Desierto norte de Chile

Friday, August 24, 2007

Saga of a writing man

So yea, I am writing my dissertation. I think it's going okay, but probably a lot slower than I would want. The total is up to about 45 (new) pages, but because the topic changed so much from the last 110 pages I wrote in 2006, I estimate that I can only use about 50% of the old stuff. Today I didn't leave my apartment until 7:15 p.m., and that was to go jogging. Other than 2 short telephone conversations and a few words of invitation (& declination) from the guys playing soccer as I jogged past, I haven't even spoken to anyone today. How's that for exciting?! Tomorrow I'm going to force myself back to my "office", which turns out to be one of the brown booths in the "schooner room" of the student union. Yes, my office at the cushy Nat'l Weather Center has far too many distractions and not enough 'white noise'. So despite the large numbers of people who pass by my booth at the Union, I'm pretty much distraction free and can focus. Of those 45 new pages I have written, about 30 of them have come from the union. Here are a few other thoughts on my mind tonight:

- I am getting nostalgic. Even before leaving. I've had people over to my apartment for dinner 4 of the last 7 nights, and 2 of the other nights I was either at a party (Celia's on Saturday) or at Wildwood 6:11 (on Sunday). Tonight I flew solo.

- Even though this period of time is my favorite (the weeks bookending [or "couching", that one's for you Anneliese!] the start of fall semester classes), primarily because of the opportunities to meet new people, I think God has asked me to continue investment in the relationships I've already been blessed with, instead of actively seeking out new ones. Of course befriending the Uni Reading "6" was a blast, and I enjoyed my chats with the Uni-Hamburg students on Saturday. But as I have perhaps two more months in Norman, I really do want to pour into the already-established relationships, strengthening them before I go. Is this normal?

- I am, however, very excited about joining up with Mr. Nathan Crain and Mr. Bob Pillow - and others - for a bible study over heroes of faith. It should be pretty much nothing short of awesome, since I really enjoy those guys, and I enjoy studying the word of God. Can you get a better combination? :-)

- Writing gets to be a chore. When I awoke today I read an email from a NOAA colleague describing one of his methods of quantifying TC activity. And I really like his method -- it is not used as often -- so I spent most of the day recalculating my statistics using his method. I didn't get much anything new, which verifies the robustness of each of the activity quantifications: count, ACE, PDI, and sTCd. It was a nice result. My personal goal is to have the chapter on the MJO basically complete by early next week --- we'll see how that goes since I have yet to create any of the figures (can we use Google Earth in a dissertation??! Is that scientifically acceptable?) or tables.

- I should really take (and then upload) photos. I don't like reading all-text posts, and yet this is what I give you guys. Thanks for slogging through!

5 Comments:

At 12:13 PM, August 24, 2007, Blogger Josiah said...

Hey Big Brad,
This is Laura Leigh Page (now Moseley) from UNC-IV days. I somehow stumbled on your blog and have been enjoying reading about all your adventures post-college! You've been everywhere!
Just thought I would stop lurking and say hello.
Our blog is moes0810.blogspot.com if you'd like to check it out.

 
At 8:04 PM, August 25, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

*COUCH* :-)

 
At 12:59 AM, August 27, 2007, Blogger Saintly Nurse said...

I totally understand the lack of uploading pics. I uploaded like 100 ther other day. It's so crazy. It would be so much easier to upload them as we do them....but that would be too easy.....:)

 
At 7:58 AM, August 27, 2007, Blogger Brooklynne Travis said...

Being a weather kind of guy, have you read Issac's Storm? Do you know who Issac Cline is? I mean I would guess that you do, he seemed pretty famous (I don't know if that is the word that I would use, but I couldn't think of another) in the weather business.
Anyway, Issac's Storm, written by Eric Larsen, is about the hurricane that his Galveston in 1900. Another thing that I am sure you know all about.
If you haven't read the book, it is REALLY good. I just finished reading it, not because I like weather, but because I really like Eric Larsen's writing... although growing up out west not having anything to do with hurricanes, they are terribly fascinating to me.
So... if you haven't read it, you should. It's good. And probably will not take you any time to get through. I sort of got bogged down in weather lingo, and technical explanations of the storm, but you would breeze right through, I am sure.
Maybe read it after you are done with your dissertation... as a dissertation wife, I know that it is top priority.
Oh yeah, by the way this is Brooklynne, Miles' wife.

 
At 3:09 PM, August 28, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is it normal to build into already-established relationships rather than seeking new ones? For an extrovert like you, no - but it's really encouraging that you feel inspired to do so. It sometimes seems so much easier to just meet new people than delve into the dirty stuff that life is made up of, which you inevitably stumble upon the deeper you get in those relationships. Way to not just take the easy way out.

I can't imagine writing as much as you are right now. You are definitely a marathon runner in all aspects of life - your patience and perseverance deserves an applause.

 

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