what happened

one of the primary thoughts after getting a phd for me turned out to be: chances seem very good that for this to balance out karmically i'm going to walk out of the psych building and immediately get run over by a freight truck, or abducted by trafalmadorians. instead, there was a light drizzle, and walking uneventfully to mid-atlantic, and eating fried clams as the adrenalin slowly ebbed away.

as usual, there was drama: after my experiences with my masters thesis and qualifying exams, you would think i'd have at least one oral at penn that proceeded in a calm and orderly fashion. instead, the worst was saved for last when i learned 45 minutes before my talk that geoff had been called away for a family medical emergency, and that we may have been able to proceed at all. i've come to believe that after all these years he doesn't quite understand what a phd is, because he also sent a text message to my committee chair to "congratulate" me on being done. point of order: first you defend the dissertation, then the congratulations are due. anyway, the department secretary and our DCT, who both deserve to be canonized, spent the next hour making calls to just about every damn person in the school to figure out what was to be done*, and although there was a 20-minute span where things looked especially grim, and where i was starting to resign myself to Doom, in the end the dean came through and blessed the occasion, essentially forcing our stubborn-as-a-mule director of graduate studies to capitulate, and the rest, as they say, was gravy. well, almost -- because of the fiasco there was no time to buy coffee (thanks to the housemate for stepping up and doing that**), and by the time i actually began my talk, i wasn't no longer actually thinking about the talk at all. naturally, this meant it was one of the best talks i've given in my life. as for the private defense, i've had time to meditate on it, and have decided that it's not the kind of thing one should discuss, its contents sort of like what transpires in a confessional. like, everyone knows it happened, and that (obviously) it wasn't easy, but the actual process is -- well, it literally is a modern-day rite of passage, and like all good rites of passage should not be spoken of lest the magic flee the tribe.

it's been quite a ride. i found myself quite unexpectedly tearing up on my final slide, my acknowledgments slide, and had to take a short but very important moment as the thoughts caught up to the emotions: this much is Done, and new things lie ahead.


* none of this would have been quite as bad had the deadline for defending not been the 26th.

** no coffee = very cranky advisor. no, seriously. you don't know my advisor.

in the words of dr. seuss

"Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one."

here goes nothing.

i defend on wednesday, maybe get a phd, then go out to california on fri. after practicing the talk today, i've sort of realized that the dissertation seminar is a cross between an abomination and a farce, for the following reason: the 3 studies i've done are different enough that there's no way to either use them to tell a coherent story or adequately explain each one in the time given. the antidote, as it has been quite often in grad school, is basically to say heck it, and ride forth on a crest of assumptions and unexplained premises and glossy pictures.

much more importantly, i have yet to figure out what snacks to bring. i'm thinking the canelles from metropolitan bakery, as they are Very Tasty.

how does it feel? was what almost everyone asked me last night, and honestly, it's quite hard to say. i can tell you how it doesn't feel. it doesn't feel like when i finished my last exam as an undergrad and drove back to duke from beaufort with mamie in joy and fear. i'm not sure i would describe happiness as coming into it at all, really. it's like -- it's like in those vampire shows where the protagonist lets her vampire true love feed on her because he's dying, and then she's on death's door herself but has Saved him. or in les miserables, where eponine's been shot, and she's in marius' arms, and she's like: it's all good. or like: "o captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done". something like that. and somewhere beneath all that, you want to laugh at how silly and melodramatic that sentiment is because after it's bound and shelved, the years will bury it, as they'll bury hundreds and thousands of other theses from now until the end of history; i don't think they even last in the way that we would romantically like to believe that memories do, or love, because the specific way you thought about your little problem is for no one else to share, so that even as the knowledge may be transmitted, and may even be important, no one will ever get to experience the unique relationship between you and your ideas that formed and grew in those late nights, early morning hours.

holy *&@%^

my dissertation is turned in. and i'm freaking out just a little bit.

ok. everything gets turned in next wednesday, but i think i'm going to make it on time. there's one more figure i have to make, and some bits are too stylistically ugly for even a mother to love, but i think i'm going to make it. as i said to minz the other day, i almost don't want to look at it any more for fear that it will burst into flames (DISSERTATION TIP #11: your thesis will not burst into flames) but for now, it's there, and exists, in some form that has a non-zero chance of being acceptable to the committee.

i checked the website for doctoral candidates planning to graduate (omg) and discovered at 4:45 pm that 5 pm on april the second was the deadline for ordering regalia, which necessitated the quickest dash between my lab and the school bookshop ever, and on the warmest day of the year so far. the robes are royal blue. nyce. while waiting in line, i mused over how much i miss just browsing in a bookshop, and promised myself that doing so would go on the list of things to do muy rapido after i defend, probably somewhere after "drink lots of beer with friends" and before "go to san francisco and do bloody nothing for 4 days".

in other news, it's spring.