Dear reader(s)

Dear reader(s):

And so, I have reached the end of my dissertation year(s). That seems to me to mean that I have also reached the end of this blog.

However, I am not sure what to do. I would like to keep writing a blog. But not a blog about my dissertation. I am wondering if I could start a new blog on a new topic. But what topic? Academia? (Boring and depressing.) Lesbianism? (Exciting, fun, but I'm not sure how unique my take on this topic will be.) Living in Canada? (Sort of a limited issue.) Staying at least five feet away from others at all times? (Important, but difficult to narrate in an interesting way.) Animals? (I have no critiques of this one.)

What do you think about the future of blogging by me in a post-diss environment?

Alive and well in the far north, where it's snowing

It's snowing! Very alarming: it is also October. Who will dig out my car, apartment, self? (Supposedly I'm to be consoled in the knowledge that "it won't stick.")

Oh, and I survived my illness so far. And I got this e-mail:

Dear YSA,

This is an auto generated message to inform you that the dean of your school has updated your diploma application review status to: Graduating

Registrar System Mailer

I think that this e-mail marks the actual "graduating" of me from grad school. As in, when I opened this email from Registrar System Mailer, I graduated. Though it's unclear.

Not the weepy, bucolic commencement ceremony I'd looked forward to. But still: Thank you, Registrar System Mailer, where ever you are!

And...that's it!

Congratulations! Your ETD has been accepted. If you have any questions regarding graduation or anything related to the Graduate School - please contact !@%Y*^T***&^%%###

Thank you for using *#etd,
Administrator

And it only took me 4 tries to get the formatting right.

Also, I came down at once with a really nasty flu that CC has identified through online research as TB. Yuck. I spent all day in bed.

Stumbling toward the finish line!

I received this in an email!

Thank you for submitting your ETD. When reviewing your work, we learned that the following formatting problems must be corrected before you resubmit your ETD:

Add title page and abstract to ETD
Add preliminary pages to table of contents and renumber
Add c.v. to table of contents (last entry)

To complete the process, you will need to log in...

Wow, all I have to do is (see above)! Diss creature is stumbling toward the finish line--crawling in an ill-advised zig zag toward the finish line--or is it slouching toward the finish line aaaahhh!

New Animal Information

I am really busy right now trying to graduate, and also undergoing a psychological process that appears to be the result of the end of graduate school and entails a) my brain really not working well and me being confused a lot, and b) the receeding of the mean and paranoid part of my personality--but, BUT--I am not too busy to have discovered the world's largest rodent (average weight 100 lbs!) living a mile from my new apartment!

It lives in the little zoo in the park! I was running in the park and I saw some of them. They make lots of different noises, including whistling and snorting.

CC told her family about this and they suggested that non-Western people eat the world's largest rodent. I told my sister and she said she heard on the radio that when Europeans first saw the world's largest rodent in South America, they wrote to the Pope to ask him to identify it. They wrote a description of it, including that it swims. The Pope wrote back and identified that it was a fish.



Image courtsey of Home of the World's Largest Rodent. Person pictured is a trained zoo professional: do not attempt.

Update: Lady Who Measures the Margins and Page Numbers and Stuff

Ok, so as of now, I've sent it twice to the electronic upload webpage thing. The first time I couldn't get it as one document with two kinds of page numbers. So I uploaded two separate documents. The Lady Who Measures the Margins and Page Numbers and Stuff emailed: "Call the Help Desk, (###) ###-####."

Then, on the airplane, I figured out how to get it as one document. So I uploaded it again at 1 am. The online sytem said it received it.

I called The Lady at 4:25 pm eastern (deadline is 4:30 pm eastern) and she said she'll be at work till midnight tonight measuring margins, but she'll email me if I need to adjust anything and resubmit.

So now I am waiting for her to email back. Thanks for all your well wishes, people.

Woah, here we go!

Woah, so basically CC is reading the first 10 pg. of the intro for major grammar fiascoes, I have to read and consider some advice emailed me by SM, maybe tweak an adjective in the acknowledgments, (Should I thank Tom for "being awesome"? Is that a fair characterization of Tom's gifts and talents? I want to mention Tom's classic "The Nazis Sucked Ass!" e-mail, but that's too much for a dissertation.) uh, and then I am going to upload the thing! Maybe within the hour.

A nice thing was that I asked SM to proof read my acknowledgments and then she sent me her's and her partner's. The best part of all this is the acknowledgments.

Oh, future plot development: Once you upload, the powers of the grad school check with a ruler to make sure you followed the format. So likely I'll have to upload once more. The deadline is tomorrow at 4:30 pm!

Spell Check!

I am sitting here spell checking my entire dissertation.

Wow! This reminds me of other occasions spell checking stuff. But none of those papers were 286 pages long. I think it will take about 40 minutes. Most of my job is to press "Ignore All" when spell checker hits a German word.