A Capitalist Brew

I am certain that I am having more fun than any of you during the last moments of 2007 because I am….working on my dissertation!!  Yes, I live a very exciting life, I know.  This year’s celebration differs from most because I am sitting at my desk working rather than lying in the bed watching tv.  I have really always preferred to spend the last moments of the year in quiet reflection, and this year I am reflecting the long road to get to this point.  I have been in grad school for 6 years and 4 months (3 years before entering the Ph.D. program), and I have been working on my dissertation for about one year and 5 months.  Thanks to the work I completed this evening, I have completed drafts of all three essays complete.  I still need to do some editing of the third essay and spend about 2 weeks doing some robustness checks on the second essay, but I am probably about 3 weeks away from handing the final form of the dissertation to the committee for review.  For all intensive purposes, I can say that 2007 was the year that I completed my dissertation.  Now I plan to celebrate by ringing in the new year with some champagne, waking Brooke to watch the ball drop in Times Square (because when it is the New Year in NYC, it is the New Year everywhere), and being annoyed by all the idiot rednecks shooting off fireworks.

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I am totally fascinated by watching Shamu (or as Brooke would call him, Shampoo) swim around on my Chumby.

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For the past two days, my co-author decided to grace us with his presence.  It is always fun to see him and to get some work done.  Most useful was the time that I got him together with Z so that the two of them could argue over some points in the last essay of the dissertation.  I was very happy to get out of the middle, let them work through their differences, and now just know what I need to do to finish the major amount of work.  I am actually letting myself think about finishing and graduating now, and I am getting excited.  Now if that could just motivate me to work a little more, I would be set.

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I was disappointed when I found that Santa did not leave a finished dissertation under the tree as I had asked.  He did, however, leave me two very cool gifts.

• Cool gift #1 - The Sims 2 University Edition.  I love the Sims.  I love college.  I love making the Sims go to college.
• Cool gift #2 (or what Scott calls “the coolest thing ever”) - Chumby.  It is pretty freaking cool.  It sits on your desk and connects to a wifi network to broadcast widgets of your choosing.  I currently have a weather widget, a news widget, a Flickr widget that cycles through pictures on my Flickr account, a fake snowstorm widget (because I love a good snowstorm), a San Diego beach webcam widget, and a Shamu webcam widget installed.  So far the Shamu widget is probably my favorite one.  I love Shamu, and it is pretty cool to be able to look over a a screen on my desk and watch him actually swimming around in his tank.  There are also some interactive magic eight ball widgets, which I am thinking may be useful tools when students come in to ask me for bizarre requests.  I can just break out the magic eight ball to lighten the mood before I say no.  It can also be hooked up to your ipod to play some of the songs through your Chumby speakers.  The Chumby just became available to the general public within the past couple of days, and I highly recommend getting one for yourself or the gadget lover in your life (if you can connect wirelessly to the Internet).

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To remind my toy-crazed children about the reason for the season, for last night’s dessert we made birthday cupcakes for Jesus.  In my true fashion, the only cupcake wrappers I had on hand were covered in Easter decorations.  And there you have it, folks, from birth to resurrection all represented in a single cupcake.  Brooke wanted to send one to Heaven for Jesus and asked why we were not putting candles on the cupcakes.

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On this day I try to treasure the precious moments I have shared with my family over the past few weeks and reconnect with friends.  In the presence of crying children, I will remember the promise of peace on the first Christmas.  I will remember that today we celebrate and give gifts to honor the birth of our Lord and not to satiate our own materialist needs.  Today I forget about the things left undone for they will still be there tomorrow.  Today I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and remind you to enjoy a moment of peace in the midst of all the chaos.

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I am starting to panic now as I look around at all I have left to do in preparation for Christmas.  I still have a very large pile of gifts to wrap, I still have about half the cards to get in the mail, I still have to do grocery shopping for our Christmas meal, and I still have another batch of cookies to make.  I also still have one present to purchase, but I don’t actually need it until after Christmas.  We did make a batch of candy cane cookies today (without any kind of mint flavoring or pieces).  I didn’t do anything else on the Christmas preparation list, but I did make some progress on the revised version of my second essay of the dissertation.  I am aiming to have the revised version done tomorrow (minus an appendix with a change another committee member requested and I am avoiding until the very end).  I really need to finish that Christmas list tomorrow!

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I now have my car back from the shop not too much worse for the wear.  I missed my car and am happy to have it home again.  The other driver was initially claiming that she had a green arrow and not a circular green (left turn yield on green), which would have meant that I blatantly ran through a light that had been red for almost a minute going 45 mph.  What actually happened was that she decided to make a left turn when she had the yield on green and didn’t make it across the road.  Although my insurance claim processor told me there was only a very small chance that the other insurance company would find their driver at fault without proof either way, the other insurance company did decide their driver was at fault after talking to me this week.  All that really means to me is that I get my $250 deductible back, but I’ll take it!  Because it was not my fault!

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Another semester down, another semester closer to ending my term as student.  I will graduate at the end of the next semester.  It is really only a few weeks away and yet still feels like it is a distant goal because of all the work that will come between today and the day I defend the dissertation.  I spent the last few days grading a large stack of final exams and comprehensive exams.  I had them done on Monday morning just in time to be dragged to the department Christmas party.  I had been hoping to avoid this event since it is the last year I could just not go if I so chose.  Luckily, it was not that bad.  I sat at a table with Z and another member of my committee as well as the department chair and two economists.  I ran out at the first opportunity and claimed I had to work on my papers.  I could now start to concentrate on the untouched pile of Christmas cards, the gifts needing to be wrapped and shipped, and the rest of the gifts on the list (almost everything was purchased online this year…I just could not deal).

The kids had fun Christmas parties at school last week and are now off until January 9.  This means I need to be better organized and have activities ready for them each day to keep them occupied.  Before they could be let go for break, someone in Luke’s class had the kind thought to expose the rest of the class to chicken pox (she had the vaccine).  Both kids have been vaccinated, but we are just waiting to see what happens at this point.  I have never had the chicken pox, so that is an entirely different situation.  I went to student health and got the blood test to check for chicken pox antibodies.  You need to have these results before you can get vaccinated by the health department.  My results did not come in before student health closed for the semester, so now I am just left waiting and hoping I don’t end up with chicken pox.

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With all the focus on the car accident, dissertation, proctoring, grading, and getting ready for the doctoral seminar on January 4, I have not spent much time thinking about Christmas.  I have to admit that I feel a bit like a Scrooge.  Other than the simple things with the kids, I am not very excited about Christmas this year.  Everything feels like such a chore, and I am not finding much enjoyment in the holiday preparations like I usually do.  I think this year I just see all of those Christmas things as more to do and to feel stress over how I can’t help but do those things inadequately given all of my other obligations.

Still, in the midst of the craziness, I was happy to enjoy a few special Christmas moments this week.  Last night we took the kids to see Santa.  Luke screamed and cried, but Brooke happily talked to Santa and told him that she wants a baby My Little Pony and two Barbie dolls.  Then today I went to find a cozy chair at the first real Starbucks in town (not counting the one in Target or in the university buildings).  I enjoyed a latte and graded papers with the smell of espresso and sound of Christmas music dancing in my head.  I still have not done a thing with our cards, I have not wrapped anything, I have not baked anything, and I have a couple of gifts left to purchase/arrange.  For a few short moments this weekend, I had a little Christmas and all was right with the world.  Now, back to grading those exams.

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