Unfortunately I had a bit of disappointment yesterday too: I am getting this great graduation gift and I thought it would be delivered tomorrow, but there has been a hold up. Now I’m trying to rearrange my schedule and figure out a different time to take delivery. (The next few weeks are packed with relatives visiting, graduation events, etc.) Oh well, a minor blip. But still sad. Meanwhile, I have a HUGE to-do list of things that need to get done before company arrives next week, and it’s hard to find the motivation when also shouldering that disappointing news.

Happy times though, really. Happy times!

(And I passed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Now here’s the story.

I didn’t sleep well for several nights, and woke up Friday at about 4. By 5 or 5:30 I was out of bed and feeling very anxious. Even though that other meeting, the preliminary one, is said to be the tougher one, I found that my chest was tight (actually, my whole body was tight) and my stomach was upside down. While I am required to drink coffee due to the crippling withdrawl I suffer if I don’t, I certainly did not need it that morning. I was wired!!

Anyway, I exercised, showered, got ready, and was out the door around 8. Here’s a picture Mr. N snapped of me on my way out.

After I left the house, I went to a bakery and picked up the 2 dozen pastries I’d ordered earlier that week. I had no idea how many people might attend, so I figured more was better. (7 people attended, including me. Mr. N brought most of the pastries back to his office after the defense.)

I arrived at the campus a little before 8:30. I snapped this picture for Instagram. The first step toward my defense from my car. Or, the last step of what have been many, many, many steps taken to get to this point. Either way, I loved my shoes.

My advisor was already there, so we got the electronics set up. A little back-story here: one of my committee members had a family emergency on Tuesday that caused them to have to be out of town during my defense. Thankfully, the university will let a committee member attend remotely if they have a good reason, and if the rest of the committee says it’s OK. So we set up the web conferencing system and this person was able to log in and participate online. Whew. Finding all this out was very stressful for me earlier last week! Mainly because my advisor was out of the country all week, only arriving back very late Thursday night, and his signature was required to allow this remote attendance. All I can say is thank goodness for text messaging, email, and understanding office staff. We managed to get it approved using these three saving graces.

At about 9, we started. My advisor introduced me and I was given the floor. In attendance (in person) were my committee, my husband, our friend, and a doctoral student who was interested in seeing the process. In attendance (online) was my other committee member, plus a few special guests. Doing it online with a web conference meant that my parents and grandparents could also watch. How cool is that? They all got logged in and watched it, along with my aunt.

A big “blow” to me was that because of the screen sharing for the web conference, I could not see my powerpoint notes. I was going to have to do it off the top of my head, and I am NOT a person who reads off her slides, so I got pretty choked up at first, trying to remember what I was going to say on the first couple of slides. (One person later told me they thought I might throw up!!) But then I remembered what my husband, my dad, and many others have told me: “you know this stuff now. you don’t need those notes.” Once I stopped expending brain power trying to remember what my notes said, I was able to let the information just come out, and it got a lot easier. My presentation lasted about 40 minutes, after which there was some public questioning.

The public questioning is when the committee and anyone else can ask you questions about your research, and you answer (“defend”). The way I interpret it is that the committee uses this time to ask you ‘easier’ questions they know you can answer, and that allow you to elaborate on parts of your research for the purpose of the public attendees understanding more about it. I have little sense of how long this public questioning session lasted, but I’d guess about a half hour. It seemed like the entire experience lasted about 10 minutes, when it really was over 2.5 hours.

Then, everyone was asked to leave/log out except for my committee members. Mr. N and our friend waited in the hall for me. Again, it felt like a few minutes, but Mr. N said I was in there with my committee for over 45 minutes, closing in on an hour. Here, they asked me the harder questions. They didn’t necessarily grill me or make me recite anything, it wasn’t like that. It was more that they were trying to engage me in a deep conversation about research–mine, and in general. They asked me about publishing, about implications of my work, and several other aspects of it. They also asked me about my experience in qualitative research (that’s the interviewing and talking to people part, the part that isn’t statistics). I was SO GLAD that it had occurred to me to review my methodology chapter prior to the defense–I had forgotten a lot of the qualitative terms and because of my review, I was able to remember exactly what I had done and why.

Eventually I was asked to leave the room, so I went out in the hallway and sat with my husband and friend. I think we sat there for about 10 minutes or so, before my advisor came out and asked me back in. I went back in, shut the door, sat down, and he told me they had decided to grant me my degree. “Congratulations, Dr. ___________”.

