Out of Her Mind -- Musings on Education and Life

After receiving the news that I had  been accepted into the EdD program. I am halfway through my doctoral course work, and I have hit a wall of stress, fear, and frustration.  I realize that my classes won't go on forever.  Soon, I am going to be an "expert" in an area.  I will have to design a study (and my shaky stats knowledge has got me quaking).  I will have to gain entrance to a research site or sites.  I will have to conduct my research ethically.  I will have to run the right analyses and draw the correct conclusions. I know that my dissertation won't change the world.  I am aware that no one will likely read it aside from my dissertation chair and perhaps my mother.  I know that the best dissertation is a done one.  I realize that the dissertation is not the end of my scholarly quest but rather the beginning. However, I am stuck at point A.  Before I do research, etc., I have to find a topic.  Then I have to n...

What a difference 8 months make!  My last post was right after Nadia graduated from preschool.  Now, she is in the 2nd half of kindergarten.  She has learned to read.  She loves school.  She says that she wants to be a teacher because her teachers take such good care of her (they make sure she gets her enzymes each time she eats at school).  She has even taken to assigning herself homework when she doesn't have any (Wonder where she gets this from?)  This week, I tried to get her to go to bed with the promise that we would finish her homework in the morning--but she wasn't having it.  She cried to do her homework! Her energy and personality manage to keep me from hyper-focusing on her illness all of the time and staying freaked out (as I was in my last post), though it still happens.  This winter, she has been plagued with a chronic hacking cough.  I am assured that this is the result of recurring sinus infections.  Like clockwo...