More good phone calls
I was just speaking with my former flatmate Future ThinkTanker. She'll also be distinctified and, as a result of her job search, the Future can be dropped from her nom-de-blog. She's moving to DC to work for a fairly left-wing think tank though, as she said, the political slant is not obvious from its name:

"Who can argue with American Progress? Well, the French, maybe."
- posted by Christina @ 1:58 pm 3 comments

 
Imposter syndrome
I am the biggest dork.

This morning I called Brenda, the departmental manager, to get my still somewhat provisional but vetted by the exam board marks. I got a very solid Distinction on my dissertation, and much higher marks on the two courses I hadn't heard about than I'd expected (low 70s, so also distinction). So I ended up with 7 Ds and one Merit (like a B in North American grading).

I don't entirely feel the work I did was good enough to deserve that. The only paper I've reread since submitting it is my dissertation, because I'm turning it into an internal technical report at work. Oh, and I glanced at my strategy essay because I came up with a mission statement and organizational values/goals for myself that I'm considering as I figure out where I'd like to be after March (when my internship in Bristol ends). Other than that, though, I've avoided revisiting my assessed work to minimize the late night self-recrimination regarding things I left out or could have explained better or what have you.

Speaking of self-doubt, though, I'm amused that the D on the project means it's more likely future OR students will borrow my dissertation to read. I hope they enjoy the part of the reflective chapter in which I discuss how writing about the not-yet-as-complete-as-I-want-it scheduling prototype I developed highlighted to me all the things I hadn't yet done, which led to "much gnashing of teeth and self-flagellation."

Anyway, back to the phone call to Brenda:

"Wow, I fooled them all," I said in amazed glee.
"Well," she replied, "you did it rather consistently and at a high level. Perhaps the only one fooled was you."

After hanging up, I bounced around my parents' basement like a 5 year old. Yay! My degree classification could still change if the LSE-wide exam board thinks the department board was wrong (or something... it's a very odd process, and new this year, so even Brenda isn't sure how likely marks are to change), but I'm reasonably confident about getting distinction overall. Yay! I'm willing to suffer the consequent imposter syndrome.
- posted by Christina @ 8:50 am 1 comments

 
Randomalia
I was struck mute by the horrific events in Beslan. And, more physically, by a really unpleasant flu. I'm hoping to be back at work tomorrow. I'm also hoping to stop feeling I've been beaten about the middle.

Earlier this week I had a craving for roasted green beans, which led me to the very excellent Let's Cook with Meg and Ted. This might be the best intro to a restaurant review ever:

"Terre a Terre - so as far as I can tell from reading other reviews and talking to people about it, the long-term argument is whether this place is an overdone wank, or vegetarian perfection on earth. I prefer to see these not as opposite ends of a continuum, but as two axes in theoretical restaurant space. And sure, Terre a Terre scores about 5 or 6 out of 10 on the wankery axis, but it also ranks about 8 on the good food axis, which puts it easily into "great restaurant" territory."

In other stumbling across things on the web news, I was looking for reviews of David Korten's When Corporations Rule The World (at the party last week one of my professors recommended I read it), and came across the How to Save the World reading list, which may prove useful if I decide to get all idealistic in my use of my new operational researcher skillz (a strong possibility). Googling for reviews of Patricia Schultz's 1000 Places to See Before You Die (which I plan to purchase v. v. soon) sent me here, where Roxanne is making her own list. And Googling Chez Ginette to find my own entry about Paris (I had a fever, the only prescription was memories of being in Paris with a fever -- this is my excuse and I'm sticking to it) I happened upon this review of that restaurant. It's nice to read of someone else enjoying the restaurant and the nearby hotel as much as I did, and I like Mark's writing.

So, yeah. Now that I'm done the degree, I'm not only sorting out what to do with my life, I'm also sorting out whether I should still be posting here. I'm sure things will work themselves out on both fronts, with an ease that mocks my angst on the subjects. Maybe I'll just report the results of Google searches. It will be riveting, I tell you. RI-VE-TING.
- posted by Christina @ 8:40 pm 1 comments

 
Decompressing
Wednesday night there was a party for masters students and faculty at one of the professors' house, and then Thursday morning there was a post mortem about the degree as a whole with a couple of the faculty. Hanging out with everyone and reflecting on the whole process means it hit me yesterday a) that I'm done! and b) how great the last year has been and how much I got out of it. And how fond I am of many of my very bright, very interesting, very international cohort, and that I hope we stay in touch. A lot of them have found jobs in London, so I think there might be regular dinners here every few months. I'm decompressing and indulging in some retail therapy (books that aren't about scheduling theory! yay!) until I head back to Bristol tomorrow.

I think the things that kept me marginally sane in the last few days of dissertation-writing were Bach Rescue Remedy and phone calls and emails to/from friends. Particularly talking to John and Grash. Somehow whenever one of them was being an insecure overachiever, it made me realise that my similar thinking patterns were ridiculous. The best instance of this was a voice mail from John, sent Aug 31 at 12:36 AM, first listened to Tuesday morning when I awoke, transcribed before it got deleted from my phone:

Dirrty. Oz. Just called to bitch. But you're off, so you're either sleeping or you have isolated yourself from distractions, both of which would be wise activities. Uh, anyway. Having a crisis of confidence: too much to write, too little time. Panic. Add to the fact that I think I screwed up one of my explanations which is never good and anyway...
So anyway, I was just calling for a pre-bedtime whinge, but anyway, hope that you're either sleeping or being productive. I am going to try to get a little sleep now, will be at BLPES from hopefully 9:30 or 10 tomorrow until they close the door on me. Uh, so I'll probably give you a buzz at some point during the day tomorrow to compare notes and you know kind of commiserate and that sort of thing.
So anyway, hope things are going well and you have results and a beautiful, intelligent, witty write-up. And I will continue to be craptastic and go from there.
So anyway, take it easy, talk to you later, bye.

John is very un-craptastic, so that made me laugh and diminished anxiety.
- posted by Christina @ 3:14 pm 1 comments

 
Wow, I'm done.
About an hour ago I handed in my dissertation/MSc project report thing. I'm in the computer lab waiting for John and Grash, who are having printer issues, to show up. I was expecting to feel jubilant, but I just feel tired and nostalgic. The stress has sometimes sucked, but on balance the last year's been amazing, and I find myself wishing I was about to start another year at LSE. Clearly the lack of sleep is making me delusional.

Or maybe one year (really, 11 months) masters programmes really are too short.

Ah, and the printer issues are resolved. Let the jubilance begin!
- posted by Christina @ 5:15 pm 6 comments