Whoa.

My husband and friend came back in to the room then, they signed all the papers that needed signing, and that. Was. That.

No revisions either. Just done.

I really thought I would cry at that moment, but I was actually too numb to feel much of everything. In fact, I went home afterward, changed out of my suit, and just kind of wandered around the house thinking “what should I do now?” I considered going back to work. I’d taken the whole day off figuring I would be too excited/distracted to work, but I couldn’t think of anything to do! I also hadn’t eaten anything that day, but couldn’t think of anything I wanted to eat, either. Eventually I did errands. Grocery store, FedEx, DMV. I am a very exciting person, y’all.

Mr. N did leave work early though, and we had a late lunch of a dessert called a chocolate chimi. Basically a fried dough dessert stuffed with fudge and caramel and served with ice cream. Yum. Then later, we went out to dinner with our friend and after that, my advisor came over so we could all drink a toast. We ended the night with a movie at home, with our friend. Saturday, Mr. N and I went out for lunch and totally pigged out. Then ice cream.

So I basically celebrated by eating… a LOT. Haha. I like food, what can I say?!

On sunday, I finished formatting my dissertation document within the standards required by our university. Then I turned it in (electronically).

And that truly is that.

Graduation is in 2 weeks.

I still don’t feel how I thought I would feel. I think I’m too much of a realist, or you could say a pessimist. (A pessimistic realist?) I want the degree in my hand before I’ll be allowed to feel truly happy. There are too many factors at play still (in my worst-case-scenario mind).

But really I think I truly can NOT believe it. 4 years that simultaneously felt like a decade and no time at all… and here I am.

In the next two weeks I have some big plans. They include a hair cut, a lot of prep for family visiting (my folks haven’t seen our house in 2.5 years; other relatives have never seen it!), and planning of a graduation reception. And, I’m looking forward to getting the graduation gift from Mr. N (I had to be involved, so I already know what it is)… which I will surely post about here. Note that my plans do not include any more dissertation work because wow! I’m done! (This summer, I will deal with the printing, binding, and all that jazz.)

So it’s fitting today, that I got this.

Woop!

(Defense is coming right up! I’ll update again on that soon. It’s been a dramatic (isn’t it always), but also very manageable and very final couple of weeks.)

As I announced last Tuesday, I received the preliminary approval. Here’s how that went.

At the meeting, I was expected to prepare a 20 minute presentation of my dissertation. A summary of it, basically. I did this using powerpoint (and memorized what to say so I wouldn’t have to read from the slides), and it turns out, this was largely unnecessary because I did not make it through the whole thing! The purpose of the presentation (at least in my case) was to jog the memories of the committee members. (So by the time I got to my third slide, they were ready to start asking me questions as something I said would trigger one of their comments.) My 20 minute presentation took 2 hours, and I only actually spoke about maybe a third of the slides. (We looked at some of the others as a group though.) It was pretty cool.

There were a lot of, I will say, minor issues. The types of things where more sources might be requested, or I had something worded in such a way that it didn’t come across properly. These are/were mostly able to be addressed by changing a word, a sentence, or a paragraph. (Yay!) There was one more data analysis they wanted me to run to clarify something (took a few hours). The one major issue two of them noticed was that I got a wee bit too creative toward the end. Especially in Chapter 5 (discussion), I got ahead of myself. I will try to explain:

My surveys measured really basic things, so chapter 5 should have discussed how these basic things could relate to the next (less basic) level. Instead, I took it all the way to the ‘top’ level. In other words, my survey measured the most basic things, and my discussion/conclusion was all about the most advanced things. Jumping to conclusions I could not draw from my own data, if you will. So the biggest revision is that I needed to change THAT, which amounted to some changes in the abstract, chapter 1 (intro), and chapter 4 (results), and a partial rewrite of chapter 5. That’s due (printed) to the committee members by the 20th (which gives them a week to review it before my defense). Totally doable. Most of it’s already done, at this point.

At the meeting, they signed the preliminary approval form. At the same time, I printed the notice of defense form. My advisor signed that, then we tracked down the department chair (he was in his office, not exactly *hard* to track down) and he signed what he needed to sign. Then, my advisor and I walked over to the administration building, turned in the forms, and had lunch. Then I went back to work.

On Wednesday morning, the university officially announced my defense time and date. It was surreal to see. I’ve seen so many other announcements of these, but this one with my name in it was just nuts!

