IN MY DEFENSE

July 19 - my Waterloo. I could end up either Napoleon (the loser) or the Duke of Wellington (the winner). I was scheduled to defend my 2-week-old dissertation in front of my four-member committee of professors at 10:30 am, the second-to-last step in getting the PhD, and the last one where you have to depend on anyone else.

SETTING: Conference room 288A of the Special Education department in the Education building set up for computer presentations and video-conferencing. Three of my committee, Bob Hart, my dissertation director since 1998 (!), Gary Cziko, my Ed Psych committee chair (handles the bureaucracy), and newcomer Klaus Witz (to replace original committee member AWOL this summer). Via video-conference from UC-San Diego was Jim Levin, a professor of instructional technology at the U of I who gave me my first research assistantship back in 1998-99. He was the main reason I had rushed to defend somewhat prematurely since his UI contract ends this August 15.

THE PLOT: Woke up 7:30, got to the conference room about 9:00 to make sure the computer and presentation screen were up and running and my 20-minute "Powerpoint" presentation was ready to run. I also brought some orange juice and cookies for committee members (and any outside chance visitors for the defense). I had checked the equipment last Friday, so I knew how to get it working smoothly enough.

After making sure the presentation was ready to go and handouts were set up on the table, I went down to the Office of Educational Technology to get the video-conference equipment I had requested several weeks back. The student assistant helped bring it up to the conference room but seemed next to clueless about how to get it working. 10:15 was the time Jim Levin had asked for to get connected and try out the equipment. 10:15 (8:15 California time) we were plugged in and trying to punch in his IP (Internet) address but couldn't figure out how to punch in a DOT. (IP addresses look sort of like this: 345.655.011.34) I left that struggle up to the student volunteer and Gary Cziko while I attended to my own preparation. Finally, I heard Jim's voice from the video-conferencing equipment and we were connected! For the next 5-10 minutes we experimented with him angling the video camera lens around the room, testing it out to see where he needed to focus for my presentation. (He could control our equipment from his end.) A lot of trial and error and joking, which actually helped diffuse the tension quite a bit so by the time I started it all felt pretty informal and unpressured.

10:30 the committee shooed me out of the room for about 5 minutes to discuss how to proceed (and gossip about my tacky choice in clothes that day, no doubt)! They finally called me back in and I started my on-screen presentation, reminding them of the main points in my dissertation: the reason behind it, the experimental design, my experimental procedure, results of the data analysis, final comments. I also demo'ed the two computer hypertexts my subjects had used in my experiment - where 75% of my time and effort had been the past two years.
They mainly listened but occasionally brought up questions during the presentation as appropriate. They complimented me on the length and quality of the overview.

Next for about an hour and a half (the full 2 hours), was a Q&A period. Some of the "questions" were really just long comments by committee members. I had no antagonistic or embarrassing questions and honestly talked about the strengths and weaknesses of the study. We talked right up to the 2-hour limit.

Gary stopped the oral exam, and I went to get the orange juice from the fridge for the three. Then Gary shooed me out of the room once more, rushing a bit because Klaus had to teach at 1:00 and it was already 12:30. When they called me back in, Klaus had already left, but Bob and Gary were there smiling. "You passed!" Gary said. (Sometimes, the committee greets the candidate with, "Congratulations, Dr. X!") We chatted with Jim Levin still on the video-conference, then he logged off.

I cleaned up, took back the video-conferencing equipment and joined Bob, my dissertation director for all these years, at Timpone's a campus Italian restaurant (my treat). The other two unfortunately had other appointments immediately afterwards.

PARTY!

That evening 6-ish, I had invited about 30 friends and fellow PhD students (some who started back in Linguistics with me in 1993!) to a local Mexican restaurant for a celebration (or commiseration party, depending on the outcome). We had about four tables in one corner of their outdoor patio, and people came and went till about 10:30. I guess it was a success because many people came, congratulated me, stayed "just a little while" to drink a free margarita and ended up staying several hours! I also brought one of my dissertation copies in a binder - my "baby" - to show off (and make the defense celebration seem a bit more real and legitimate)!

WHAT IT MEANS

The defense, while not the last step in the PhD process, is really the last big one. In comparison, the final step - "depositing" - is like climbing back down Everest after reaching the top. I still have to edit my dissertation, add the committee's suggestions, and clean up the format for format checking by the Graduate College. I have two chances to deposit by the end of the year - October 1 and December 1 - to get my Doctor's degree granted this year. I'm leaning towards the December date to give me a chance to decompress for a month or so now - get some long-delayed travel time in, and take care of many other personal projects and duties that have been pushed back and back while I concentrated on getting the d*** dissertation out of the way these last 10 months! Maybe now I can "get my life back!"

-Paul

Fahren-hate 9/11

In the madness of the past year, I haven't taken much time out for movies, but tonight I joined a few friends to see what all the fuss is about Michael Moore's new movie "Fahrenheit 9/11".

