By the way..I graduated

It's a bit anticlimactic that I finally get around to blog-announcing the fact that I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation more than two weeks ago...but here it is.. I graduated!  The day couldn't have gone more smoothly.  I headed into campus so that John and my Mom and Dad could get there a little closer to the defense time, which was 11:15am.  I had some great friends who helped my family setup the snacks and coffee while I prepped the talk and then all of a sudden the next thing I know, I'm defending!  I was really surprised at how nervous I was when it started, I believe my use of a laser pointer created some motion sickness for a few people.  Eventually, I settled down and was able to roughly enjoy giving the talk.  Another surprising thing about the defense talk, versus any other talk I've given, is the diversity of audience and material.  When preparing it I had to consider the full range of listeners, from my parents and husband to my advisor and committee.  It was really intimidating.  In addition, it's the first time I have talked about more than one of three major pieces of my Ph.D. work.  Fitting it all into a coherent picture was quite the challenge.   I have a hard time judging how it went, other than to tell you that I passed, and as a former advisor of mine likes to say "I passed with flying colors...black and blue". 


If you are like any of the other dozen people I have talked to recently, you are sitting there wondering, "What's next?"  Well, I have a somewhat elusive answer for you.. a postdoc, for a bit, maybe.  I had already planned to stay here for the summer to finish up some aspects of my work for publication.  During my post-defense discussion with my committee, this was actually formalized to be a postdoc with a committee member.  This is a fantastic development since it means I get to do some experiments, which I've always been eager to do.  However, it's really ideal since I can choose to leave at the end of the summer, regardless of the state of the experiments.  If, however, things are going great and I really decide I want to stay in academics, there's a lot of other work I can do with this advisor, should we both wish it.  Right now, I'm going to take it one step at a time before I try and project any long-term outcome of this arrangement.  Luckily, John is very supportive with the idea of going with the flow for the next few months as I sort out some very convoluted feelings I have about my future career path.  I'm lucky to have friends who continue to challenge me about some of those feelings so that I have to think deeply about every option. 


I still have a hard time adjusting to the idea that I am done.  Commencement next week might make it feel more real and I had an email tonight that helped!  My advisor emailed someone a request on behalf of Dr. Naegle and others.  It felt quite official!