Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

A blog and a life in transition...When I began this blog I was a Ph.D. student in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. Now--I am very happy to say--I have completed my PhD program, and am a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology.

My dissertation research was on adoptive parenting, with a focus on mothers' beliefs about genetic relatedness. At some point in the next few months it should be available through dissertation abstracting/indexing services; I will provide a link to it here on this blog at that time.

This blog previously served as my on-line research journal. I have always committed my brainstorms and emerging ideas to paper: In this web log format I strive to bridge my very rough notes-on-yellow-legal-notepads with my more polished final products (e.g., articles, presentations, dissertation). All of the posts on topics related to my research process are still available in the archives. In the future I hope to share more of my experiences with the "products" related to academia, as the writing never stops even after the dissertation is done.

This blog has also always been an experiment in community-building, and I hope that it continues to be so. Like graduate school, life after the PhD can be isolating--especially when one is a "post-doc": neither grad student nor full faculty member. I hope that SITBB might serve as a forum for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty members, and others--from all over and in all different disciplines--to share information, challenges, strategies, woes, and triumphs.

Finally, this blog weaves the various strands and interests of my life. In addition to being a post doc and former graduate student, I am also a mother of two, a wife, a sister, a daughter. Thus, I also share such things as my adventures in parenting, and my efforts to educate myself and others about African American history and culture. Thus, in addition to interaction from fellow academics, I invite comments from anyone interested in these topics as well.