Last week, it became increasingly clear to me that my dissertation proposal wasn't making sense & was not do-able empirically, so has been back to the drawing board for me. Part of the problem was denial on my part. which resulted in a failure to be more proactive about questioning my committee members (who supposedly had read my drafts) about concerns I held. Part of it was poor communication and assumptions between the two main faculty members on my committee. They have very different personalities and approaches to things, my adviser had been busy with figuring out his own plans (he considered leaving UNC) and his second child on the way, and both of them travel a lot. These led to various delays and feelings of frustration.

However, I was very grateful at how responsive they both were once I aired my frustrations and worries. We met up earlier this week (the first time all 3 of us met up together) and I have spent much of this week re-thinking through ideas and spending them out to them. Hopefully we will have something more concrete planned over the course of the next few weeks and I can keeping moving ahead. Although I have been set back a few months, I suppose this is better now that later!

On some more uplifting news, Marc ran the 20K Coach Bubba race along the American Tobacco Trail (ATT) yesterday morning and won with his personal worst time for a 20K (65:46), so obviously he did not set any records for that. But we had fun as we saw other runners we knew, and ran a cool-down together (for me, it was my exercise for the day) around downtown Durham. Here's a short article in today's N&O on the event.

We spent most of the rest of yesterday with friends and enjoying a beautiful day in NC. We had lunch with Shaoquan and Nathan in Durham (followed by LocoPops for dessert), then we all took a walk together through Duke Forest. Marc & I spent the rest of the afternoon working on a crossword puzzle and reading. In the evening we attended Amy's birthday party :) That was fun as we got to meet new people and also catch up with some other friends.

~ Shuwen