Submitted Dissertation to Committee Today

If you follow me on Twitter and Facebook updates, you know that I submitted my completed dissertation to my committee this afternoon.

After months and months and years of working at this degree, and feeling as if I would never come to the end of the work given all the other responsibilities in my life, I have. I'm almost at the end. My director's comments were that the committee will read over the work for the next few weeks, makes notes about what I need to modify, then we'll schedule a defense for early November. Between now and the first of December, I'll make whatever changes are necessary to the work. But it's possible that by early November, I'll be a Ph.D.

I write that-- "early November" --and it doesn't seem quite real. Holy crap. Digression: when I lived in Tokyo I used to just walk down the street-- minding my own business. I would have these sudden attacks of surreal moments: "I'm walking down the street in Tokyo, Japan," I would tell myself. It didn't seem right. Me. In Japan. Completing the dissertation and being a Ph.D.? It's like that, surreal.

Suddenly, I'm very, very tired.

Things I will do now that I'm not writing about alternative programs and pedagogies for underprepared student-athletes (but I'll do them starting tomorrow):

• Take photographs. I have missed my camera and using photography as a way of seeing the world. Maybe I won't go back to Project 365-- as I did that for 18 months-- I think I'll start something else.
• Visit with my family. I'll see the Bundle in a few weeks when I go to see her. Can't wait!!
• Apply for a job.
• Wash my car. Really. It's bad.
• Read blogs. I have 837 blogs in my feed reader that have been ignored for the past few weeks.
• Write blog posts. I've missed writing here.
• Grade student essay. I'm sure they'll be happy.
• Celebrate the submission, the revision, the defense, and the graduation. Lots of celebration going on in these parts.
• Visit San Francisco (see applying for a job above).
• Clean my house.
  
• See San Francisco (since I once lived there, I want to visit the places I used to visit).
• Get a haircut.
• Buy another graduation present for myself, something not quite as expensive as the first present I bought myself. (hee hee; click the link and go to the last item)
  
• Exercise-- yes, it's been a while --and I want to get back to it.
  

But for now, it's time for bed. I'm bone tired. Tomorrow starts a whole new chapter . . . ok, the new chapter will be planned tomorrow. That new chapter will actually begin . . . early November.

Cross posted at Parts-n-Pieces.