And now I'm writing, writing and writing some more

I haven't written anything since I got back from CSEE '09 because I've been incredibly busy doing and redoing modelling selection for my squirrel nests. Logistic regression + AIC by hand (and by hand I mean excel spreadsheet) is time consuming. And even more so when you input values as words and not as 0s and 1s, because Systat doesn't tell you which it labels as 0 or 1. Of course, I don't realize this until I'm sitting in my supervisor's office proudly showing him my results (which I hadn't looked at in-depth yet). He asks me, which is 0 and which is 1? I stare dumbfounded at the results.

So back to the drawing board, I recode my data and run 3 series of logistic regressions for 3 different questions... plus all the AIC model selection all over again. Needless to say, all my data will be coded from now on. Such a simple thing, but I assumed that it would tell me which one it coded as 0, and which one as 1. And you know what assuming does... Seems so reasonable, but I have to remind myself that it's a statistics program, it is made to be overly complicated and tricky. It can't have its user's analyses go smoothly :S

And so, finally, with the modelling done and redone, I'm actually at that point in time. ACADEMIC WRITING. The bane of my life, the culmination of two years of hard work, sweat and tears.. I'm not looking forward to this.

On the bright side, it means I'm ALMOST done. Almost being a vague word meaning anytime with the next 2-6 months, depending on my work ethic. Too bad I live in Ontario, land of tempting camping trips and sunny afternoons too nice to sit in an office.