Linda's Fabulous Prize

Enjoy those island breezes, Linda!

Why It Takes A Million Years To Earn a PhD

Most people know someone who either has or is working on getting a PhD - a friend or loved one, that tweedy guy at church who is always talking about the Latin roots of words in the scriptures, etc. Most of them will talk about how LONG it takes/took to write the dissertation.

Have you ever wondered why this is?

Allow me to part the curtain for you:

A prospectus is essentially the first chapter/introduction to your dissertation. It's the road map for everything that comes after. The whole dissertation depends on it and it has to be defended and approved before the rest of the work can begin. So suppose Grad Student Joe sends his prospectus to his committee in early February. He waits. And waits. Then he waits some more. He doesn't expect immediate feedback -- but a note saying, "Hey, got your prospectus. I'll get back to you as soon as I can" might be nice. He waits until March. A month is a respectable amount of time to give a group of busy professors, right?

Grad Student Joe sends them all a cordial note asking if they ever received the prospectus, if they've had a chance to look at it at all yet, if they have some suggestions for revision yet. Three or four days go by and GSJ gets a small flurry of emails in return that all say essentially the same thing: "I'll get back to you in April."

The end of March approaches and GSJ gets a note from his committee head who says, "Hey, I need to send you my comments via snail mail. There are so many major revisions necessary that I need to just send you my notes. Oh, and at least one other prof thinks you're in need of major rewrites too."

Why is this a problem? By the time the revision suggestions come in, being as major as they are, it will take at least until the end of the semester for GSJ to get them done and then what happens? The committee vanishes for the summer -- poof -- off to that land where the poor, put-upon dears can rest from teaching three classes a semester. No email, no phone, no work. No way of getting the revisions looked at and approved so work on the actual dissertation can commence.

So rather than spending the summer confidently pressing forward on dissertation chapters, GSJ has to timidly, tentatively write, hoping that whatever he's cooking up isn't wildly off the mark, thanks to the complete lack of timely feedback from a bunch of professors who care infinitely more about their own publishing projects than about helping the students in their care.

What will happen? The committee members will wait until September to look at the revisions and write back saying, "The beginning of the semester is really busy. I'll try to get you some suggestions for MORE revisions by October or so." And so it will go.

Awesome. Long story short? Why does it take so long to earn a PhD? Because the professors who are supposed to help you don't.

Grrrrrr.

Film Quiz Saturday

I've been on the road for the last six days and haven't had much Internet access. Consequently, it is now 12:12 a.m. on Saturday morning as I post this. I prefer the alliteration of Film Quiz Friday but, alas, we do what we can do.

This week's quote is coming right at you, Linda!

"I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?"

Dan's Fabulous Prize

I'm telling you people, there are no lengths I won't go to in order to give a winner his or her prize. There's no Google search too hard for my winners.

Anyway, here is Dan's fabulous prize. It comes from a movie called Unico and the Island of Magic. We used to watch it when we were kids and the villian, the freaky sorcerer named Kuruku, was everyone's favorite part.

So here's to Dan and his quick knowledge of Jim Carey movies.

Film Quiz Friday

Sorry this is a little later than it should be. I had an all-day thing at work that allowed me no free time to do the important things and once I got home, I had to help Suzanne clean up after two heating and cooling guys made a giant mess of the house. So now, floors mopped, dinner eaten, I have a moment to post this week's quote. Remember - no Googling for answers. You either know it or you don't. Good luck.


"Greta, please! I'm on my knees in a 900 dollar suit!"

Consolation Prize

With the correct answer of The Blues Brothers, Tracy Brewer Medley became the first ever Friday Film Quiz winner. Tracy requested that her fabulous prize be something involving "a puppy, Dolly Parton, the Eiffel Tower, and a mustache." Certainly, it sounds like something pretty fabulous doesn't it? If I was a Photoshop whiz, I'd create a King Kong-like Dolly scaling the Eiffel Tower, holding a puppy like a little Fay Wray. Sadly, my skills and software are woefully inadequate.

