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finally, some comments
My thesis supervisor has finally had a chance to sit down and look at my thesis, and has been making comments. She asked me to wait and not act on them yet, as her work flow tends to be comment, then if she sees something later that might change the previous comment she goes back up and changes it. So now I wait till she's done for the day, which probably means I will go to sleep and check in the morning, but it does give me an excuse to check in here.
It turns out my situation is more complicated than I thought, and we don't really know where I am or what my deadline is. When she and I first discussed downgrading my degree from a PhD to a Master's due to not having funding to continue she suggested Durham's "MPhil: two years of full-time or four years of part-time research and writing, plus six months of continuation writing up time where needed, producing a dissertation of up to 60,000 words.", and I agreed that it sounded reasonable.
Much later, when I was working on the thesis document and adding things like the title page I wrote on the page "Submitted in qualification for Master of Science" (which is the degree I got from UAF when I did my Master's in Geology). This prompted her to say "wait, aren't you doing the MPhil?", to which I replied "oops", and she suggested that I log in to the Uni and see what I am currently enrolled as. It was good that we checked, as there it says "QUALIFICATION AIM: Master of Arts (By Thesis)".
So we asked A., the person in charge of this sort of admin work for the department, and she confirms that she changed my degree to the "MA or MSc by Research: one year of full-time or two years of part-time research and writing, plus up to six months of continuation writing up time, producing a dissertation of up to 50,000 words", as that is what she was told to do.
I haven't gone looking for the email trail to see if that is what we actually asked her to do, and it doesn't really matter, since I am already at approximately four years part time research, which means I am way over the time limit for the degree she changed me to, and seriously pushing the limits of the one we thought she was changing me to (it all depends on how one counts the time--I have a spreadsheet which lists when I was enrolled, and when I have been suspended, counts up the days for each, and converts days to years, by which count I am at 4.2 years. However, those totals don't subtract the time that I would have been on vacation between uni terms, which, assuming that it is appropriate to do so, may drop me down to "nearly 4 years" (depending on how many days a year count as vacation at Durham, and if I can subtract that many even if they fell under times I was suspended, neither of which I know).
However, she was kind enough to reply to my message tonight, even though it is well outside of business hours in her time zone (and even more so in mine), saying that she is waiting to hear back from the Academic office and from my supervisor, and we will get this sorted out.
Apparently, my supervisor had never replied to A.'s question of if my suggested thesis deadline was appropriate, and A (and the academic office), are waiting for that information, so I may not have the deadline of 24 November looming over my head--it might wind up being some other date (my supervisor suggested 15 December in one of her messages tonight, which, given the number of comments she is still making (I just checked the document on OneDrive, she's still busy), is probably a more realistic goal).
So, right now, I have a boatload of work to do, towards a degree of unknown level, with an uncertain deadline looming. Luckily, I do ok with uncertainty, though as I told them both, I really need to be done this winter, as it is time for me to find an income again.
In other news, one of our cats, Kalika, loves treats so much that tonight Keldor decided to see if she would do acroyoga for treats. So as I lay on the floor, legs upraised, feet forming a platform, he picked her up, stood her on my feet, and offered her treats. At first she was very much a "what? time to hop to the floor", but with another offer of treats, and picking her up again, she stayed there, and ate treats off my foot for a bit, even after he took his hands completely away. Perhaps on another occasion he will see if it is possible to get a photo.
It turns out my situation is more complicated than I thought, and we don't really know where I am or what my deadline is. When she and I first discussed downgrading my degree from a PhD to a Master's due to not having funding to continue she suggested Durham's "MPhil: two years of full-time or four years of part-time research and writing, plus six months of continuation writing up time where needed, producing a dissertation of up to 60,000 words.", and I agreed that it sounded reasonable.
Much later, when I was working on the thesis document and adding things like the title page I wrote on the page "Submitted in qualification for Master of Science" (which is the degree I got from UAF when I did my Master's in Geology). This prompted her to say "wait, aren't you doing the MPhil?", to which I replied "oops", and she suggested that I log in to the Uni and see what I am currently enrolled as. It was good that we checked, as there it says "QUALIFICATION AIM: Master of Arts (By Thesis)".
So we asked A., the person in charge of this sort of admin work for the department, and she confirms that she changed my degree to the "MA or MSc by Research: one year of full-time or two years of part-time research and writing, plus up to six months of continuation writing up time, producing a dissertation of up to 50,000 words", as that is what she was told to do.
I haven't gone looking for the email trail to see if that is what we actually asked her to do, and it doesn't really matter, since I am already at approximately four years part time research, which means I am way over the time limit for the degree she changed me to, and seriously pushing the limits of the one we thought she was changing me to (it all depends on how one counts the time--I have a spreadsheet which lists when I was enrolled, and when I have been suspended, counts up the days for each, and converts days to years, by which count I am at 4.2 years. However, those totals don't subtract the time that I would have been on vacation between uni terms, which, assuming that it is appropriate to do so, may drop me down to "nearly 4 years" (depending on how many days a year count as vacation at Durham, and if I can subtract that many even if they fell under times I was suspended, neither of which I know).
However, she was kind enough to reply to my message tonight, even though it is well outside of business hours in her time zone (and even more so in mine), saying that she is waiting to hear back from the Academic office and from my supervisor, and we will get this sorted out.
Apparently, my supervisor had never replied to A.'s question of if my suggested thesis deadline was appropriate, and A (and the academic office), are waiting for that information, so I may not have the deadline of 24 November looming over my head--it might wind up being some other date (my supervisor suggested 15 December in one of her messages tonight, which, given the number of comments she is still making (I just checked the document on OneDrive, she's still busy), is probably a more realistic goal).
So, right now, I have a boatload of work to do, towards a degree of unknown level, with an uncertain deadline looming. Luckily, I do ok with uncertainty, though as I told them both, I really need to be done this winter, as it is time for me to find an income again.
In other news, one of our cats, Kalika, loves treats so much that tonight Keldor decided to see if she would do acroyoga for treats. So as I lay on the floor, legs upraised, feet forming a platform, he picked her up, stood her on my feet, and offered her treats. At first she was very much a "what? time to hop to the floor", but with another offer of treats, and picking her up again, she stayed there, and ate treats off my foot for a bit, even after he took his hands completely away. Perhaps on another occasion he will see if it is possible to get a photo.