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Drove up to Gainesville special to personally submit my thesis to the graduate editorial office. The final draft of my thesis has been reviewed and approved by six or seven different people... checked, rechecked, printed twice... and finally dropped in the "submission" bucket.
All done, except for the waiting - and the final approval for electronic submission.
When I first was doomed to head down to Homestead, way back in May of 2007, I found my path blocked by seasonal wildfires. They raged up and down the interstate, completely closing the Alligator Alley that runs from Florida's Gulf to Atlantic coasts. You would think that omens such as this would have stopped me, but I am ever stubborn.
Now, as I try to drive North to submit my thesis in person, I find myself confronted by a similar wall of flame. I almost made it through the net last night - perhaps, had I started but half an hour earlier, I would have made it. As it was, I had driven to the edge of the Alley only to be turned back by flashing lights... after sitting in a traffic jam for nearly two hours.
I will have to take the long way around, and today I will head up to Gainesville direct, instead of stopping to visit my parents. I will remain just as indomitable at the end as I was in the beginning. If I can force myself into the fire, and hold my hand there for the two years so required, then I can hang on just one more day and be done with it all.
So today while sitting at my desk and working on corrections for my thesis, I receive a phone call.
And you are now reading the scratchings of Florida's next CAPS agent. Mostly unexpected: I'd interviewed so long ago that I had long since given up hope. Given that one of the other officers attended my thesis and thought that I did a good job, I probably shouldn't be too surprised that they would call me back only a day after I finally finished.
I guess I get to survey for invasive critters and defend Florida agriculture. It is, after all this time, still a bug hunt instead of a stand-up fight. Of course, the position is still in Miami, and still in Florida, and still involved with agriculture. Still: it is a job. Right now, that is a hard thing to find, and I am glad to have it.
We'll see what time brings. I start on May first.
Well, stick a fork in me - and cue the music: I am defended and for the most part, done. I am not yet totally sure how it feels to be out and on the other side, and truly - I am not out of the woods yet. Now I must process the comments and criticism that my committee offered on my thesis, and re-submit it to them for final approval.
Then I put it in the appropriate format for the graduate school, get it through graduate editorial (can you tell I've left these links up for my own personal use?), pay a small library fee, and process the electronic submission. Then will I be done and free.
Except that I will have to find a job, and reformat my thesis into one or more publications.
It never really ends. Every ending merely acknowledges where something else begins.
In lieu of anything sensible, I present the platypus:
We who are about to defend salute you. Open an umbrella, and wish for rain.
First TREC seminar down.
"Host susceptibility and population dynamics of Scirtothrips dorsalis Hood (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) on select ornamental hosts in southern Florida"
Copies are available for the curious in Powerpoint 2008 and PDF formats.
Now for the defense next Wednesday.
I try to reserve playing Beethoven's ninth symphony, the "Ode to Joy", for special occasions.
Congratulations, Iowa. You've earned it.