What Now?

For the last couple of days I've been trying to figure out how to write this post. What have I been up to these past couple of months? How has this experience changed me? What now?

I guess I'll start at the beginning. I spent every waking moment from the middle of January until a week ago working on my dissertation, which, for the record, was officially submitted and approved today (it is 9 chapters, 82 figures, 7 tables, and 174 pages). Well, that's not entirely true. I made it to a couple of spring training games, but believe me when I say I didn't stop thinking about my dissertation for more than approximately five minutes. As usual, Dean took a couple of weeks off of work to go to games and practices, and we spent a few days in Orlando and Ft. Myers. He went to practices and I stayed in the hotel room to work in a new environment without the distraction of kitties or my material possessions. Surprisingly, the chapters written in hotel rooms actually turned out the best.

10 days before my defense, bound copies of my finished thesis had to be distributed to my committee members so they could read it beforehand. Most people have on their committee their major professor, 3 departmental professors and a chairperson from a different department. For two years I have been fortunate enough to have a national interdisciplinary fellowship which paid roughly one and a half times what a teaching or research assistant would make. For my defense, it was time to pay the piper because on top of the 5 people mentioned above, I had to have two additional committee members from the College of Medicine. Turns out that all this didn't matter because not a single committee member actually read my dissertation. That's pretty normal though.

Anyway, three days before my dissertation was to be distributed I was still writing vigorously, and I had to leave town for a job interview. The interview, for an assistant professor position at a liberal arts college, was two days worth of interviewing, teaching, giving a seminar and touring the campus. I did the interview both days on about 3 hours of sleep as there literally weren't enough hours in the day to finish all I had to do. Needless to say, it didn't go well and I was made keenly aware of my own limitations as far as multi-tasking and performing under intense pressure. The silver lining was the experience I got interviewing and the ability to scratch teaching at a liberal arts college off of my "possible career choices" list.

My point with all this is that returning home from the dreadful interview only to have more writing to do on top of being terribly sleep-deprived marked one of my lowest moods in my entire life. Add to that the fact that I still didn't have a job lined up and all I wanted was to go hide under a rock. Dean, whose future basically depends on my ability to find work, wasn't about to let that happen. I am so grateful that he has been the supportive, loving husband he is.

But what I learned from that low point is that going through the last stages of your time as a Ph.D. student, in my opinion, makes you just as deserving of the degree as the 5 previous years I spent doing research. Whatever pride I take in this accomplishment is a result of being almost completely torn down only to emerge a stronger, more confident individual.

My mom and stepdad flew in for my defense. I want to thank them right now for putting up with me the evening before and the morning of. I was an absolute wreck and I'm positive I wasn't very much fun to be around. In fact, there were lots of times I wasn't fun to be around and again I have to give credit to Deano who endured the brunt of the "crazy eruptions." To show my appreciation I dedicated my thesis to him, something I thought was lame when other people did it, but now I see why it is completely appropriate.

When I started speaking, I was unbelievably nervous. Dr. Hari had told me time and again that I know this stuff better than anyone and I had no reason to be nervous, but I couldn't help it. I eventually calmed down, and from what I've been told actually did a very good job. My presentation was about 1 hour and 20 minutes, followed by about another half hour of questions from my committee members. Most of the questions were easy, and the ones I didn't know I didn't try to bullshit, I speculated on the answer while admitting I was only guessing. Then everyone had to leave the room except for the committee (did I mention there was an audience too?!) for them to deliberate. It turns out that instead of deliberating, the committee scarfed down the cookies I brought, which they were too polite to eat during the presentation.

Mom and stepdad and Dean and I had a wonderful celebratory dinner, I took calls from well-wishers and then had a lovely, relaxing weekend before they left. We went to a couple of state parks, and did something I've wanted to do ever since moving down here - went to Big Cat Rescue. We went drinking one night and accidentally wound up in a gay bar. (We thought there just a lot of lesbians there, but it turned out the good-looking gentlemen in suits sitting at the bar were lesbians too. In fact, everyone was a lesbian except for the four of us, but we were too happy and buzzed to care.)

So what's next? That's the million dollar question right now. I don't have a job lined up for certain. The good news is that a couple days before my defense I found out I made it past the first round of reviews for a national postdoctoral fellowship I applied for. The bad news is that I still have to wait 4-6 weeks to find out if I actually have the job. I think I have an excellent shot and the first round of cuts was the biggest. But not having a job is still scary as hell. Dean is working his job and Dr. Hari said he'd pay me until I found something, but who knows how long that could be - I am entering to most volatile job market in decades.

I will still continue to write, but I'm afraid things may have to get much more vague. When I have a real job to protect (hopefully one at a government-funded lab) I'm going to have to be really careful and the rules may have to change a little.

I'm slowly getting back into reading blogs. Unfortunately, I'm horribly obsessive compulsive when it comes to reading, which requires me to actually go through and read what I've missed. If I haven't visited you yet, don't worry, I'll get there eventually. And thanks to all of you for stopping by and leaving encouraging words. It helped me more than I can say.