stubbornness wins again

 When students ask me if I think they're "smart" enough for graduate school, I ask them if they are stubborn enough.

Well, I used that in two different ways today.

First of all: figuring out how to do an analysis with an additional explanatory variable that does not interact with the main variable (like: blocking variables, but in this case, it was a "before" variable - a way of reducing unexplained variation). The textbook we are using has the analysis done in Minitab; we have SPSS, and yes, you get some slightly different outcomes because while the numbers in common are the same, different packages include different sets of calculations. (Like: there's a coefficients table that SPSS doesn't give you; it gives you similar output but presented differently). 

The other thing with SPSS is that the help menus are not helpful. For very simple basic things I can refer students to some third-party online things (Kent State has a really good set of basic tutorials), but for advanced things it's harder; you kind of have to follow some breadcrumbs of online examples and my own knowledge. And this most recent re-do of SPSS has changed things a little.

So while I could get it to work easily enough with the discrete (count-based) blocking data (where you have four or five groups), with the continuous "before" data, it didn't work. And of course I couldn't find ANY explanation, not even in the "SPSS for Dummies" book I ordered on my own dime. (Granted: blocked designs are sort of rare outside of ecology or agronomy).

At first I thought I was going to have to give up and I wasted SO MUCH TIME on it. (And I admit, it frustrates me, because I don't want to look stupid in front of the grad students). But finally in desperation, I tried something that seemed kind of counter intuitive, but I got the right results (I was using the data sets provided in the book, and compared my outcomes to the ones in the book, so I knew when I had the right analysis)

So pretty much all I got done was prepping (most of) the stuff for Monday; if I can get moving early enough Saturday (before knit-group over zoom), I will try to go in and do a bit more.

I'm having to use Pomodoros ("tomato-timer.com") for this; the "25 minutes of concentration with five minute break" is about all I can manage, and if I don't have that promise of a short break, if I just sit down and go "I need to work for three hours" I find it too hard to do, I get distracted or think of other things I have to attend to. 

And Saturday - because I am taking tomorrow off and going to Sherman; there are a couple things I need that you can't get locally, and I also just want to go to Denison first and go to a couple of the nice small shops and have a break. (For the better part of 2 years I mostly avoided this - the pandemic - and I feel like I want to make up for lost time a little)

And then after that, I came home. My goal was to mow the lawn - it needed it, and I figured if I did that I could take a day off from exercising tomorrow. 

The mowing went okay - it's hot, and the air quality is poor (no, I guess we don't have smoke from the Canada fires, but we do have issues with ozone and dust - probably from plowing - and the air quality was "borderline unhealthy for sensitive groups"). But I managed. Did have to take a couple breaks. And for the backyard, I mostly used the string trimmer because it was high (I didn't get it mowed last time) and it's *very* weedy (I am unwilling to release more chemicals into the environment just to make my lawn a bit more "perfect," and anyway, once it gets hotter the weeds will die back anyway).

But - the string trimmer I have is finicky. It's a slightly older model (well, 2019, which isn't that old in my book, but it's a discontinued model and instead of being able to buy new drop-in cartridges, apparently I just have to keep rewinding line on the existing one - I am bad at getting it wound smoothly so the "bump to advance" won't work). Anyway, the line had gotten a little tangled inside the cartridge and I couldn't get more to come out. So finally - and had to use a screwdriver to help loosen the cap on the head - I got it off, and got the miswind fixed, and got more line to extend, and then I was able to make it cut the way it's supposed to, instead of with just the tiny nub of line that was sticking out. But again, that took stubbornness. 

So although I often complain about having to do things "all alone" and "with no help," I also find often when I just keep pushing and trying different things, I manage to beat whatever it is.