ABD!

That's "All But Dissertation" for the uninitiated. It makes the dissertation part of this whole PhD enterprise seem like some afterthought to all the hoops you jump through before that. Other terms: I can now be called a PhD Candidate instead of just a plain ol' PhD student. I can also register for thesis credits for next term!

All this is a result of passing my schoolwide orals, which were today at noon. Sarah had decreed the schoolwides to be easier than department exams, but she also only had one new committee member for schoolwides. I had three sharp cookies who hadn't already seen the presentation, so they asked lots of questions that were good. Some were hard to answer, not because I didn't know the answer, but because their questions pointed to difficult realities I've been banging my head against for a while now. So this exam left me with a less fuzzy feeling than the department orals, but it's just a reflection of the reality that I have a lot of work ahead.

Two of the schoolwide committee members commented that it seemed like a short time to go to Malawi and that they predicted that I wouldn't want to leave. I was glad Joe wasn't around to hear that and have several heart attacks.

On a meta note, at G's request I have set up an RSS feed for this blog. I like to procrastinate by visiting every page I read, so I've never used such a thing, so let me know if something is broken.