Dissertation defense - March 10, 2017

So here we are, nearly eight years after I started graduate school (September 2008) and I am looking at the final mountain, the biggest Alp, or, perhaps the smallest mole heap, my dissertation defense. Spring sounds promising, so perhaps it will run according to the romance associated with spring. Hope, renewal, new life and endless possibility. I am not going to lie. This is what I am banking on. I try not to have too many expectations and visions of silver lined clouds but I'm so excited it is difficult to keep a level head. My mom said I was always this way. It irritates some of those closest to me. I know. And it doesn't end with my March 10th date. Likely there will be edits. And then I have to find a job. I HAVE to find a job, and I mean ASAP. I took a loan from my brother and sister-in-law to finish up this last year. I have stretched that loan to within an inch of its life. But I also GET to look for a job. I am thrilled that I will be able to concentrate on getting a job. Not anxiously searching, throwing my curriculum vitae or resume at this job and that job, hoping for a bite, while I keep my dissertation open in a Word doc that I am continuously updating and working on.

Now that I have a minute to reflect, I do have some advice regarding the finishing process. On top of all the other blogs and websites out there, that is. But here goes:

1. Don't endlessly do miniature edits, this is not your magnum opus, but write everyday and read everyday
2. Print your favorite/most important articles, put them in a binder by year of publication and know them
3. Don't get discouraged if your committee never (nearly never) responds. Keep your eye on the prize. Stay in the solution (write/edit). Eventually they will respond because they want you off of their backs and their graduate student list.
4. Keep contacting your committee, especially near the last 1/2 year
5. Go to a dissertation formatting workshop. The whole thing seems a lot less scary afterwards.
6. Whether as a break during the middle of the day, or first thing in the morning, or the last thing before you go to bed, do something entirely unrelated to your diss. 
7. Don't focus on people or listen to people who constantly complain about their process. I mean a little is ok, be a friend of course, but if there is no sun in their sky, this last part of your process needs to take precedent. You can come back to them when you are done and let them yell and scream all they want. Chances are they will still not be done.
8. Have a plan...you can either have your every single day laid out (I don't do this, that would drive me nuts) or have highlighted finish lines on your calendar that you hold yourself to.
9. Sleep
10. Exercise

(Me and my baby cousin testing our post race happiness levels)

No matter what. Once you get this far. Hang on. You've got this.