After spending the past several months working hard to meet draft deadlines for my dissertation, that whole thing is finally over. It's strange. I wrote a lot. I edited a lot. I worked hard. I looked forward to being done so badly. And now I am. After my advisor okayed my third draft I sent it to my two other readers. Made a few more edits based on their comments. And on April 22 I sat here at my dining table and defended my dissertation via video conferencing. I was so nervous. Not because I didn't think I would pass, but because I wanted to do a good job and appear competent. Which I guess I did, because sure enough, they said I can be a doctor. It's a huge relief to be done, but also strange how it ended so nonchalantly. No driving to Fairfax to defend. No shaking hands. No ceremony. No party. I wasn't planning to attend the graduation ceremony, but I did want to have a party with friends and family to celebrate. It took ten school years to get my PhD. That's a long time.
Anyway, that brings us to Covid-19. I've been working from home, finally using my office upstairs! I also started using my living room more because in April I did yoga every day. It was a great way to get through the end of dissertation and defense preparation days. And I started to take long walks and discovered new parts of the neighborhood. All those walks made me sad I didn't have a dog to walk though.
And that brings us to my next big update. I got a dog! A puppy, to be exact. I've been obsessing over adopting a dog for a long while now but knew I needed to wait until I finished grad school. And sure enough, a mere three days after my defense, I brought home a 10-week-old puppy from the SPCA. I never had a puppy in mind before, but since I'm home all the time now a puppy was actually a possibility. And I guess after my dissertation I needed a new project? I must say, getting a puppy sure didn't give me a break!
Anyway, her name is Sadie, and over three weeks in I can say she's settling in great and doing well with training. My walks have been cut drastically short (and slow), but some day she'll be a great walking (and hopefully hiking) buddy. It'll be fun to watch her grow.
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| Meeting her at the shelter! |
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| Our first "walk" |