On Wednesday during my lunch hour, I printed a copy of the dissertation and brought it over to the administration building for a ‘format check’. I also had to fill out two forms regarding this, and I had to complete an online survey and show proof I had done so (the Survey of Earned Doctorates–it’s national). The formatting person will go through the dissertation and see if the format meets the university’s standards. She will provide a checklist of things that must be fixed before they receive the final version (due by May 3). I’m not sure when I’ll receive that checklist.

On Wednesday after work, I sat down with the meeting recording (what a great idea, my advisor had me bring a handheld recorder!), the notes my advisor took (again, great), and the copies I’d received from the committee members (with their notes/questions written throughout). I went through all of these things (as well as my own memory) and made a table of:
–the change
–who suggested it
–what/where it was addressed in the paper

My advisor suggested this. I filled/am filling out the last column as things get done, and I will provide the table to the committee along with their revised copy later this week. That will make it easy for them to find the changes.

On Thursday after work, I received a form in the mail from the university. I had to fill it out with information about commencement, and it told me where to go, what to wear, and how they deal with the whole “hooding” thing. (You buy your hood, but it’s delivered to the office and they deal with it. I won’t actually receive my hood until the graduation day, even though I’ll buy it with my gown and cap.) I filled out the form and stuck it in Friday’s mail.

There are probably about 5 more forms I have to keep track of and turn in at the proper times before all of this is over. There will be fees to pay and all that jazz, also. Every day it’s something new, and I can honestly say I’m kind of enjoying the paperwork at this point because instead of tangible evidence of things that are holding me back, these forms are shooting me forward. Justlikethat, I went from ‘possible candidate’ to “you’re graduating.” And all I have to do is:

–fill out a lot of forms
–complete these revisions (and any more that they might give me at the defense)
–make a defense presentation and give it

I also got accepted to a poster presentation research fair thing, and that’s this Friday, so I have to make a poster that represents my 300-page monster of a study. One poster.

It’s also my birthday today.

I received a lot of changes. They all made sense and will be fine to accomplish in the time I’ve been allotted (April 21). The defense is scheduled a week after that.

The meeting took 2.5 hours, most of which was discussion. I had prepared a 20-30 minute presentation of my work, and I did give most of it, but pieces because each slide raised questions and points of discussion for the committee.

I’ll write a little more in a few days, perhaps, about what happens now. I’m at work and normally would not blog from work, but needed to let you know the good news!

Tomorrow is the preliminary approval hearing. Here is what I understand will happen:

The committee and I will meet. I will give a 20 minute overview of my dissertation, with powerpoint slides to push it along. Then, we will discuss it. They will tell me their concerns with it, and discuss them amongst each other too. They will decide on what changes are necessary to be made before the defense. They will then decide if I they trust I can make those changes in the 2.5 weeks I would have between now and then.

Of course, with the rate at which I have had to make a lot of very major changes to this dissertation, I feel like I could do practically anything in 2.5 weeks. But it’s up to them whether they believe that, or not. If they believe that (in other words, if they have the “good faith” that was absent in the fall), they will sign a preliminary approval form. This form indicates to me and to the university that the committee will not ask for any more major changes to the dissertation, and that it is overall good enough. It also indicates that they have faith in my ability to make it exactly what they’re looking for in the time allotted. (It is designed to protect me, so that I don’t get to my defense and have someone say something like “actually, I don’t like what you did at all. Please redo all of your analyses” or anything like that.) Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that tomorrow, by midday, I will know (or be 99% sure*) that I am either graduating or not graduating.

I’m very, very nervous. Tomorrow could be a turning point of magnitude I have yet to experience during this degree, or it could be another crushing disappointment.

I’ll let you know.

*In my program, it is highly unlikely that a person would fail at the final defense stage. The defense is seen more as a celebration/public exposition. This preliminary approval meeting is the ‘bigger’ one, in my understanding, wherein you either cut it or you bite it.

Because of Mrs. N, I’m getting a Ph.D.

Wait, what?!

Yes, I’m totally blaming her!!

See, THREE days after I completed my master’s degree—the degree I SWORE would be the last—I e-mailed Mrs. N basically introducing myself (I’m sure I was totally creepy about it, too!) and basically begged her to convince me that getting a PhD isn’t a death wish.

