Dissertation I

Hey, what happened here? I missed 2015 entirely. Hm, I'm sorry about that. It's just . . . I've been putting priority on dissertation work and the progress there has been frustratingly inchmeal. But there are new signs of hope. I've just completed Chapter 4 (of 7.) Yaaay! In an effort to further motivate the completion of subsequent chapters, I've decided that as each of the remaining three chapters is finished, I'll blog about it.

Now, at one point in its history, this blog was "co-opted" for several months by website updates. If I now use the blog as a forum for making dissertation progress reports, am I not repeating that "co-opting," and isn't that a no-no? I don't think so; I think this is different. The stated purpose of this blog has always been to "document my observations, insights, and progress as I attempt to troubleshoot my practice approach and hopefully, learn to play the Mande bala." Well, the thing is, the dissertation is one part of that process (1), albeit a massive, protracted, and not surprisingly, a time-consuming one. So, dissertation progress reports are, I would argue, very different from website updates (2), and indeed, appropriate fodder for blog posts.

One thing that I've learned in preparing this dissertation is that I am terrible, horrible, no good, very bad at estimating the time that it will take to complete sections and/or chapters. So at this point I dare not even venture to say how long it might be until I can blog about a completed Chapter 5, but I can let readers know that as I was clawing through Chapter 4, I would occasionally side-step to fill in bits of the remaining three chapters. As such, several of the sections for those chapters are already finished. Also, I'm in a good work rhythm now, spending at least five, but usually more than six hours a day in the graduate study room at the Scott library, plus time at home working on multimedia elements and transcribing. What's more, the main stumbling block to progress has (I think) been a lack of clarity of just what I am trying to say in the dissertation, or at least, a lack of understanding of how to frame everything that I'm aiming to say in the context of a dissertation. But the more work that gets done now, the clearer it all becomes. I may still not be at 100% clarity, but I think the days of "I don't even know what the hell I'm trying to say!" are over.

So, fingers crossed, and with a little bit of luck, I'll write again soon.


1. Just how the dissertation is part of the process will become clear to readers once it is finished and has been published on mandebala.net. Until such time, you'll just have to take my word that it is.

2. Website updates, by the way, are still being done and are still found under the updates tab on mandebala.net.