Submitted!

I ran around like a crazy person today trying to get my dissertation submitted. First I had to make some last-minute updates to the Table of Contents (utilizing the This Page Left Unintentionally Blank technique for a figure I removed so I wouldn't have to get copyright permission for it). Then I had to find acid-free paper. The campus bookstore had two sad little 100-page packs (good for one manuscript, but I needed two on acid-free), but they kindly directed me to printing services on the outskirts of campus. Paper secured I printed one copy and took it to the library, where it was deemed okay by the very nice woman in the binding office.

I came home to print the other three copies, with time running short on the 4pm deadline to get it in to the registrar. So, of course, right at the beginning of the last on the toner started going on the printer. I zoomed to Staples and back, printed the last copy, and jetted over to school, raging at traffic. But I got to the office at a quarter to four... and they asked if I could come back Monday, because the grad records person wasn't in. Which I knew, but I figured I could still drop it off. The other woman at the desk said, oh, write the check and we'll just put it on her desk and she'll send you a receipt later. Yay!

I went to the department to turn in a bunch of receipts and stuff. It was sort of sad because I won't be seeing people as often.

Then I got ice cream! Good thing they got an ice cream cart at school after I leave! I don't need it!

Happy Birthday, Army

Today is the Army's birthday. I somehow got caught in the lobby where the cake was en route to the MPH graduation foodstuffs, and there was singing of Happy Birthday to the Army, and then the oldest and youngest members of the unit cut the cake with a big sword!

Dr. C in da hizzle

Yeah, I passed. Defense went great; no committee members succumbed to stuffy hot sleepiness.

PhD!!!

25 minutes

Okay, we're going for 25, and I feel fine with that. The confirmatory factor analysis results were a mess to try to present anyway, and I cut my interactions in half to the really interesting ones, so I probably have a better talk at the end of the day than when I thought I had 40 minutes.

The confusion is not mine

My advisor was laboring under this notion that my thesis defense was not open to the public in any way (so a shorter talk would make sense, because why talk for 40 minutes to people who have read your dissertation). I feel like the department academic advisor: "Doesn't anyone read the handbook!" It's on the school calendar. I told everyone to come if they hadn't heard me blather already.

So maybe I'm talking for 40 minutes, maybe for 25, maybe for 10 if no outside people show up. Who knows! It's a mystery.

Don't bother to be prepared, kids, cuz you're just going to have to wing it anyway.

(Lest anyone think otherwise, my advisor is great... I'm just not very thrilled with this misunderstanding).

Defense tomorrow

So, I was all prepared for my defense and utterly unnervous about it as a result (esp given the context of having presented most of the material already to questioning audiences and of planning 22 lectures for my class). Then my advisor told me Friday that I should really cut my talk to 25 minutes from the 40 the committee chair had suggested when I emailed about it 10 days ago (for the purposes of, you know, having my act together), and then lectured me about not coming off as too casual. You know, casual like a three day lead time on advice about important parameters for my important talk when I emailed about it 10 days ago.

Goodbye grad school. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of my life.

Crummy IS

I haven't had internet at work all week. I called Monday, bothered them in person yesterday, but when I called again this morning, the woman told me the ticket hadn't even been assigned yet! Incompetence! I need to get my class ready!