Her response was something along the lines of omgdoityouhaveto! Mind you, she said this to a complete stranger. (Mrs. N’s comment: Ahh, those were the days, I still had hope and a glimmer of optimism in my eye. Just kidding! Sorta…)

Almost two years later, I’m happy to tell you that not only am I plugging away at my Ph.D., but Mrs. N is one of my favorite people in the whole world! I tell her pretty much all the things.

Admittedly, the purpose of this post is not to convince you how awesome of a friendship Mrs. N and I have developed as a result of our in-common Ph.D. trials, but rather to tell you (with the help of Mrs. N) what it’s like to get a Ph.D. from an online institution (me) compared to a brick-and-mortar institution (Mrs. N).

A Little Background on Me
I have a bachelor’s of business administration in entrepreneurship with minors in management and accounting (BBA), a master’s of leadership and management (MLM), and am working on my philosophy doctorate in business administration with an emphasis in management (PhD). My first two degrees are from brick-and-mortar institutions, although my masters program was non-traditional.

Why I Chose to Do This Online
Once I was convinced to jump on this terrifying Ph.D. roller coaster, it became very clear to me that I would have to earn this degree via the internets. See, I live in Kansas and the sole business related Ph.D. is a program that 6 people are admitted to every year, you MUST live on campus, you MUST NOT have another job, and it would take at least SIX years to complete. What the what?! I could not fulfill a single one of those requirements—I live 4 hours from the school, refuse to quit my job (I’ll tell you why later), and didn’t have six years of life I was willing to commit when I knew I could do it faster another way.

Requirements, Accreditation, and How I Found the Right Online Institution
In my experience, shopping for a school to attend online is similar to punching yourself in the face and wondering how you got here in the first place. I got lucky—I was able to pinpoint the right school with the right degree program for me in a matter of about 2 weeks. I’m relatively search savvy—by that I mean that I can research the dickens out of a topic and come up with a suitable (most times, the best) solution relatively fast. Many people, though, are not so gifted. In the event that you travel this avenue (online higher education), do yourself a favor and write down a list of requirements. Before you do that, however, find at least ONE school and research their admissions requirements as well as their program requirements so you have an idea of what these institutions require of you.

Going into this degree, I knew it would not benefit me to travel once a year to a physical campus to complete a residency requirement. I also knew that I wanted to complete the fewest, although the most beneficial, credit hours possible. In addition, cost was a big factor—this is another reason why leaving Kansas was not an option—because my employer pays for the entire balance of my education costs up to $12,000 per year. The biggest requirement, however, was that the institution had to have a good reputation and solid accreditation in my field. What’s the point of working your life away on a degree that no one will respect?!

I sought information from 4 major online universities—University of Phoenix, Webster University, Capella University, and Northcentral University. To sum things up, the 3 universities I eliminated did not fulfill my requirements in one or more ways. I chose Northcentral University (and thankfully they chose me, too!) because they have the highest business related accreditation an online institution can have. Here’s a quote from their website:

ACCREDITATION
Northcentral University is regionally accredited by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Regional accreditation is the most respected and recognized, whether a school is online or campus-based. (Source: ncu.edu)

In addition to accreditation, the institution required only 60 credit hours of course work, they had no residency requirements, and the tuition was the least expensive of all the schools (PSA: that has since changed, it’s about the same as the rest now).

My Program
In my program, I will complete 15 3-credit-hour courses. Right now I’m on course number 8 (I’ll complete 11 by the time my 2 year anniversary with the school comes around). Once those courses are complete, I’ll do my comprehensive exams. Following satisfactory completion of my comps, I’ll begin the first of four (and up to seven) dissertation courses. Then, of course, defense.

At NCU all dissertation defenses are held via teleconference. All students of the university are given the information on each defense via the online portal and are welcome to call in and listen. I am unaware of the use of video–I’m assuming that not all students have access to a webcam, so I don’t think this is a requirement (also, would be very awkward if, say, the person were in their office and they have a big portrait of themselves in a clown suit in the background, yeah?). I’m not sure if all universities behave this way, but I would be prepared for any and all requirements–dissertations are serious business.

I will “graduate” as soon as my dissertation is complete. This means that I could graduate in July and not “graduate” until the following May (this is actually very likely in my case). NCU has one graduation per year and it is held in Arizona where the school is located (there really isn’t a physical school, just a business with educational staff running the show). If I choose to walk, I’ll fly to Arizona for this ceremony. I haven’t decided–I may just purchase my $500 (yes, $500!!!) garb and prance around my house in my floppy hat and big stole.