However, never let it be said that Mark didn't at least try. Therefore, I hereby award Tracy with the first fabulous FFQ prize, such as it is:




With results like this, I know everyone is going to be charging to be the next winner. All I can say is, be careful and try not to trample anyone. There are enough high quality prizes like this one to go around.

Film Quiz Friday

So here's how this will work: every Friday, I'll post a quote from a movie. It will be distinct enough that it will identify a specific movie (No quotes like "Hi, how are you" - name that movie!) and it will be from a film that most people will have seen or at least heard of (nothing super-super obscure).

Your job will be to guess the movie without using the Internet. You will either know the quote and the film or you won't. No Googling a phrase just to win. That's cheating.

The prize? You name your own prize and it will be posted in virtual fashion here on the ol' blog. So, for instance, if Brother Dave were to guess a quote and win for the week and said he wished for the world's largest fish aquarium (Dave's a fish fan), he would get this posted to the blog:



How does that sound?

Since this will be the first quiz, I'll make it a relatively easy one. Name the movie in which this line appears:

"I hate Illinois Nazis!"

Post your guess and name the fabulous virtual prize you would like to win.

Get It?

Who Was Ever Watching This Show?

Seriously, who? I've never met a person in my life who ever said, "You know what show I think is really funny? Two and a Half Men! I watch it every week." And yet, it has huge ratings and and crazy Mr. Tiger Blood was the highest paid actor in television because of it. This is as big a mystery to me as how According to Jim stayed on the air for eight years. (How did that one not get canceled immediately much less last for most of a decade?) Who are these people? Is it some vast, dumb-wing conspiracy? Explain it to me.

Musical Time Travel

If for no other reason, it's good to post just so I can get Glenn Beck's pumpkin head off the front of my blog.

I've been reclaiming my teenage years via musical time travel lately. Digital technology is kind of magical in that it allows to find, download, and listen to that one song, the one you liked fourteen years ago when you heard it on the radio that one time. It allows you to get that one song without having to buy the whole album. Bad for the music industry but good for me. So, as I said, I've been revisiting my musical past - mostly late high school and early college. My tastes have always been disappointingly mainstream. My friends were always the ones who knew of obscure indie bands and eschewed the top-40 pap on the radio. My friend Brad ran a dance club for years and was immersed in music in general. He's forgotten more than I ever knew. My friend Jeremy does a weekly music show for Oregon Public Broadcasting and had far more sophisticated musical tastes than me from the get go. Nevertheless, I always kinda liked pop music. I tried to enjoy the more obscure stuff and sometimes did - but more often than not, my CD collection was composed of pretty middle of the road music. Sigh. Never was cool, I guess.

Anyway, most recently I bought:

"Birdhouse In Your Soul" by They Might Be Giants
My friend Tony introduced to me to their album Flood in 1990 or so and I loved it. The songs were quirky and odd but still listenable. TMBG had several singles off this album besides this one. I loved them all.



"Just Like Heaven" by the Cure
I was late coming to the Cure. In junior high, they were just "stupid wavers" to me and it wasn't until high school that I came to appreciate them. The album, Disintegration, is pure late 80s/early 90s goodness. Does anyone remember the song "Lullaby" from this album? Freaked me right out.



"Summertime" by the Sundays
Though my friend Jeremy was a big fan of the Sundays, he hated this song because it sounded nothing like the "real" Sundays. In other words, it was too pop, too accessible, and it got played on the radio. Perfect for me.



"No Rain" by Blind Melon
This song smells like Ricks College and tastes like Craigo's breadsticks. Few things take me back to 1991 faster than this song.



"More Than Words" by Extreme
It was wildly overplayed when it came out and the band members' long, luscious hair seems kind of funny now but I can still listen to this song over and over again. I'm not embarrassed.



So that's been my trip back to the 90s for the last couple of weeks. It's been fun. I spared you the Guns N' Roses this time around.