It's 2:10 am on April 1, 2006- my dissertation deadline is here! My printer is droning away, printing out a document that I've only seen on my computer screen thus far. I'm so excited to look at it that I'm pulling each page out one by one as it prints...waiting for the whole document is taking too damn long! Here I sit, listening to my printer, staring at my empty glass of chocolate milk. Noah is asleep in his car seat on the bed behind me (that's where he likes to sleep these days), and Buddy is curled up on the bed beside him. Paul and Jacob have been asleep for hours. I am relieved, shocked, elated, tired...I can't believe that this headache that I've had for the past three years (called "dissertation") is almost behind me. It may sound masochistic, but part of me has been enjoying these all-nighters..because it's probably the end of them for me. Sure I'll have the all-nighters with my newborn, but the coffee-drinking, bleary eyed, plowing-through-a-project work, is coming to an end. It's the bittersweet ending of this long road of graduate school, that started nearly 7 years ago, and is now ending. Interestingly, I realized recently that it's been 10 years since I graduated from WVU...in a blink, it will be 10 years since I finished my doctorate...I don't want the time to fly...I want to relish all of it, even the 4am worknights....So now I prepare my presentation for my final defense, on April 21, when I discuss my project in front of my committee, and answer whatever questions that they will have for me...and then I will be finished. I really can't believe it.......
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