A Typical Class
A typical class for me starts with an introduction to my ‘mentor’ (what my school calls our professors). In most cases I request the syllabus months in advance so I can begin to understand the workload and begin scheduling my life around it (example: taking the hardest stats class of my education is NOT a good idea around the holidays). I like to have the first assignment complete before the course begins (always on a Monday, any Monday of any month—another difference from brick and mortar schools). For 12 weeks, I will complete 8 to 13 assignments, which will determine my completion of the course. I interact only with my mentor and do not have classmates. Due to the intervals in which students begin and end courses, it is highly unlikely that I will take a class at the same time as another student, especially courses specific to my degree program.

Is it a Good Fit?
I really love the online learning platform. It fits my life. I work 40+ hours a week, am the president of an emerging leaders organization within my workplace, and am planning a wedding in December 2012. I’ve got a full plate on a daily basis and flexibility in my school schedule is essential to my success.

You Must Be An Active Learner
However, the only caveat I have: procrastination is not okay. If higher education via an online institution is something you want to explore, ensure that you consider yourself a superior communicator, understand APA formatting (what nearly all institutions require you write in), and are disciplined enough to teach yourself, do your homework on time, and ask enough questions to truly understand what is expected of you.

If you have more questions about my PhD journey, start here. I began detailing my courses there (I’m behind on that project!). If you have more questions, don’t hesitate to email me at
dr [DOT] karianne {at} gmail (D0T) com!

If any other grad students out there have some time–procrastinating an assignment? waiting for changes from advisor? need something to keep your brain busy for a few minutes?–and would like to write up something about your overall experience or just a small part, send it to me. I’ll post it on this blog as “another perspective.”
Email: nodakademic {at} gmail (D0T) com.

So this could be good news or bad news.

Good news, if they have looked through it and they don’t see anything significant wrong with it. That’d be great (and unbelievable)!

Bad news, if they have not looked through it yet, but when they do they MIGHT find significant things. (This is more likely the case. I know people are busy and it’s a long paper. While the March 30 ‘deadline’ was a courtesy/safeguard my advisor built in for me, it is not a real deadline and can certainly be ignored without any repercussion to the committee members.)

If they have not looked through it yet–but when they do they find issues–this is not automatically bad news for me. The university rules are that they can still sign the forms for approval on the good faith that I will implement their changes and/or address their concerns prior to the defense (which will potentially be at the end of the month). However, it is up to each member whether they want to extend that ‘good faith.’ You might recall that in the fall, they did not.

So it all comes down to “we’ll see.” Patience is what I have to have, so I have been spending my time doing a lot of little house repairs. Lots of things I want to fix before family visits for graduation (if I graduate). Like dimmer switches that shock you when you touch them, for example. (Fixed!)

And because I can’t stand downtime, I applied to a research fair. If I get accepted, I’ll be presenting my research in a poster session. (You make a poster of your findings, then stand in a room with a bunch of others who have done the same, and everyone walks around and looks at each other’s.) The application process was really wishy-washy though, and I have been unable to get ahold of the person in charge. So, we’ll see.

I also need to make a 20 minute powerpoint presentation & speech about my dissertation. I will give it at the preliminary approval hearing. That’s a weekend project, I suppose.

Privacy and Professionalism
My position/future position is not really compatible with a tell-all personal blog. And while I realize that ‘telling all’ isn’t what I do here–I am pretty reserved–I still think I tell too much. Am I comfortable with a future employer, acquaintance, or some other future person knowing my thoughts about politics or parenting, what I cook for dinner, or what the inside of my house looks like, or the diet I was on and failed at? I’m not. At all.

Interlinking Personal and Professional
You could argue with my first concern by saying “but you don’t use your real name!” That’s true, but more and more people know my screen name and associate it with my real name. Case in point: a committee I’m on is planning to start using Twitter. Another case: several of my ‘real life’ friends and family are on Pinterest and want to know if I am too. I can circumvent these issues by having two Pinterest accounts and two Twitter accounts. A lot of people do… but I do not want to. I want a simpler life, not a more complicated one. It’s hard enough to keep what I say on Facebook separate from what I say on Twitter; productivity tools don’t always work in a pinch (and I fully attribute this to user error, but still). And I like my screen name. I want to keep it and use it for those avenues.

