Wonderful!

Apologies for the suspense.

Everything went wonderfully well as I already knew it would be. I almost blogged right there in the room, and my friend Cris actually asked in a very awkward moment when we were taking a photo -- will you put us in your blog? You still have a blog, don't you? I didn't say anything, just proceeded with posing for the photo, but I guess now I've been "outed" to my committee -- good thing I can't really be tracked down if they search for my name :-). But of course I couldn't blog there with them, and I was staying at one of my committee member's house (another wonderful aspect of the whole defense experience), so she helped us pack the refreshments and drove us home where we had to leave and drive to my mother-in-law's house.

I still have to do all the revisions and submit them to the graduate school ASAP, but I'm DONE!!! I have a Ph.D.!!!!!

If you want to know more about the defense, it was very informal. I talked for 15-20 minutes and then they asked me questions for over an hour. Not that many people came because I ended up not making an announcement in the grad students' listserve (I did announce the date and time in facebook, though, and several of my fellow grad students are there), so only five very good friends were there, another colleague and one Chinese professor.

Funny stuff: in order to make Linton behave and not want to be close to me all the time, my mom explained to him that it was like church, with me "preaching" and it worked like a charm, since he's used to being quiet and behaving in church every week. The funny part was that half-way through it he wanted to know who the "pastor" was, and he also complained that the "service" was just too long. Towards the end my mom took him for a walk outside to see the ducks at the pond. Several people had to leave before the end, but the committee members plus three colleagues/friends were there to eat the refreshments that I brought (some of my favorite Trader Joe's goodies (meringue and lemon chocolate covered cookies), strawberries, Panera's foccacias, TJ's bruschetta and some other things.

On the drive here I was thinking of some lovely reflections to make, but I'm just a boring "facts" person and as much as I wanted to make this post really lovely and well-written, I know that all you want to know is how it went and how things are.

We have to leave in a few hours to NYC to take my MIL who has an early flight to Brazil, so we're basically not going to sleep anything, so I'm sorry that such a lovely day and great accomplishment has to be followed by such craziness, but that's our life. I've been telling people today that we're just a "crazy" traveling family... and we are :-)

I have a treat for you that was supposed to have been posted today, but which I'll have to post tomorrow. And... in spite of the fact that I NEED to work on the revisions and writing about 10 more pages in my conclusion, I have a birthday party to plan... yeah, crazy life. Jennie said once (and I'm yet to respond to the award she gave me ages ago -- my indecision problem has kept me from doing it until now, can you believe it? many apologies) that my life is just very full, with many things going on, I bet you guys get tired simply reading this, so I'll stop now.

And let me just say one last thing -- your support meant the world to me. I don't think anyone has ever gone into a defense feeling so surrounded by positive thoughts, prayers by friends and family, and support in every imaginable way. Thanks for being a part of that.

And the journey is almost over, I'm almost at the end of the tunnel. I'll emerge on the other side when they call my name at commencement -- it's then that I need to try and invite as many friends as possible so that in those brief moments after my name is called I can hear some screaming, and clapping, and rejoicing. Let me know if you wanna be there ;-)