West of the Moon

Graduation: the ceremony

Getting ready to leave the house on Thursday morning, Matt and I agreed that “regalia” is a really good word.
So here’s the thing. The night before graduation, we were out for dinner with my family, and in the middle of dinner my mother turned to me, looked me straight in the eye, and asked [...]

Tags: berkeley, commencement, graduate school, ph.d., regalia

Graduation: the paperwork.

I called the manuscript finished about a week before I actually officially filed it. That was the point where all of my advisors agreed that it was in good enough shape, that I didn’t need to rework the conclusion, and so on. That didn’t mean I was done, though. That just meant [...]

Tags: berkeley, dissertation, graduate school

impending, and acknowledgements.

This appears to actually be happening. I’m pinning down appointments for getting signature approvals on the manuscript, I picked up my robes yesterday, I’ve been getting logistical coordination emails from the department admin. I seem to actually be graduating.
Six years apparently isn’t that long for a doctorate, but it feels like forever. [...]

Tags: dissertation, graduate school

weekend.

I continue to be a little disoriented by the fact that I’m almost done. I’ve got a dissertation checklist, a list of discrete tasks that need to be completed, some of them between now and the first of May, some of them between the first and nineteenth. (1 May is when I’m giving [...]

Tags: dissertation, graduate school

The State of the Susan.

It’s not a bad time for a general check-in, I think, given how sporadic my posting has been.

The Graduate Program: is almost over. I’m graduating in May, and my dissertation progress is pretty much right on track. I’m going to have to keep working pretty hard between now and May (my filing deadline [...]

Tags: checking in, graduate school, teaching