Dissertation edits in HURRY!! & Blackout

Dissertation formatting

Yesterday was a Sunday, but I worked all day formatting my dissertation!  I did not notice that I got an email from Graduate School about necessary edits to be made.  It's good and bad that there is no notifications for Emails classified as Updates in Gmail.

Anyways the final deadline to submit my dissertation for summer graduation is Wednesday 8/25!  I should do it as soon as possible because Graduate School seems to be busy and takes some time to check the formatting of submitted dissertation.  It's a highly time-pressured job. What if they got hundreds of thesis/dissertations to review on the due date?  I think they will take some time to review all of them anyways.

Formatting a long document is a pain!  I learned a lot about functions in Word like making table of contents, list of tables and figures, and center a text from top to bottom.  Other than that, there are detailed rules to a lot of things -

• Do not start a page with an empty line
• Do not end a page with a title (heading)
• Put 'Table X (cont'd)' if a table spans on multiple pages
• Single space references
• No duplications for table numbers - so, if you have regular tables and supplementary tables, they should be numbered sequencially: Tables 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, Tables S1.4, S1.5, S1.6 etc.  This rule does not quite make sense though, because with this numbering scheme, Tables will not appear in the order of their numbers.  E.g., the main text it may say "This was this (Table 1.1). ... Then that was that (Table S1.4). ... Then it was like this (Table 1.2)."

It took a whole day to get those things right!!  I hope they will get to my submission before the deadline and will accept it as is!

I thought Sunday at 9 pm will be Monday 8 am in MI, but it was wrong!  It will be Sunday 8 am!  I could have done it today, too, but I'm glad I finished it regardless.

Blackout

There was a sudden blackout last night while I was almost done with editing my dissertation!! Well, of course, an unluckly event happens when you don't want it most.  But it wasn't too long.  Also I was amazed that the hotel seems to have a backup power.  One ceiling light turned on when power went out, and it kept my room nice and bright, which made a huge difference.  There was also an annoucement through the ceiling speaker that the hotel is experiencing unexpected power outage, and that it is not due to a natural disaster.  That kind of explanation calmed my mind.  After 20 min or so, power came back, and so did WiFi.  They were still doing some safety check, but within 45 min or so, things were back to normal, and elevators could be used as well.  I am quite impressed by how they handled the situtation and how well they are prepared!!   

博士論文の体裁確認がやっとこさ帰ってきた。細かいルールが山ほどあるな。。締め切りまであと4日！ やっば！最優先でおこなう。日曜にも関わらず…。 なぜ日曜に頑張ったかというと、日曜夜9時がミシガンの月曜も朝8時で、それが見てもらえる最短時間だから！と思ったから。間違えたわ…ミシガンの日曜はいまから始まるんだわ。まあいいけど。

ホテルが停電したけど非常用電源のお陰で部屋は明るかったし懇切丁寧な日英二言語のアナウンスもあって、す、すごい、素晴らしいホスピタリティ！と感動した。しかも20分くらいで復旧。いやーー 帰ってきたな…と実感するときでした。感謝感謝。

ミシガンと打とうとすると綴りのとおりMichi と打ってしまうからミチガンとなってしまう。笑 ミシガンをミチガンと発音する人がいてすごく気になっていたのを思い出した。あなたミシガンに何年いるの？？と突っ込みたくなる。その他、シカゴをチカゴ、ランシングをランズィングと発音する人もいて、自由だなーと感じる…。そんなことを思い出した。