I only have one photo to represent the mental stress and suffering I've been going through all semester.
This study has been my home as I've been on sabbatical all semester, preparing for my exams. The books along the top are some of the ninety books I read to prepare for the exams. A few weeks ago I received my exam questions and had 72 hours to complete three papers. Kory and the kids were great. On the night I got the questions they had a little cheering line for me to run through into the office and they cheered me on and gave me high fives. Then Kory took everyone out for the night so that I could have silence. I got outlines of two of the essays done that night.
The next day I received a beautiful bouqet from my friends Paula and Joelle, who are also working on their PhDs and feel my pain. I would have snapped a picture but I was having trouble with my camera.
On the second day I wrote drafts of all the essays. One of them was pretty well-developed, the other two were rough.
The next day I finished two essays and hit a wall with the third. I thought and thought and decided I needed to start over and reorganize it.
By Friday at 4:00 I was done with all three essays and feeling like I'd done my best, so I sent them in. This last week I received my scores and was thrilled to pass with pretty high scores. This coming Friday I will do the oral portion of the exams, where I meet with my committee and go through all of my answers and discuss my dissertation. It will be nice to have it all done.
That weekend Kory and I went on a roadtrip to Montana where he was doing a couple of firesides. It was nice to get away and leave all of my troubles behind me.
Congratulations and good luck with the oral portion! What an accomplishment.
ReplyDelete