Privacy and the Future
I am a victim of my own planning. As I blog, I always have to look to the future and think, “where am I going with this?” Am I planning to blog the rest of my life? I’m not, because I don’t think it’s right (for me/my life) to blog about kids (when we decide to have them). I don’t want pictures of my future kids online, and I don’t want to write about their lives online.

Apathy (I’m a Poser)
Clearly if I really loved this personal blogging thing, I’d make the above work with the multiple accounts and what-have-you. But I’m not. I’m not crafty, and when I am I have little need/drive to share my crafts online. There was a time when I enjoyed cooking and photographing the food, or doing house projects and photographing those. That time passed several months ago. It is, and has for a long time, been a chore. I find myself annoyed that I “have to blog this.” Those posts are not fun for me. Plus, I feel so fakey when I write them. Like I’m tied to using what I consider to be trite blogger buzzwords like “DIYed!” and “Reveal!” (Please don’t take offense if you like these words and use them. I use(d) them too. But I personally don’t like them.) This blog was never supposed to be about all that stuff. It was supposed to be school and photography. That’s it. That’s why I started this blog. I lost my way after the wedding, getting sucked in to ‘newlywed blogs’ and ‘lifestyle blogs’ and wanting a piece of it. But it is not my thing.

All of this Culminates to…
This last issue was clearly the big issue, but it ties to all the others. I want to represent my true self online, but I needed to choose how I’ll do it. The only time I feel truly honest while blogging is when I blog about grad school. There aren’t a lot of blogs about grad school (in comparison to blogs about say… home improvement, or parenting), and I suppose that is because grad students are so head-in-the-sand busy (of course, so are parents and home improvers and many others!) but also because grad school is a very individual thing. Hard to share and hard to relate to. My grad school posts have helped me work through a lot of issues and process a lot of the work I’ve done, especially during my dissertation. I am proud of them. Furthermore, I think I’ve picked up a few readers who are grad students, and I hope they are enjoying reading about my journey, too. (One of them–a good friend–is going to guest post here on Monday, by the way.)

When I was going through the posts (and I went through ALL of them, guys. It took several weeks, but kept me busy in my downtime), I had to decide what to keep and what to dump. Here’s the frame of reference I worked from (that’s researcher-speak for “this is what I decided the blog is about”).

My journey to a PhD in a field of education, with a snippet of my life here and there.

So with that in mind, in addition to the grad school posts, I decided to keep:

• most of the cat posts (we adopted them each during grad school and they ‘help’ us a great deal with our work).
• the ‘big life events’ posts (like our marriage, buying our house, Mr. N’s masters, etc)
• some of the ‘trip’ posts, but not in as much detail (just a few pictures and a brief description)
• smaller (but important) life events, mentioned more ‘in passing’, especially if I have a picture or two (like holidays or a fender bender).

What’s missing then? About 500 very detailed posts about my feelings, thoughts, opinions, big and small house projects, and other details I no longer feel comfortable with putting “out there.” Most pictures of us are also now missing, unless they’re from far away and/or show us doing decidedly ‘academic’ things. Am I trying to pass myself off as someone who is 1-dimensional and only professional/academic? Not at all. I’m just choosing what is shared publicly, online. Obviously I know that once it’s online, it is never really removed. That’s fine. It’s not like I wrote any national secrets. I just would rather they be gone, from here, now.

I realize I may lose readers by doing this (in 2010, people complained when I started blogging more about school), but readership isn’t why I blog*. I know I will never make a living from blogging. (I seriously make about 6 cents a month from Google Adsense), and I do not have any intention of having a career that involves blogging for any other than academic reasons (e.g., having students use blogs in class projects)). So I am not in this for popularity. (Besides, I have long known that my projects and life are not ‘adorable’ enough to pull mass readership, and I’m not up for the amount of work and self-promotion it takes to get to that point.)

*But I do want to be clear that it isn’t the long time readers and commenters I’m concerned about reading this semi-personal stuff…it’s whomever else. (Coworkers, colleagues, trolls, or others who without context or background, wouldn’t “get” it.)

Anyway, here is what readers can expect from here-on-out. I will continue to blog about grad school, as I have been for years. Expect those posts ‘as they come,’ which I imagine for the next few months will be pretty often. I will also continue to post occasionally about the cats, probably mostly just pictures. I will continue to pop in with life events or interesting things like weather, and/or photos (random or from a trip, or whatever). This again, adheres to that bold text above. It’s a PhD blog, with a little extra ‘life’ sprinkled here and there.

