Well, I finally finished the first draft of chapter 4 of my dissertation (statistical analysis chapter). I feel like July was just a blur after spending every available minute with numbers and books! I completed preliminary analyses on the first 3 (of 5) - preliminary in that I don't have all my data in yet. I did not do preliminary stats on the last 2, as I was unable to use my stats program , because I'm using pre-existing data for comparison, which means I don't have raw data. For those of you familiar with SPSS, you can't run an analysis without raw data! So, I spent hours looking for a way to conduct a factorial ANOVA using means and standard deviations. I finally found (a wonderful) guy who had submitted a formula to a statistical journal 4 years ago. It has the catchy title of "Computing a Factorial Analysis Using Means and Standard Deviations." Well, long story short, it took me 15 hours just to understand the formula (that involved going back to old text books, googling stat lingo, doing lots of algebra, etc.) and THEN when I finally understood the whole process, I did the sample problem at the end of the article to see if I could do it right. Well, that took me 2.5 hours to compute (by hand). It was an analysis with 4 cells - my analysis has 60 cells! So I'm guessing 10 to 14 hours per analysis (for the 2 I have left) and I refuse to do a preliminary when using that kind of time on a calculator! I'll wait for all the data to come in.
Any way, here are a few pics from around the house. Top is my kiwi vine which is growing like crazy this years, but no kiwi (we had kiwi last year). Next, a lovely Peace rose bud. Then you will see sick trees. We're losing the oaks on our property (2.5 acres). They have something called oak wilt, which is a fungus. We have had the trees immediately surrounding our home "innoculated." Even so, in the past 2 months we've lost 6 trees. The ones shown here are in our side yard (not the back where we have the woods). So, we're hoping to stop the thing from spreading. We have to wait until late fall to cut down the dead trees. The tree people said cutting them now will spread the fungus (last thing we want!).
I have noticed a couple of other trees in our neighborhood like this and I'm hoping it doesn't become an epidemic! Our neighborhood is so beautiful because it's so heavily treed.
So right now, I'm having dinner and watching "Harold and Kumar Go to Guantanamo" and feeling really strange - I feel like I should be out on the 2-season porch with my laptop, calculator, spread sheets, and piles of articles and books!
So, the plan is to work on syllabi for my courses (I'm teaching) this fall over the next week. My goal is to develop the tests, homework - everything- so that it's all done, for both courses. That way, I'll be able to focus on my dissertation defense this fall, providing I get in the last bit of data. Specifically, that is FOUR MORE ASSSESSMENTS! I just can't seem to get those last four. I need Haitian-Americans (4 people, born in the US, of Haitian descent, at least 18 years of age). I have been begging all my past participants and everyone I know for the past 3 months and would really like to wrap this up, but I need those last 4! I'll appreciate help and/or prayers!
Clay has been busy with his summer job, walking Abby, the schnauzer from down the street. Harrison has been working about 24 hours a week (3 full days), lifting weights, practicing for the varsity hockey team - and he has a tournament this weekend. Games Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The boys have also enjoyed swimming, biking, and movies this summer. Clay has been so fortunate to have been invited to his best buddie's cottage TWICE this summer! Clay insists he wants to live there, we need to buy a cottage on the same lake,there's nothing as awesome as T.'s cottage!!
1 comment:
Although I enjoy reading about the goings on in your life, I have to admit that my eyes glaze over and my heart starts beating harder when you start talking about the statistical analysis you have to do for your dissertation -- serious heart palpatations! How you (and others) do that type of work is beyond me. It conjures up nightmares from age 12 on through college -- from every single math class I ever had to take.
Thankfully, there are people like you in the world who can do that -- if it were left to me, it would NEVER, never, never get done!
Your garden, is, as always, gorgeous and such a treasure to see (lucky me, I get to see it in person!).
Oh, and we don't have oaks in this part of the neighborhood, but our Austrian Pines have been hit pretty hard by an invasive beetle -- we've lost 23 trees in the last three years -- hopefully, the pest has been escorted out of here by now!
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