On September 19th, I turned in my thesis. Everything, all of it.
I defended a week and a half before that and revised my thesis, got ready for a new academic year, processed the reorganization of the program where I work and took a whirlwind, day-long trip to Baltimore in the middle of all of that. I was a little burned out and with only a few minor freakouts, I'm now trying to return to a life where I actually have time to do things that I enjoy.
For the record, the title of my thesis ended up being: COLLABORATIVE
DESIGN OF SCAFFOLDING TOOLS FOR HIGH ENROLLMENT UNDERGRADUATE COURSES:
HOW STRATEGY, POLITICS, CULTURE AND EMOTIONS IMPACT THE DESIGN,
TEACHING AND ADMINISTRATION OF BIOLOGY 101.
It sounds like a real page-turner, doesn't it?
Now that it's done and we still have no clear idea of when we are moving to another state, I find myself with actual free time for the first time in about two years. For the past two weeks, I have been consuming movies and books faster than I ever have before. I've been making trips to the library at the rate of every two days to check out books to read and books for knitting patterns that I'm interested in. I'm experiemnting with books on CD so that I can do two of my favorite things at the same time — knit and read.
The thing about reading is that I cant give it up. Even in the midst of heavy thesis writing, I always had at least one book that had absolutely nothing to do with my research going. I am notorious for reading late at night well past whatever time I had been planning on getting to sleep. And get this, (and I've done this almost all of my life, save for brief stints of bathroom-sharing roommates in college) my favorite place to read is while drying off after I get out of the shower at night. Whole chapters have been consumed while shaving my legs and brushing my teeth. I am very often accused by the other member of my household for hogging the bathroom. But I think that only applies if one is doing particularly girly things while in the bathroom. It's not like I'm perfecting my eyeliner applying technique, I'm reading about goddamned super volcanos.
Despite my marathon thesis, summer was still pretty eventful. I'll try to recap it at some point, but for now, I think I'll just try to ease this blogging thing back in slowly. Not that anyone ever reads this anymore. Most have probably given me up for dead. (Not dead yet!)
