I have had three full days focused on my quantitative assignment, and finally have a complete rough draft. I am amazed by how much time it has taken! I thought taking two vacation days from work would have put me ahead of schedule but this is not the case. So far I have devoted about 18 hours to this paper and anticipate an additional 15 hours to do more analysis, rewriting and cleaning up the look and feel. In general, I find that my estimates are too optimistic and papers typically take double the length of time! Despite my poor estimating skills, I remain on track because I typically give myself deadlines that are a week or two in advance of the REAL l deadline. I need to keep this in mind for my upcoming assignments because they are much larger in terms of scope and length.
My initial meeting with the tutor was productive. We spent about 2 hours together and he was able to answer many of my questions. There were a few concepts that were rusty for him so he plans to consult some textbooks and we will tackle them at our next meeting. I am also going to generate a list of additional questions based on this draft paper to discuss. I suspect that this will be sufficient to complete the assignment. I plan to schedule one more session to address some outstanding concepts that reamain “fuzzy” for me. I will need additional assistance with my Pilot Study but can likely leverage my mentor for this. Also, I will definitely need to take some statistics courses and read more text books, but I will tackle this in 2011 . I am cognizant of how much I am learning but also of how much there is to know!! In some ways it feels like a “wash”, the amount of new concepts and skills that I “acquire” are equal to the heightened awareness of what I still need to learn. Oh well, it is progress nonetheless!
Life has been very busy beyond statistics which has provided good balance. I have been playing indoor tennis which has been fun and also attending some Christmas parties. Maintaining social commitments is healthy for me and has forced me to be exceedingly productive with my time so that I can enjoy time with others without guilt. I am going to sign off for now and have a nap before heading to another Christmas party. Thank goodness that tomorrow is a vacation day. I can sleep in and then do some more work on this assignment, but thankfully at a more leisurely pace! My goal for next Sunday is to have this assignment at a “90% Complete” status. Let’s hope that this is a reasonable estimate!