To begin to process all that has happened in the past few weeks, I have to start with Dr. J.
- Dr. J had an amazing defense. I am so lucky to be in love with such a brilliant and captivating man. It was practically standing room only for his big day. Most of his committee made it out (although one member joined by conference call and another had as all worried by showing up 15 minutes late). He was in the zone, making things like multiple linear regression and factor analysis sound simple to even a text-based humanist like myself. His mastery of his study and his passion for research was truly awe-inspiring. His defense presentation was soooo good that the committee only asked him a few softball hypothetical questions. Then his chair did something very unconventional—she asked if anyone in the audience would like to ask questions! Some of Dr. J’s colleagues, mentors, and undergraduate mentees asked a few questions and made a few comments and then we were all sent out of the room. There were many hugs and congratulations out in the hallway as we all knew he had knocked it out of the park. When he was called back in, his chair proudly announced that he was officially Doctor J Middle Initial Last Name, Jr. and he had no further revisions to make on his dissertation!!!! Go Dr. J! So within a couple of days we walked over to the graduate thesis office and dropped that puppy off!
- Dr. J's graduation (just two days after his defense) was also a wonderful time and a lot of fun. He was hooded Friday morning by his chair in a “smallish” ceremony for just his school and there was much cheering and tearing all around (I was good—I didn’t cry!) Following graduation, we spent some time at his chair’s house in University Town. Then, after a brief nap and rest, we piled all of his family in a caravan and headed down to Tourist Town (about 20 minutes away) where my mom was staying in a friend’s condo. Mom and my Aunt from UpNorth (who has been in love with Dr. J and his family since she first met them in 2005) cooked a nice celebration dinner for everyone. We took a little familiar excursion to the great shopping outlets of Tourist Town after dinner to walk off our gluttony and then Dr. J opened all of his cards and gifts before we headed back to University Town for the night. And of course, the party did not end there. After we got back to University Town, Dr. J, his sister, and I hooked up with a few of his friends who were in town for the graduation and went to this very nice tapas restaurant where there was a jazz/neo-soul band playing (very unusual for this town). We had a nice time and Dr. J even took me for a spin on the dance floor. We had a late late night but it was rise and shine the next morning to take the two hour drive to Music City where Dr. J’s sister lives. She recently bought a new home and the family was dying to see it so we had a fun BBQ there. Dr. J’s Best Man came up (he had to work on graduation day) to celebrate a bit with us as well as some other family friends in the Music City area. Boy it was fun but tiring—I was glad when we finally settled back in University Town and just crashed for the next couple days.
- Being with Dr. J for two weeks was great and a much needed remedy to the blues I've been fighting all semester. We watched a ton of movies, ate some wonderful food (and some really guilty-pleasure food like Marble Slab), and just chilled out. I especially enjoyed Spiderman 3 and Shrek the Third. I pretty much disagree with all the critics on both of the films—I really enjoyed both.
Those are some of the highlights that I've been thinking about over the past couple of days. I'm leaning on those good memories right now as I am starting to miss Dr. J pretty bad (even though I'll see him after he moves next week). But unforunately my mind is really foggy with some of the not so good things that occured on this "vacation" and I'll get in to those a little bit later...
2 comments:
Sounds like a good time was had by all over the past few weeks!
Congratulations to Dr. J!
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