It’s been awhile since I’ve last posted. Last semester was a tough one for me, but I managed to accomplish the things I had set before me. I took and passed the qualifying exams at the end of August, I wrote and had approved my full proposal, and I submitted …

I recently learned that I passed my qualifying exams: the day would be September 9, 2011. It was a hot day, and I had been waiting 11 days, on pins and needles, awaiting a call from my chair. As I typed…no, I won’t bore you with the narration of the big …

I’m not sure how one is supposed to feel when she reaches this moment, but I was over-the-moon happy. What moment is this? Finally having my pre-proposal approved and quals date set.
I went through three revisions of the pre-proposal with my diss chair before we submitted it to the entire …

Today, while chatting on Facebook, I joked about how a dissertation was a not a story but being a creative writer perhaps I would think about the dissertation as a story–perhaps it would help me to write it when the time came to do so.
Right now, I’m typing up notes …

I wasn’t sure this day would happen, and it’s just a small, teeny tiny step in the progress, but it’s a step, so that makes it important. For the last month, month and a half, I’ve been going back and forth with my dissertation chair with my pre-proposal. With his …

As a doctoral student, I am always thinking about what I’ve done, what I’m about to do, what I will do in this journey. This is one of my first podcasts regarding the life of coursers, qualies, and dissertators–the phases we tend to go through as Ph.D. students. I hope …

I wanted to make sure I got this blog post in before 2011 because I wanted the post dated in the year the milestone was accomplished.
Some might not see this as much of a milestone, but when I think about how my personal life has changed and been changed since …

Been awhile since I’ve updated, but since summer classes ended, I needed a break to prepare for the fall classes, and now I’m a month into the last semester of course work.
What does this mean for me?
Well, plenty!
Narrowing my dissertation topic (focus, focus, focus), getting my research questions together (tighten, …

About three weeks ago, I did it. Did what, you might ask? Completed my first year of doctoral work. It was challenging and at times, extraordinarily difficult, but I have learned some major things about myself as a person and as a student that I believe will carry well as …

Yesterday, I had my first annual review. What is an annual review? Well, essentially for me, I met with my advising committee for about an hour to discuss what I’ve done in the program thus far, what I plan to do within the next year, and to start thinking about …

When I started at Texas Tech in August ’09 (just last semester though it feels much longer than that), I had a set agenda of what I wanted to study. I had spent the last four or five years of my life teaching underprepared and underrepresented college students basic writing, and …

Early, early in the new day of December 15, I was finishing up the last project of my first semester in the doctoral program when a question popped into my head: “How many words have you written this month?”
For a second, I thought I was back in November; last month, I …

Every once in awhile, I plan to share some thoughts about this Ph.D. process.
The process is made a tad bit different in that as part of the fellowship this year I am required to take four classes. Most students take two or three. It’s been cumbersome, reading enough works just …