If you want to stick with me, do. I hope you will. The posting frequency will drop, especially after I graduate, but I’m sure I’ll update here and there. (A PhD doesn’t stop after grad school! There are publications! Presentations! And that whole “Job” thing!) And the fact that Mr. N’s PhD is in progress too, and thus graduate school will remain a major factor in our lives for some time to come.) You can pop this blog in to your RSS reader if you want, and you’ll see something if I post it.

Now with all that over with, I will give you a run-down of the new categories/tags/labels of the posts. (With a blog about grad school, I can’t just file everything under ‘grad school’.) These are on the right sidebar of the site, by the way, if you’re looking for specific types of posts.

Grad School tags:

• Pre-Admission: Before I was accepted to my PhD program.
• Admitted and Green: I’m excited! I’m accepted! I’m a new PhD student! I have energy!
• Coursework: When I was taking courses.
• The Comps: Those were… fun.
• Proposal: What it takes to become a candidate and start dissertating.
• Dissertation: Guess what this tag is for.
• The Old Topic: My first dissertation topic, before I changed it.
• Advisor Meetings: I tend to write about them.
• Logistics of Learning: Forms and handbooks and checklists, oh my.
• Approval: I could call this “wins”. This is when I get signatures.
• Deficiency: “Fails.” You can guess.
• Emotional Bias: These posts have more emotion/passion/feeling than average grad school posts.
• Limitations: Stuff that has held me back.
• Married… with Homework: Marriage and grad school make interesting bedfellows.
• Another Perspective: Academic-related guest posts. Are you a grad student? Do you want to contribute? Please email me if you do. Nodakademic at the g to the mail dot com.

Somewhat, or not grad school tags:

• Figures: Posts with pictures
• Holiday “Break”: Trips, holidays, and semester breaks. Break is in quotes because grad students don’t get breaks.
• Curriculum Vita: presentations, publications, and other resume builders
• Cats: Self-explanatory.
• Living Life (in the North): Miscellaneous life stuff including home, weather, and other such biz.

For every day stuff, more photos, and all that jazz, I plan to rely on Twitter. So if you’re not following me there, you might want to follow @Nodakademic. You can also follow me on Pinterest (Nodakademic); I’m pretty active there and intend to continue being. I hope you will join me…losing connections with many of you is the main reason I have put off this change for so long.

So. What do you think about all of this? Will you keep reading, or are you headed for the ‘unsubscribe’ button as you read this?

The tornadic activity south of us earlier this month got me thinking about our approaching tornado season. I figured that, while my committee is reviewing my dissertation, I had some time to take action on all of this. Each year, we seem to at least have a few tornados that push us down to the safety of the basement. When that happens, we always grab the cats and shut them down there with us.

(Rusty and a bunch of our important junk, during a 2010 tornado warning.)

Thankfully, that’s as far as our preparedness has ever had to go. But if a tornado did touch down in our neighborhood, we have additional steps I have figured we would take:

Put cats on their harnesses/leashes, take them and go under the basement steps. That’s the most structurally-sound part of our home, I think. Support beams, a staircase, and exterior walls. No windows either. (This is also where our litter boxes are, but I’d rather be covered in airborne cat crap than dead.)

But I’ve often wondered what you’re truly supposed to do with your pet during a weather disaster (such as a tornado or earthquake). Opinions I’ve heard seem to vary on the subject, but people seem to fall in to two camps:

1) Leave animals free: their instincts will keep them safer than you can. Cats especially are flexible and resilient.

2) Cage/confine animals in the same place as yourself.

I finally decided to look it up, and found out that animal rescue and welfare organizations definitely recommend option 2. Outside animals should be brought inside, and any animals should be confined.

I read up about all of this stuff over time, so I don’t remember from where I got each bit of information. Here are some resources on pets and disasters, though:
The Humane Society – Tornadoes: Keeping Pets Safe
RedCross Dog – Pet Safety: Tornadoes
eHow – How to Keep Pets Safe During a Tornado
About – Preparing Your Cats for Disaster
Cat Channel – Prepare your Cats for Natural Disasters
Pet Place – Plan Now to Protect Your Pet in a Natural Disaster

I found the following suggestions:
Cats: hard-sided carrier (one for each pet)
Small dogs: hard-sided carrier (one for each pet)
Large dogs: place on leash.
Other small animals,birds and reptiles: small hard-sided cage/carrier.
Sea life: hard-sided plastic bucket/pail.

