Monday, March 5, 2018

Monday, March 5, 2018

Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. This was Mattie's version of a goofy face! He was busy building something out of popiscle sticks with his trusty glue gun. Mattie learned to use a glue gun in preschool! He took to it like a duck to water. It was Mattie who taught me how to use a glue gun interestingly enough. 

Mattie loved to build all sorts of structures and fortunately he had this interest because it really helped to pass the long hours and days away in the hospital. 





Quote of the day: Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts. ~ Sigmund Freud


I have one thing after another tomorrow. One of which is attending and serving on a doctoral student's dissertation defense and the other is hosting our Foundation's volunteer appreciation dinner. Though I am not defending a dissertation tomorrow, I remember the stress and anxiety leading up to that day. That's a kind of experience you never forget, because earning a doctorate is kind of the mental equivalent of fraternity hazing. You won't get that Ph.D. without persistence, humility, and determination. As those are the three key ingredients to completing the process. 

When I earned my doctorate in 2003 (on March 10, 2003 -- pictured with me are Peter, my parents, and my dissertation chair), doctoral students had to undergo the painstaking process of finding research subjects, administering assessments, conducting interviews with these subjects, and then interpreting your own data. Now, Universities seem to understand that this original research process is too time consuming and most likely costly. So instead, doctoral students are now allowed to use data set. Meaning data that was collected by another researcher. Therefore when using a data set, students have to design a study in essence after it happened. You have to fit your research questions with the data. It is not a philosophy I care for, and given what I endured to find a sample of employed caregivers for my dissertation, I am left to pause. I realize the quality of education is in question at the high school and college levels. But I thought graduate school was preserved. 

In preparation for tomorrow evening's volunteer appreciation dinner, I worked on designing Mattie Miracle themed floral arrangements. 

The ladies in the flower store got a real kick out of me today. They wanted me to buy pre-arranged flowers and I said NO! I really prefer to pick my own flowers and arrange them myself. It takes more time, but I think it's worth it! Our home smelling intoxicating tonight. Nothing like the fragrance of fresh flowers.