7 Days

...until it's Go Time.  And by Go Time, I mean end of an era time.  Reemergence into human society time.  Remember what it's like to get dressed time.  Submission time.

Here's how it's gonna roll.  I read a zillion extra books at the last minute, which for unfathomable reasons absolutely must appear in my footnotes.  Then I put them in my footnotes.  I set margins, I align subtitles.  I triple-check all footnotes to ensure that a gazillion tiny punctuation marks are all in the right place in every citation.  I revise my Introduction.  I write a Conclusion.  I get feedback on the conclusion from my supervisors, and probably rewrite the whole dang thing.  I make a table of contents.  I make sure all page numbers match up in the eight different chapters.  I number all my figures and illustrations, and make a table of those too.  (I do a lot of clicking on "help" in microsoft word.)  I find every single time I said "See page XX" and replace the XX with the page I'm referring to, after I track that page down.   I write legal declarations and fill out a four different forms.  I arrange for a print shop in England to print, bind, and deliver two copies of my dissertation to the front desk at Warwick Graduate School.  I shell out serious cash for them to do so.

Looking at this list,  I'm sure I've forgotten at least seven impossible things.

Then ... I wait.  Until the defense.  I could be waiting for up to four months.  No biggie.  It's only my fate hanging in the balance.  The school calls up the world's expert in my field to chair my examination committee.  When eventually we all meet, they've all read my dissertation, and they grill me for as long as they want.  hours.  And then, they say yes or no, and that's that.  I get a PhD, or I don't.  The end.

Radical the way they do things in England, huh?

Marc's grandparents are all drastically and dangerously declining.  Just gonna throw that out there.

So ... kinda overwhelmed.  Let's take a break.  Come have a seat in the backyard and watch the sunset with me.  Everything's going to be fine.

ahhhhh.  that's better.  See you on the other side.