kickaha | Hold that fanfare.

Current Mood: disappointed

Hold that fanfare.

I'm not walking in May. Period. My advisor and I had a major miscommunication... to defend, one must have a ready dissertation document. Them's the rules. They've allowed *one* student to bypass that and that's only because he was living in Brazil and his employer was going to fire him if he didn't successfully defend, so they let him fly up for the defense on a last-minute thing, and he could finish writing it later. Several years later, he still hasn't submitted the completed document, so they're not going to let it happen again.

I was working under the understanding that I would be able to defend once I had the research and results, and could spend the summer writing the last 100 of the 300 pgs or so. Not so. This means there's no way I can make the April 15th deadline to walk in May. C'est la vie.

Time to call the folks and tell them to cancel their plane tickets.

Fuck.

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fux0r!!

dude that so sucks. You need me to kill anyone or anything?

Hell no, I need their signatures! :}

let us get out the rubber hoses and the ball gags, okay?

We promise to share the photos only with you.

(fuckin' A)

Rubber hoses and ball gags?

I thought you wanted to do something *bad* to them!?

It will be. Trust us.

Man, I'm so sorry. I think it's really awful the way stuff like this isn't communicated clearly to grad students. Folks in my lab told me that one basically has to find out all this stuff on one's own; do they just expect a person to be born with all the rules memorized?

Eh, it was just a miscommunication between the advisor and I... when I asked if I needed a 'complete dissertation document' before the defense, and he said no, that I just needed a preliminary run at it, *I* took it as meaning that I didn't need a complete draft. *He* meant it that I needed a complete draft, but not a completed final document.

So I've been looking at the document, and the entire missing chapters, and thinking that I could add a couple of pages in each outlining the section for the committee prior to the defense. Not so. Each one needs to be in a pretty-well-completed form before the defense, which I simply can't do by April 15.

::hugs::

I'll break kneecaps if you need. I can be all scary and ghetto and GRRRR-like. Or I can give you a hug and wish I could feed you steak or chicken soup or something.

That sucks, hon.

Thanks, it turns out it's really not as bad as I thought, but still, a bit jarring.

I knew a guy once who had finished his thesis, defended, gone through graduation, and was working at the Institute for Advanced Studies who about a year later was informed that he *wasn't* a PhD graduate until he came back and fixed the formating on his thesis (it seems the margins were wrong). He had to come back for a few weeks while the formating nazi's nit picked his thesis layout. It was ugly.

Oh yeah. We have The Ruler Lady at UNC. She's infamous. But, I'm using a LaTeX style that has been successfully used by many students in the past, so at worst I'll have to tweak some things. :)

I'm sorry to hear that UNCCH is just like UH. But I have to say, I've heard that story about "I'll just finish the corrections and send them to you, trust me" a hundred times. You really, really want to be done when you leave. As much as the change in timeframe stinks for you, I will rest better knowing that you won't be in this "defended, but not done" grey twilight - it REALLY fucks with your head, and I've seen that up close.

Yeah, I've known a few others who had *literally* small edits to make, but they took months and months, and... yeah, I'd rather be done.

Luckily, there is a bright side in that it really doesn't change *anything* for me other than the pomp and circumstance. June 30th is my new hard deadline due to a committee member's adjunct professorship expiring, and frankly, that's about the time I'd have a solid draft anyway to have it in in time to graduate for real in August, which was the original plan. So now I have a solid draft, defend by June 30th, and then have a few weeks to do the final edits and format tweaking, submit it, and be done for real, 100%, big as life.

At least, that's the New Five Year Plan. ;)

I guess the good thing about the June 30th writing deadline is it forces you to write quick. And you can have your own kick-ass graduation party after. Sorry you miss out on walking, though. Does UNC have funky outfits the Ph.D.s get to wear? (At UW, they get to wear purple velvet as you may know; I always thought that was cool. Nothing special for the M.S. though.)

Oh yeah. They're Carolina blue (a peculiar sky blue) with navy velvet panels and sidebars, with the UNC crest embroidered in the lapel panels in sky blue.

Oh heck, here:

Cool!

Yeah. Of course, I just cancelled my order... :\

Ah well. Better to spend the money after I know if academia is where I end up.

Shouldn't they have replaced the Shields with the new, crappy Old Well symbol that looks just like a mug of beer?

Now *that* I haven't seen...

got a pic?

sent you email with a version of it - I still haven't managed to locate a place to host LJ pics...
Anything going on tonite? Bored...

We were at dinner with friends in CH tonight who *really* needed some cheering and distraction. This has been a Very Bad Week for many people.

If you're free Sunday (afternoon/early evening), I might be having a small gathering while K works...

I hope you got the messages that

curvyart left for you! It occured to me today that we never spoke directly with you, and I hope there wasn't some massive miscommunication that left you feeling blown-off. I didn't reply to this earlier because I was looking for your email addy rather than posting, then I just spaced on Saturday. But I hope you had some fun yesterday anyway.

I did, indeed. :) I didn't feel blown off, but I appreciate you asking.

We both needed a weekend of rest (I actually got to hang out with K for *4* hours this weekend! And he didn't have his laptop on his lap!)

Hope to see you soon. It has been too long.

Hmmmmm, and just what WAS on his lap, I wonder! ;)

Aww, I'm sorry that's the case. :(

Yeah, bummer, but it turns out it won't really materially change anything for me, so *shrug* :}

well, that's good then. Oh & I guess I should've read the other comments!

misunderstandings are terribly frustrating - sorry to hear that you got caught in one. they leave a bitter taste that's hard to get rid of.

it sounds like you know your plan/timeline though, so that's a good thing. let me know if there's anything i can do to help. :)

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Hold that fanfare.

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At the very least,

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It could be worse...

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Feh, I'm sorry.

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:(

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misunderstandings