Defense day

Five years. Five long, sometimes very painful years. The last six weeks (probably a bit more) have felt like a mad sprint for my life, but if you’re reading this then we’ve reached the final challenge, the defense. I was taught early on that a defense isn’t really an exam exactly, it’s a celebration of your accomplishments to get to this stage, I will tell you now it does NOT feel that way going into it. It feels a bit like going in for a routine surgery, you know statistically everything will be fine, but…

You ever wonder how much stress you can handle at once? I’m finding out the hard way. While tomorrow is the last major thing I need to check off before I get my degree, I still have some other loose ends I will need to tie up. Which, of course, means the pressure won’t be off quite yet. The other major hurdle will be getting my dissertation finalized, any edits/suggestions made by the committee need to be addressed before I submit it for binding. I will have roughly a week to make that happen and if I didn’t have a whole full-time job to worry about it would be a small vacation compared to everything leading up to the defense.

Luckily, things have gone fairly smoothly to this point. One of my committee members, who was only available super early in the morning had to reschedule so I will be making time to meet with him today instead. That also means I will be up super early (for me anyway) tomorrow for nothing!!!! I do admit getting something so stressful out of the way early in the day will at least make the rest of the day more bearable. I feel like my heart will stop at just about any moment, thankfully I’ve got so much caffeine in me that my heart couldn’t stop even if it wanted to. For legal purposes, that’s a joke … maybe.

It feels so weird being here right now. This blog was basically four years of me saying how it would never come and how I just felt stuck, then BAM!, defense tomorrow. I don’t know how I feel about that, I’m still sending out frantic emails to people to make sure I’ve invited everyone, including people I consider family and haven’t spoken with in quite some time. I feel guilty about that bit, which is why I’m writing it down here for all of you to hear about. I’ve never really had family, so I have weird feelings about reaching out to people first I guess? I don’t know, but the point being we’ve been basically out of contact for four years or so, just after I started the PhD, and I’m hoping my emails at least find their mark so they know that I appreciate them.

All of which is to say I need to learn better habits and at least send a text or email once in awhile. Also if you ever met me in real life you would see that I’m a barely civilized goblin who has trouble keeping conversation and frankly I wish I was just being self-deprecating saying that, but it’s the truth. But reading the paragraph or so it sounds like I’ve gotten off topic. Which is partly true, but like I said it’s a stressful time so I’m getting hit with all the emotions all at once. Like this one time in third grade… kidding.

Actually, looking at my last few posts I’ve gotten increasingly more deranged, so I hope anyone on the outside reading these won’t be dissuaded from doing a PhD, I promise my experience isn’t that typical. You don’t normally get a job before you finish your PhD, your PhD is your job. So yeah, working two jobs, look at me now! They said it couldn’t be done, but I showed them (I say as I fall over and lose the ability to control my body).

But let’s get back to the serious topic of tomorrow instead of trying (and failing) to be funny.

First, let me just say one more time. If you haven’t gotten the invite and you want to attend, please forgive me and send me another email or use the contact form on the contact us page. I promise to make an extra effort to respond, my inbox has been a flaming mess the past few days/weeks/how does time even work anymore? and I want to make sure anyone who wants to be there can be. I’m a bit anxious, I already seem to have quite the virtual crowd lined up, from people in my undergrad/grad school to a lot of you, who have been following along.

Okay, maybe anxious isn’t the right word for it, more like humbled. I’m surprised anyone cares, I guess old habits are hard to shake and growing up no one cared, even family who was “supposed” to care didn’t so it still feels strange that anyone else could possibly be interested in what I do. So thank you all, for the support over the years. This project was simply for me. I wanted to have a reminder after the fact of all the good (and bad) things that came along with this journey. I was never intending, nor did I expect, anyone to follow the journey much less be this invested in it. I don’t typically hold humanity with high regard, I mean look at the pandemic response, global warming, etc.. While people are awful, thoughtless, and selfish, this was a nice reminder that a person is not. Hopefully that comes off as the complement I meant it to be and not some weird insult. I told you, I’m a barely civilized goblin.

I still have quite a bit of work to do leading up to tomorrow. Guess who was an idiot and decided to make new slides for his dissertation instead of just adding to his old slides? If you guessed me, then you’re absolutely right and have an excellent sense about how difficult I like to make my life (which is to say far more difficult than I need to make it). They are almost done, but the last two weeks at work have been long, which has given me very little time to prep.

But wait… how am I here writing this if I am busy with work. What’s going on, who are you, WHAT YEEAR IS IT?!!?!?!?!?!?

Yep, still being deranged. This was a surprise gift from hospital-PI. Yesterday I was busy trying to reschedule some tests that were going to happen Friday so that I could attend. I was suggesting that we did them today so I wouldn’t have to have several of the team going at it alone. Not that they aren’t capable, they just aren’t as experienced, so I tried. But hospital-PI told me to take the day to prep, which is why I even have a chance to make this post today when I still have slides to do and in just a few hours I’m meeting with my first committee member.

He still isn’t thrilled about my dissertation topic, but we’ve had a steady truce for the last year or so where we just do most people do with COVID, we just ignored it. So it was somewhat a surprise when he told me to take the day. He’s supportive, he just doesn’t want me to get too far ahead of myself, or has he puts it “lose touch with reality,” which if he knew the story about my mother, he would probably have picked a better phrase, or maybe not, he’s Russian. I should clarify that, that’s a joke I make whenever he does something that I find rude. I just blame it on the fact that he’s Russian and because it’s a different culture.

He means well, I just don’t think the words come out how he envisions them as he says them. I mean the fact that I’m here writing this instead of at my desk or in an experiment is proof that he’s supportive. So yeah, I’ve been very lucky in that regard too. There aren’t too many PI’s who would take teasing well, but we’re incredibly sarcastic with him and he does it right back. Which is part of the reason, for the short-term anyway, why I am staying there and accepting a new position (which he fought to have made for me) as a research engineer.

A few days ago I gave a talk about the work we do since we have some new people starting, everyone had a 5 minute talk, with 2-3 minutes for questions to introduce all the research we did. He presented, I presented, and a few others in our lab had the chance along with about a dozen other labs. Well I hit my time almost perfectly (the timer went off right as I ended because I’m good like that). Then I had about 10 minutes worth of questions, so we went way over the time, but there was a surprising amount of interest in the research I’m pushing for, so we’re both very excited about kicking that off “full-time” instead of having to split my free-time (haha… free time) between work and school. It also means I’ve successfully dodged doing a postdoc, so go me! I’m very excited about the whole situation and I’m hopeful it will be for the best.

All that is for the future though. I’m not sure how I’m going to end the 365 days of academia project formally, but I will think of something. For now, I’m trying to stay focused on getting through tomorrow. I’ll see you all on the other side of it.

One day left…