September also means that school is getting ready to start (tomorrow!) for lots and lots of people, including me. It's my 22nd first day of school as a student, and I can't believe I'm writing this, but it's also my last. My last. I think I could cry if I had the time to think about that for very long. The original plan was to have my classes wrapped up by now, but our sweet Emma came and started growing up and the short of the story is she deserves my time and attention and love and presence in her life more than any research article does. Grad school has been good to me in many ways, but I think I appreciate it most for the time it's given me with Emma and Tyler during the day. I can work at night (and so can Tyler, thank goodness).
This semester is my last big push, so I'm honestly not dreading it. Bring it on is more my mentality.
I'm doing research with my adviser, who I've been working with for a long time.
I'm taking two classes.
I'm teaching. A ton.
I'm finishing up my second written preliminary exam for my degree.
And I'm hoping to take my preliminary oral exam for my degree at the end of the semester before my adviser goes on leave.
If all of that goes as planned - ohpleaseohpleaseohpleasegod - I'll be ABD ("all but dissertation") or a Doctoral Candidate by the end of this semester. I'm free to move about the world as a Doctoral Candidate and even look for a job, which makes all kinds of things possible for Tyler, Emma, and me.
Late last week, we went to check out one of the classrooms I'll be teaching in this semester so I could get familiar with my room and technology (mic up, get a lecture displayed, test audio for clips I'll be showing). While I did that super calmly because I knew my hubby/technology guru was there to help if I blew something up, we put on some Elmo-related YouTube videos and danced around the classroom. Dance parties are a pretty typical occurrence in our house. We also posed Emma to look like a good little student sitting in the fourth row. She thought that was pretty neat-o. She also thought running up and down the aisles screaming was pretty neat-o.
(Sorry about the pictures in this post. We forgot our camera at home!)
Then, we headed to the fair. Speaking of the scorching heat further south, this truly was a scorching hot day - over 100 degrees, I think. Da-da enjoyed some yummy fair food like this fried Twinkie,
and Mama and Emma sipped on cold drinks and $1 frozen apple cider pops.
We didn't stay long but still had a ton of fun. Our highlight was getting to see lots of animals, particularly the ones born while the fair was going on.
