I am Sir Gawain!

I defeated my Green Knight on Thursday, and I am now ABD! :D

Why the metaphor? Two reasons: 1. I'm teaching SGGK right now, and 2. because it fits for the nature of the exams. Although scary and imposing like a giant green knight would be, the process of taking exams also taught me several life lessons. I don't know if I endangered myself by entering the fray with a protective green sash, but I did slice off the Green Knight's head and received my own, less fatal, blow.

The less fatal blow I'm referring to is my low pass on one of my writtens. But even that's melted away as a distant memory.

My oral exam was scary at first, but I eventually eased my way into it and was able to find my footing. I got no sleep the night before (but who does?)--I woke up every hour on the hour to the same nightmare: being in the oral exam and failing in a myriad of ways. Never satisfied with the end, I'd roll over and go back to sleep, only to wake up again by the same nightmare (but with a more disastrous end than the previous one). This happened every hour from 1-5, until I finally threw off the covers at 5 a.m. and said, "Fuck this," took my shower, made and ate breakfast, and went to school early. My exam wasn't until 1 p.m., but I was on campus by 8 a.m.

I won't go into the nitty gritty details here, because I'm not entirely sure my readership is interested. What generally occurred was:

1. Dr. S asked his questions first. At first I wasn't giving him the answers he wanted, but I must have eventually started to please him. His portion lasted for 40 minutes--it was his written exam I low passed. He never even mentioned my score.

2. Dr. Ri asked her questions next. She really just wanted to talk about my dissertation topic, which I'm more than happy to do at any given moment. Her portion lasted for 30 minutes. I high passed her written exam.

3. Dr. Re asked her questions last. She's my dissertation director, and I was most nervous about her questions. She and I have a special relationship--she was the professor who really took me under her wing when I was a new little Master's student, nearly 5 years ago. She directed a great deal of my Master's research (I was her graduate research assistant), and she directed my Master's thesis. Her questions were challenging but fair. Her portion lasted for 30 minutes.

4. After everyone asked their questions, they sent me out of the room, twenty minutes ahead of schedule, which was good. A couple of my friends happened to be walking around the halls at that moment, so they gave me some words of encouragement while my committee discussed their decision (to pass or fail me). Faster than I expected, the door opened and Dr. Re gave my friends the thumbs-up. She and the rest of my committee gave me a round of applause. I could hardly breathe I was so excited.

5. After everything, Robert and Adriane met up with me. Robert really didn't have any reason to come to school that day, but he came anyway to meet me after the exam. I was thrilled beyond reason that I was able to see so many important people after the exams because they were all more than ready to celebrate with me. We went out for dinner and drinks that night. On Friday morning, I woke up more well-rested than I had been in a very long time.

I have been sleeping so well lately, which is good to know because I really didn't want to have to deal with clinical insomnia or anything of that nature.

I'm just so relieved and glad to no longer be under so much stress and to have everything finished. :)