(Advance warning: this is a review by a Democrat who voted for Gore and will vote for Kerry - but also supported "regime change" in Iraq (I also support regime change in the USA.) )

I had read a lot of reviews - from half-article attacks on Moore the man (isn't this called "ad hominem" in logical argument?) in the Wall Street Journal to rave reviews in leftie sources. But I was curious to see what *I* would think.

Predictably, when it was simple Bush-bashing (he makes it so easy!), I enjoyed the movie - like the Bonanza take-off with Bush as Little Jo. But when it was war-bashing (and Moore doesn't seem to find any war worth any price - even, apparently, WWII), I wanted to cry "foul". You would never know that there had ever been any president in Iraq like Saddam Hussein. The pre-war Iraq is presented as all flowers and light - laughing children, men playing chess, veiled women smiling at their kids on swings. No Abu Ghrayb (the one Saddam had running for decades), no gassing of villagers, no ethnic cleansing of Kurdish areas, no mass graves of Shi'ites shot down by government helicopters after Gulf War I.

Moore's moral seems to be that when a country is ruled by an egotistical, but half-brained fascist dictator from a powerful cleptocratic family that ignores the poverty and the suffering of its citizens and tramples on their rights (i.e.the US), it's bad, but when another country is ruled by an egotistical, but half-brained fascist dictator from a powerful cleptocratic family that ignores the poverty and the suffering of its citizens and tramples on their rights (i.e. Iraq), it's fine and dandy.

The film is a wild, ramble of a take-down of Bush and the Bush dynasty - some fun spots on the ride - but reminded me of nothing so much as a freshman essay with no thesis - or rather a new thesis every paragraph. He could have made 10 documentaries out of all of his different views: Bush stole the Florida election; the Bush family is in bed with the Saudi royal family; the Bushes ignore the economic depression of mainstream America (as in Flint, Michigan); our current military suckers lower class US kids into being cannon fodder for wars for oil and Halliburton; the Iraq war never was "mission accomplished"; war creates grieving mothers (what, the Civil War and WWII didn't?) If I had been his script writing teacher, I would have x-ed out 9/10 of "9/11" and written "so what's your main point?" in the margins.

In the end, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a collage of a 10,000 separate film clips that, when edited, somehow seem to say exactly what Moore wanted to say - and nothing else. "Stacking the deck" is an apt phrase here. Clever, occasionally. Honest, not really.

But some images stick with you: the mass of footage of various Bushes kowtowing to the Saudi royals and the Saudi ambassador to the US (also a prince), the fancy Mariott business conference on how US companies can make a profit in the new Iraq.

Well, so much for my break. Now it's back to prep time for the dissertation defense this Monday.

Say a prayer for me!

THE EYE OF THE STORM

Hurricanes give false comfort when the eye passes over, and everyone thinks the winds and tidal surge are over. Then the storm returns in its full fury a while later.

I have been enjoying the temporary calm between the storms of my dissertation this week. The full fury was in the 5 days or so leading up to my July 5 deadline to get the dissertation (draft) written for my committee. I slept a few hours a night if at all for nights on end. And July 5 (a campus holiday for the 4th of July) was the culmination, with me working feverishly towards my 7:00 pm deadline, then my 10:00 deadline, then finally the whenever-I-finish deadline. I think I got to Kinko's after 11:00 that evening to make four copies of my 157-page dissertation for my committee members. (I had promised to drop it off at various committee members' houses that evening.) It took much longer than I expected, so there I was driving around to professors' houses after 1 am, dropping off a binder for each one.

Then, I still couldn't sleep because I had to pack for my 7am departure for Springfield airport to catch my flights out to Colorado for my Uncle Jack and Aunt Joan's 50th wedding anniversary. (They are like second parents to me after taking me in for my final two years of high school.) I think I got 2 1/2 hours of sleep that night, also. But it was a huge relief to have the dissertation off my back for a few days.

July 6, I flew from Springfield to Chicago to Minneapolis to Denver to Hayden, Colorado (the closest airport to Steamboat Springs, where the anniversary was to be). There, at some time after 9:00 pm, were Uncle Jack and cousin Julie to pick me up in my sleep-deprived state. Since a big group hike (up to Hanging Lake) was planned for the next morning, I couldn't sleep in, but I did get about 7 hours of sleep, the most I'd had in a week.

Jack and Joan have had a condo in Steamboat Springs for about 10 years now, and had invited the four college-aged grandkids (plus two boy/girl-friends) to Colorado for the week. A few adults were also allowed to participate - besides me, there was my cousin Julie and cousin Jane and her husband Gary, and another uncle Mark and his wife Chris from Michigan. So, that makes a party of 8 adults and 6 minors to plan for and cart around during the week there.

