Sunday, September 5, 2010

And Now For Something Completely Different

So I take it no one wanted to talk about methods and programs for note taking and documentation. Fair enough.

So, Bubbles died. Bubbles was the Boy's second betta fish. The first one lived for about two years. Bubbles only made it for a few months. We discovered him floating sideways a couple of nights ago, and the following exchange ensued:

Husband: So, what should we do with him?

Boy: Flush him down the toilet (said with stoic resignation).

Girl: (Immediately starts to cry). NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Husband: But he's already dead. He won't feel anything.

Girl: (Crying harder). But that's such a dumb thing to do to his SPIRIT!

Boy:

Husband:

Me: Are you afraid his spirit will be stuck down in the sewer?

Girl: Yeeessssssssss.

Husband: I'm getting ready to take out the trash. Would you rather I just take him out with the trash?

Girl: Yeeessssssssss (Still crying, but trying to regain control).

Husband: Then his spirit will get to live at the dump that we went to that one day (said with comforting reassurance).

Girl: Okaaayyy (sniffle).


End scene.

9 comments:

This Ro(a)mantic Life said...

Rest in peace, Bubbles, wherever your bones take their final rest.

Alas, I have no experience with note-organizing software. I'm old-fashioned like your supervisor, for lack of exposure to the wonders of more advanced tools. I think my living room floor, after I finished my term paper for my Chinese history class a few springs ago, was completely camouflaged by photocopied journal articles grouped in a way that only made sense to me. (Anyone wandering into the area would have wondered if I'd just dropped it all on the carpet by accident.) Not, I imagine, what your husband wants me to encourage ;)

Amstr said...

I'm on a mac, so not a big help for pc programs. I've been using DevonThink to type up notes and some random bib program that seems fine so far. I'm giving Scrivener a shot for this first draft of my first chapter.

I don't miss having all the clutter around, but I do feel slightly afraid that I'll have to re-check out all the books I've used to check context etc.

Btw--I've been reading "Destination Dissertation" by Foss and ?, and it's been a great help for figuring out the scope of the dissertation, how to cull through the vast amount of resources I have typed into my bibliography program, and making me feel like I can actually finish.

Anonymous said...

You could plant the fish in the flower garden for energy recycling, that way the Circle of Life (enter: musical interlude of Elton John) can continue.

Flushing TOTALLY TOTES TOTALLY kills fishy spirits. TOTES. KILLS.
jc

Good Enough Woman said...

CT, In my M.A. program, I'd have my articles surrounding my desk chair in a giant semi-circle, a.k.a the research FAN. My sources were fanned around me so that I could glance around and see all of them at the same time. Now, not only does the number of sources prohibit such fanning (unless I had a very large room), my husband (as you note) would prohibit such fanning as well.

Amstr, Yes, you Mac people. Never any help. :) I read some descriptions of the book you mention. How relevant is it for a dissertation in our discipline? Seems more focused on a data-type of dissertation.

jc, Oh, that would have been WAY better. The girls would have totally loved that. TOTES. LOVED. IT. Totes-ma-gotes.

TKW said...

RIP Bubbles. You are a lucky fish to have ended up at GEW's house. If you had ended up at Chez T., you would have lived 48 hours, max. Chez T. be Hex House for a betta.

Cathy Reaves said...

Oh my gosh - this story cracks me up. I am sad for poor Bubbles though. Sincerest condolences.

Ink said...

Oh, I'm so sorry! Your scene made me a bit ferklempt. So sweet, how you handled it.

Re: notes, I'm SO not helpful...I spent so much time researching but I couldn't seem to get a good system going. My notes were as follows, demonstrating how much I changed methods midstream: 16% on giant index cards, 24% in three different notebooks, 21% in computer files, 25% in the margins of the books I owned, and the rest on post-it notes in the library books. Once I got the chapter drafts done, then I just put the usable notes directly into the chapters and gave up my whole messy system.

If I could do it over again, I'd write chapter drafts first, get out what I wanted to say about the primary texts, THEN do the research. A professor actually told me to do that, but I didn't think I should for some reason. I researched, then wrote. Then had to RE-research because there's no way I could keep it all in my head, anyway. Sigh. Would have been easier to say what I thought, then add as I read, in footnotes. Which is how I write NOW.

Whatever, though. We have to do what works for us!

I'm so excited for you -- that diss is such a cool thing to finish.

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

Poor Bubbles and family. Peace be with you all.

I'm with Ink. Write first, research later. You get pulled into the undertow of reading if you don't.

Momma said...

LOL! Your daughter is (unknowingly) a riot!