Dissertation: ALMOST DONE

A lot has been going on in our lives recently, and I'll write about some of it soon. For now, I want to share some news with you (and a focus for your prayers). I have basically finished the text of my dissertation and am now working on polishing it to send to the committee!

Today I wrote the abstract, you can read it at http://thomasfamilyweb.net/matt/abstract.htm. It has to be under 350 words, so it's not a long read.

My plan is to send it on its way by the middle of next week. Believe it or not! It feels good to be getting this out of my hands, at least to some extent. There will still be revisions to do and some editing, I'm sure. I hope to defend it back in California in early February.

Sunset Comes Sooo Early

Like those of you in the States, Europe has made the switch off of Daylight Savings Time. I love the extra hour of sleep, but I am realizing that I would gladly trade that sleep to have some light back into my afternoons.

This photo was taken at 4:50pm, Friday, November 11, 2005. It was a beautiful sunset, but that is definitely toooooo dark for not even 5pm not even in the middle of November!

I'm sure many wonderfully smart people have great reasons for taking that hour out of my afternoon, but I would like to differ. It'll be dark here in the morning in a few days, anyway, so why not have at least some light later in the day? This is just my opinion. If you wish, we could conduct an obviously-scientific straw poll by you leaving your comments here.

And, yes, I have heard that the US government (or some part thereof) has talked about extending Daylight Savings Time. I applaud this thought and encourage more like it.

Dissertation: 190 pages and counting

I've been writing and editing a lot here lately, in order to meet my goals: the majority of the text written before the ESI Thanksgiving Retreat next weekend (yes, a week ahead of Thanksgiving), submitting the full text to my committee by early/mid-December, and defending it in early February. Today I worked on finishing up chapter 5 and did a bit of work on chapter 6, the conclusion.

A couple of days ago, I sent a cleaned-up copy of chapter 2 and my bibliography to the style reader. The School of Religion requires us to have it read for formatting and such stuff. There's a very nice lady at the School of Theology library who does it. Hopefully, I have done my citations and margins and all that well enough.

I am waiting for chapter 4 to return from my dissertation chair, Tammi J. Schneider. I talked with her again a few days ago, and she sent the chapter with her notes and comments out several days ago. Now I just hope the mail works ok.

It seems at times as if most of my life these days is consumed by the dissertation, but I am getting a lot done. It's also exciting, as I can see it all coming together. Pray for continued perserverence. I have noticed that editing footnotes and formatting create a lot of tension in my neck and upper back. It may be the detailed nature of the work, or the fact that I don't use my ergonomic keyboard for it, since I am using the mouse so much. Jenny's occasional massages keep me from getting too tight.

For background on what I'm writing about: www.thomasfamilyweb.net/matt/dissertation_information.htm