March 2024
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Gradumucation!

I’ve been dreaming about this moment for a long time. Yesterday, I put on a silly outfit, they read my name out loud, and I got to walk across a stage while people applauded politely.

(We will not talk about the part where I almost forgot to turn around for the picture).

(Or the part where I did turn around, but I was standing in the wrong spot, so our department chair had to hiss at me to move).

I forgot to go pick up my diploma from the administration building. I’m assuming that they’ll send it to me later. Because if they don’t? Well, that sure was a waste of five years of my life.

This is what my life is like these days: I spent Lilian’s morning nap watching youtube videos that teach you how to put short hair into side buns. I think I did a pretty good job with it. Unfortunately, I did not do such a great job of taking pictures of it.

Untitled

Along those same lines, I very carefully charged my camera battery this morning… and then didn’t pack an SD card. Because, I am simultaneously awesome and completely incompetent. Kristian was able to use the built-in memory to take a few photos, one of which was this one:

Untitled

I think it really captures the fact that I’m several inches taller than the other girls in my cohort. It also captures the fact that only three of us showed up yesterday.

(Psssst. I’m the one in the middle)

If you want to feel special, I highly recommend getting a graduate degree from a department that has a decent number of undergrads (in this case, I would guess about 50) and very few graduate students. We stood up for our part of the ceremony and you could really see the look in everyone’s eyes as they turned to each other and said….. “This department has grad students? Huh, I guess you do learn something new every day.”

Lilian was a little angel. Possibly because she had her Dad and two sets of Grandparents to look out for her. It really was a proud moment to hold her afterwards.

Untitled

(She’d better be wearing one of those for realsies in about 20 years).

This picture pretty much sums up the past year or so of my life.

Untitled

Beans graduated yesterday as well (yay!) and her brother threw her a BBQ to celebrate. It was right near campus, so we walked over after my ceremony. It was f-f-f-f-reezing by that point, but we stuck it out for a couple of hours. Good food, good friends, good weather. Two out of three ain’t bad. I had both a cupcake and an ice cream. Because all of her friends from nutrition school had left by then, so there was nobody there to judge me. And because I just wrote a goddamn 80+ page thesis while taking care of a human baby. And I wanted my cake and eat ice cream too.

This has been a long journey for me. (We won’t talk about the fact that you can often earn a doctorate in five years). I wasn’t always sure that I’d make it. But, with a lot of help from family, friends, and my husband, I did it. And I’m really proud. It wasn’t always easy, but I almost always enjoyed it. You know you’re a history nerd when you finish your thesis, go “yay! I can read for fun now!” and promptly start reading… history books.

5 comments to Gradumucation!

  • So happy for you!! And proud and amazed. It’s all I can do to work and take care of a human baby, I can’t imagine doing all that AND getting a Master’s degree…including writing a thesis. You’re awesome!

  • Big, giant, huge congratulations. It’s a huge accomplishment, and you should be proud!

  • Congratulations!! You’re an inspiration to us undergrads 🙂

  • Huge congratulations again! To the academic accomplishments and of course once again to your cute litte one. She’s adorable and she’s heading for greatness, the way she’s handling this cap 🙂

    Enjoy the tons of free time (hahaha) you’ve got now with all the studying out of the way.

  • B.

    I’m late – but congratulations!! No small feat at all! You’re, like, super human ^_^

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>