If the posts (or lack thereof) from the last year have led you to believe that things have ground to a halt in the quest for a PhD, you are reading the signs correctly. This year has been a disaster.
Let's take a look at the articulated goals:
Get a paper published and through the A exam.
I actually stated these as make or break goals. As I failed miserably at both, I should be dropping out of the program right now. I still might.
I also said I wanted to cut my work hours down to 1800. Instead, they increased to 2198. There's simply no way this happens with work at that level. I was on track for more like 2100 (which would have been a slight decrease) when one of my programmers quit. That meant a bunch of OT keeping things going while we found a replacement (who starts tomorrow). I don't know if I'll be able to cut back in 2019 or not.
I do have a plan in my head for how this whole process could be saved. I'm currently putting it on paper to show to my adviser tomorrow. I'm reasonably sure he'll go along with it but that's not going to cut it. I need someone who really wants to see this happen. I don't know if such a person exists within UMSL's faculty (or anywhere else, for that matter). I will spend the next few months shopping the idea around while I get my literature review done. If nobody bites, well, I'm pretty much out of options at that point. Not all quests result in success.
