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 narrow that topic.  I have to do a literat

Some time in June.... Nadia graduated yesterday, and I cried--not because of the significance of the moment (it's only pre-school, and I'm not that sappy!), but because I wondered if I would see another graduation for her--if, in 13 years, she'd be alive and part of the graduating class of 2023! [Okay, that year was weird to write.]  Something was way wrong with me yesterday.  I mean, who loses it at a routine visit to the gyno?  Of course, most people don't go to those visits planning to learn that their daughter will never have children, either.  I suppose I should have known that, logically.  I knew that boys with cf are sterile.  By the time a person with cystic fibrosis is of realistic (out of their teens!) child-bearing age, her health is likely to have deteroriated to the point that pregnancy is out of the question--a danger to the mother, if she is physically able to get pregnant at this point (low weight causes a host of reproductive issues).  I know Nadi