What a week....

Well to add on to any increasingly bad week, I just found out that my first paper was rejected by Econometrica. "Due to lack of innovation for this journal" and "insufficient citation of this journal" among other things. Honestly I would have been pleasantly surprised if it had been accepted due to the prestige of the journal; still that does sorta burn anyway to be rejected.

I am running out of options as far as this loan process goes and at this point I have accepted and am willing to take my losses and walk away from the deal if any more money or crazy requirement are needed. The biggest mistake I think I made was not doing more research into lenders and getting clear answers from them. For some odd reason I thought that they would give me honest answers, but whatever. I'm alive, healthy and doing okay; they can't take that away from me.

I am hoping to finish a rough draft of my talk today. I will have about 60 some slides to work with. This is good because I plan on cutting the size by 10-15 slides for an approximately hour long talk.

The grad students met with a retired faculty member today who spent an hour an a half discussing with us some issues that arise in consulting and pretty much a feel good pep talk. One particular thing he said that I like was that:

1. Everything that occurs in life occurs according to some processes
2. Processes always have some variability (time, length,...)
3. A statistician job is to be able to describe and understand the variability.

I think that's a good way to explain the applicability of statistics to a non practitioner; also, it helps a statistician better organize his approach to a consultation.

Ultimate Frustration

I am very frustrated at the moment with Suntrust Mortgage. Everything seemed to be falling into place until now. I got the final ok of my thesis from my adviser, I had my closing date successfully extended, got the paperwork sent to them and now Suntrust is claiming that they need a 15 day extension with no promises!

I have learned alot from this process; most importantly is to get written confirmation that a bank can do as they promised. This is going to make my move alot more hectic and at this point my hands are tied. I have already put more than a thousand dollars down on good faith. I am technically liable for thousand more due to the bank reneging on the closing date. I am looking at having to drive down...close...drive up...defend...drive down again to move. Now the lady tells me on the phone that it could take 2 months! If that is even close to the case I feel as if I have been lied to this whole time.

Sure there have been minor misunderstanding on my part, like not understanding I would definitely need a co-signer. But the bank should have told me this very early on; they should have insisted on it instead of having me provide all this information I didnt need. I have to keep on telling myself to calm down...things will get worked out but I don't think I have ever put myself in a bind like this before. Working with suntrust mortgage is one decision that I wish I could take back right about now; they drew me in and now feel comfortable providing me with mediocre service.

The rush awaits...

Although I have maintained a relatively stress free level of work over the past week, I fully anticipate this to change shortly. I have a mortgage situation to deal with, still need to get the final okay from my stats adviser, and I need to finished and polish my presentation (I should at least have it finished by the end of the week). I am also planning to take several trips in the coming weeks.

It would seem as though I could save myself from the hectic schedule by dealing with some of this stuff now, but the problem is the only thing I really have control over is making my presentation. I can't speak with my adviser until he has time, I have to wait for the bank before I can do anything w/the mortgage. So I just expect at the last minute all this stuff to press on me, but there really nothing I can do about it now.

Recently I started watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Aside from convincing me never to move to New York City; the show definitely gives you a glimpse at the very dark side of human nature. There are really some truly disturbed people in the world that do unspeakable harm to others. The show has also renewed my interest in law and how the whole process works. You can definitely see the flaws that are in the system...a dirty cop could easily frame an innocent person for a rape or murder. Heck even a devious person could.

I can see how a job in criminal law can seriously challenge your ethics and make you a cynic. After seeing the most obviously guilty people skirt around the law and innocent people get caught up in the system by technicalities has to frustrating.

Suppose the cops bust down the door without a warrant and find 10 dead bodies inside Joe Bloes house. Joe Bloe's lawyer can have all that evidence thrown out of court because there was no warrant, and Joe Bloe walks. One of the victims relatives decides to take the law into his own hands and kills Joe Bloe, and the victims relative goes to jail for murder. That's the law for you.

3-pages a day

I have started creating my slides for my dissertation defense. Since created a slide is much easier than creating a dissertation page. I have increased my quota to 3-pages a day. Even this is quite simple and only take about half an hour but time as I see it now is on my side.

My sleeping schedule has been pretty erratic the last few days. I have just gotten over a cold and haven't been going to the gym. I've been going to bed around 4-5 and waking up at noon.

One more stamp of approval

Yesterday I was supposed to meet with my finance adviser. I drove to his house and knocked on the door and no one was home. It then hit me that he may not be working from home anymore and so I called his office...sure enough he was there and I had drove 10 miles out of my way! We rescheduled for today and had a very quick meeting...in summary he has given me the OK on the thesis I gave him.

I have one more adviser to go; the last time we spoke, he seems okay with the general structure as well. I hope to speak with him one more time to get his okay on everything, then I will submit a copy to all my committee members. Today I made my thesis complete by doing the biography and acknowledgment sections.

I finally got in contact with the suntrust people and they have calmed my nerves slightly. It's too late to even try to get another loan approved in this timeframe but I think they could pull through for me anyway. What's slightly annoying is that I havent heard a response from the bank yet about the closing date changes that I needed. I don't see why they are taking so long to respond. This whole mortgage stuff can be extremely complicated and I see why people go through realtors now.

No real updates today

Today I was an uneventful day in regards to my dissertation progress, mainly due to me being done with everything I plan to do aside from putting my presentation together. Unless my advisers want me to add more, I am pleased with my work. My next scheduled meeting is on monday in which I plan to work on the introduction part of chapter 7.

This must be the day that no one answers phone calls. I haven't got any responses back from the suntrust mortgage people and they are starting to make me nervous. I spent the whole day at home calling them periodically.

I just got back from a game of chess with a friend at the local starbucks and was absolutely humiliated. I was very apparent that I had never put together a coherent plan beyond three moves. I have always played chess this way while most people have opening strategies; I just randomly play until I see an opening. After losing two games...one after a stupid move and the other rather quickly I am almost motivated to look up chess strategies. I feel as if I should be playing better than I am being that I'm such a technical person.

Better than I thought...

When I finished the rough draft of my thesis I submitted a copy to my adviser. I was surprised as to how few changes he wanted me to make because I guess I thought the version that I drafted was not very good. Now that I am editing my work I realize that I did a pretty good job of coherency in my thesis. Aside from the occasional incorrect spelling and sentence structure, I am quite pleased with the flow of the thesis and I believe I am very much on pace to have a journal copy out to my committee members by mid june.

The last major thing I will need to do is update my talk; the good news is that about half of it has already been written and it mainly consists of copying and pasting the material from my thesis. This process should take no more than a week. I am surprisingly unstressed with my dissertation at this point, and am more concerned with the status of my loan application with suntrust. FHA requirements are quite annoying and I need to fix the situation by the end of the month.

I was concerned that this summer would be intensive, but I have actually been going out alot. I have taken an interest in the NBA championship series this year, partly due to the Magic finally having a good season after 15 some odd years. I am anticipating going out this thursday to watch the first game of the finals.

My goals for this week will be to finish the paper edits of my thesis and then revise them on the computer. The last major revision should be in the introduction and conclusions. I think I should fill in my acknowledgments as well and all the additional stuff. I will then set up meetings with my advisers to see how I shall proceed.