If your pet can wear a collar, get one with his name, address, and phone number on it and make sure he wears it during bad weather. Also, write it in permanent marker on the outside of the pet carrier. If your city microchips animals, have that done also. (Most Grand Forks animal services do not have microchip scanners, so our cats are not microchipped.)

Though the sites recommend it, I do not have any emergency cat food or supplies, and I don’t really feel it’s necessary. A tornado is a very localized storm. They come in quickly and pass through within minutes (or at most, a few hours). Odds are, if it blew down our house, it would not blow down the Walmart across town. Or the one 20 miles away, for that matter. (We also have lots of wonderful relatives within a 100 mile radius–so if our cars were no longer drivable, someone would come get us I bet!)

People’s safety should always come first, but once all people are secure, the pets should hide out the storm with you. If you’re hiding in a closet or interior room, all animals should be in it with you. If you’re hiding under the steps, same thing. If you go to a storm cellar, bring the pets too. People without basements (or with a full bathroom in their basement) often hide in their bathtub because it is a hard-sided, secure structure. (While searching out this information, I saw a photo someone had taken of a bunch of cats on leashes sitting in a bathtub. Cute.)

Most of the information I read said you should get your pets ready for emergency as soon as you have a storm warning. I confess: we don’t do this. Eastern ND gets its fair share of tornado warnings, so we do it in phases. We go to the basement first (with the cats), and Mr. N studies the weather maps on his laptop (while I usually alternate between going halfway up the stairs to look out the door at the purple/yellow sky, and running back down to ask “what’s it say?”).

Like I said earlier, we’ve been fortunate to never have to do any more than that. Also, our cats are really easy to put in their cages, so it would take us only seconds to get them in there and get to our hiding place. I would also plan to use rope to secure the carriers to one of the main support beams for the house.

Tangent: Honestly, I feel like a tornado is less scary than an earthquake, if for no other reason than you DO know, at least with a minute or two of warning, that a tornado or very high winds are coming. You can hear it. (And if you’ve lived somewhere that has them long enough, I dare say you can feel it in the air sometimes.) You can also see the patterns on real-time internet radars, and if you listen to AM radio or the Weather Service feed, they will tell you if a tornado has touched down and which way it’s moving (and how fast it’s going). Still, you don’t want to mess around. (End of tangent.)

It occurred to me after reading about this stuff that Rusty doesn’t have a hard sided carrier. We received a free carrier when we got Cleo, but Rusty only has a cheap nylon soft-sided bag. It’s too small for him, too. When I put him in it, he looks like he’s wearing it. When he had his UTI in the fall, I had to cram him in to Cleo’s carrier and the poor guy was really jammed in it. “Oh, you want to turn around? Sorry, not possible.”

(Rusty lying in his too-small soft carrier during a 2011 tornado warning. He’s so good, he put himself in it. I don’t think he’s a huge cat, but he’s pretty tall and simply cannot stand up or move around in normal sized cat carriers.)

(Here he is busting his way out of it in the car, just by trying to stand up. Side note: what kind of dummy puts a velcro closure on a cat cage??)

Inspired by the reading I’d done, I decided I needed to get Rusty a carrier that actually fit. $40 later and we have a Terrier Carrier (haha).

Each carrier has the cat’s name, our last name, and our phone number on the outside, written on duct tape on the outside of it. There is a more detailed info card taped inside the little ‘treat compartment’ on the lid of each carrier. This is probably overkill and something we’ll never need, but it’s such a quick and easy thing to do, I figured, ‘why not.’

The info cards have the same info as the outside, plus:
–our home address
–emergency phone number (a close by relative)
–email address
–statement that they have their shots and are fixed.
If they had any medical problems, I’d put them on the card too.

There, now we’re ready.

Ready for tornado season, but hopefully only needing to be ready for trips to the vet.

Interesting product alert: This looks kind of weird and wouldn’t provide much protection from debris (for tornado/earthquake), but it’s what rescuers used for Hurricane Katrina animal refugees – “Evac Sak.” It was invented by someone who was trying to think of a quick way to evacuate animal shelters in a disaster. I think it’d be useful if you had–say–three cats and could only carry 2 cages. It’s basically a breathable bag for your cat, and has a shoulder strap.