking of hard work, I was seated in a local Kirk’s for lunch the other day, enjoying my burger — delicious, as always — and just relaxing my brain a bit from writing. I was rather desultorily doing some reading on my cell, so it took me a bit to register the two guys in the booth before me. They appeared to be two blue-collar guys on lunch break, one in his 30s and the other in his 40s, and they were slowly talking their way through a difficult problem together. I couldn’t tell exactly who was talking, since I didn’t want to stare and be rude, but I could hear bits and pieces of the conversation.<\/p>\n
From the tone of their voices, they were clearly struggling with whatever it was they were talking about. One of them would say something like, “Okay, so how big is it,” and the other would reply with a measurement\u2026 and then ask, “Wait, how do you change it from inches to centimeters?” Or one would ask, “So do we have to include the thickness, or what?” and the other would think hard for a bit, then slowly answer. It was when one of them said, “What’s the volume of a circle again?” that I amusedly thought to myself that I should get off my duff and go over and offer to help if I could — but then I heard, “Google it!” and I knew they had cell phones with internet connections — they’d be fine, and they wouldn’t potentially be embarrassed by a girl knowing math better than they.<\/p>\n
They continued in this vein for a while as I listened and grinned quietly to myself — I remember well struggling with both multiplication tables and long division as a child, and with calculus as an adult! From what I could overhear, it appeared they were calculating how much pipeline and what sized pipe they needed for a contracting job. Eventually they finished and came to a satisfactory answer to their problem.<\/p>\n
It was at that point that I feel I must congratulate myself on my self-restraint — because as they put away their cell phones, pencil stubs, and scribbled-on napkins, I heard one of them exclaim ruefully to the other, “Math is hard<\/em>!” — and somehow I managed not<\/em> to immediately stand up and shout, “BARBIE! YOU ARE VINDICATED<\/em>!!<\/a>” ;-D<\/p>\n ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~<\/p>\n Oh! One last wonderful thing to note: I had an awesome<\/em> Mother’s Day! Sort of, at least\u2026 ;)<\/p>\n