Some highlights:

TUESDAY - arriving in Colorado and getting some well-deserved rest!
WEDNESDAY - hiking uphill (over a mile high) to Hanging Lake, a beautiful waterfall-fed pond amid some dramatic cliffs in the Rockies, then soaking our tired muscles in the huge hot pools at Glennwood Springs after lunch.
THURSDAY - the anniversary itself, celebrated at a very remote campground where we cooked outdoors and ate a special anniversary cake made in town
FRIDAY - R&R, everyone did what they wanted followed by a small-scale local rodeo in Steamboat Springs
SATURDAY - Jack drives me, Julie and the kids to Denver airport. I fly back to Illinois.

CONFUSION REIGNS

Two stories of confusion on the return trip - both with happy endings, but only one a pleasant experience.

I showed up at the United Airlines counter in Denver with my e-ticket for a confirmed flight for the next day (Sunday) but hoping to get on my wait-listed flight to Chicago the same day (Saturday). The clerk checks the Chicago-Springfield flight and says it's OK but that I needed to check at the gate itself for the flight to Chicago. Since the flight is due to leave in less than one hour now, I run through security check and all the way out to my gate. I show the gate personnel my ticket and ask if I can be put on their waiting list. Finally, they call my name and I'm safely on my way home!

In Chicago, however, I find that the situation is not as rosy as expected. I am assuming that when I show up at the commuter gate for the short hop flight to Springfield, I'll be quickly issued a boarding card and that will be that. But no. The bumbling ignoramus (literally, he didn't know much) who looked at my ticket said he couldn't find any mention of my name either as a confirmed or wait-listed passenger. "But I have a luggage tag for my luggage ticketed through to Springfield," I reply. "How can my luggage get there and not me?" "You'll have to check with the Customer Service Desk, Sir," he replies. Confusion: he's confused and now I'm confused.

And so I got to stand in line, checking my watch for my 7:55 departure time, now less than an hour away. The 7 or 8 of us in line wait and wait. I chat with an Irish-sounding man about his flight problems and discover he's been waiting half an hour and no agent has even appeared at the desk! Long travel experience (and familiarity with "Waiting for Godot") have taught me that waiting for a vague hope is the surest way to kiss your plans goodbye, so I try plan B, another Service Desk. An agent gives me another gate area, so I stride purposefully towards the second desk. Totally empty. I ask a nearby United agent: "When will the agent at the Customer Service Desk get back?" And he tells me no one has been at that desk all day. (No "this position closed" signs anywhere today. United is cutting back, yes, but this is ridiculous!)

Meanwhile, I get on my cell phone to United and ask about my frequent-flier itinerary, explaining my predicament. I find out that my original booking agent had wait-listed me only for the Denver-Chicago portion and had put in nothing for a Chicago-Springfield portion, even though that was my originating airport! I had visions of staying overnight in Chicago, a place I never would have traveled to if the Denver United clerk had been more up-front about my travel status. "You'll have to arrange that with the gate personnel," I'm finally told. So, I go back to the lounge for my Springfield flight with 15 minutes to go, hoping I won't find Mr. Ignoramus again. Thankfully, there is a very professional-looking African-American woman who listens briefly to my explanation, checks the flight list and hands me a boarding pass - D1. I have a real seat! On a real plane! Needless to say, I am hugely relieved to finally land in Springfield, where my parked car awaits me.

Confusion story #2. On my 2-hour drive back to Urbana, I stop at a busy Steak 'n Shake restaurant near Decatur to catch a late dinner. (It's now almost 10:00.) I sit at a 3-person table, which I give up to a 3-member family when they can't find anything else appropriate in my section. So, I'm sitting one table away, and since no one is coming to serve us, I catch some of the waiters' eyes and ask "Can someone help us?" A harried-looking waiter shows up and takes our orders. At the end of the meal, I ask him for my bill, but he says, "Weren't you all together? I put it all on one check." (The family had already left.) "You mean they paid for my meal without checking the bill?" I ask concerned. He checks with the cashier. "Yep. You're all paid for." So, I got a freebie meal! (I left him a good tip, however.) Strange that people wouldn't even do a quick once-over to see if the bill reflected what they'd ordered. Dad the Auditor would have been horrrified!

So, I'm back home with a little over a week till my oral defense on July 19. The eye of the storm lasts till Monday, when I have to get ready for that, but it is much less involved than the actual writing of he 157 pages. I have to make a Powerpoint presentation on the computer to briefly re-introduce the main points of my dissertation (this is a polite way of acknowledging that not all committee members actually READ everything the first time). And I'll do a few more statistical runs on the computer to come prepared for any possible question they might have. And it might be a good idea to actually READ my own 157 pages to see possible gaps, typos, etc. before the committee finds them! (Looks better if I'm aware of the weaknesses in my own paper ahead of time.)

And now for a well-deserved night of rest!