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Doctor in the house
Jun. 23rd, 2004 04:24 amKendra successfully defended her dissertation today. She is, for all practical purposes, a PhD, though technically her degree won't be conferred until August.
Her advisor was the first to address her as Doctor, but I was the second: I waited outside with flowers (tiger lilies and an iris) and season 4 of The Simpsons on DVD ("for the girl with some free time"), along with Ruth (who wrote the Scottish dance) and Britta and Kendra's dissertation-buddy Lauren. The defense was apparently pretty painless; the only revisions they asked for were typo corrections, and they even discouraged her from writing a conclusion, which was the one remaining chunk she thought she needed to tackle. ("Take that advice," said Lauren. "Run with it. Don't look back.")
To turn it into a book she needs to add a special Heresy forDummies Classicists introduction; apparently, her committee felt they'd been dropped in media res a bit too much. This makes sense; Kendra hates to explain things that might seem obvious, but her dissertation straddles the boundary between Classics and Religion, and things that are obvious to one group might not be obvious to the other. A brief section defining terms and sketching out the basic relationships between groups is probably a good idea.
We went to Dominick's with a bunch of classicists afterward, and sat in the courtyard in the back, where everyone but me drank sangria (which is, it turns out, wine plus fruit juice) and made a pretty fun time of it. Me, I had a rubbery chicken parmesan sandwich, Coke in a mason jar, and a very yummy cannoli; I had to work tonight, so this was my dinner. I left for work c. 5:30, but Kendra and I will have a sweetie-celebration tomorrow night.
It's interesting how her entire relationship to academia (and, by extension, mine) changed, instantly, this afternoon. Walking through the campus afterward, I felt like we'd transitioned to a new plane; we're them now. The high stone arches and pillars and ivied walls are hers; she's one of the stewards of education. *trumpet fanfare* Yeah, this is silly; the piece of paper isn't what makes her a steward, and students are just as important as teachers to the academic ecosystem. But I was very conscious that I was walking beside a Prof today; we've stepped off the top step of one staircase and onto the bottom step of the next.
Her advisor was the first to address her as Doctor, but I was the second: I waited outside with flowers (tiger lilies and an iris) and season 4 of The Simpsons on DVD ("for the girl with some free time"), along with Ruth (who wrote the Scottish dance) and Britta and Kendra's dissertation-buddy Lauren. The defense was apparently pretty painless; the only revisions they asked for were typo corrections, and they even discouraged her from writing a conclusion, which was the one remaining chunk she thought she needed to tackle. ("Take that advice," said Lauren. "Run with it. Don't look back.")
To turn it into a book she needs to add a special Heresy for
We went to Dominick's with a bunch of classicists afterward, and sat in the courtyard in the back, where everyone but me drank sangria (which is, it turns out, wine plus fruit juice) and made a pretty fun time of it. Me, I had a rubbery chicken parmesan sandwich, Coke in a mason jar, and a very yummy cannoli; I had to work tonight, so this was my dinner. I left for work c. 5:30, but Kendra and I will have a sweetie-celebration tomorrow night.
It's interesting how her entire relationship to academia (and, by extension, mine) changed, instantly, this afternoon. Walking through the campus afterward, I felt like we'd transitioned to a new plane; we're them now. The high stone arches and pillars and ivied walls are hers; she's one of the stewards of education. *trumpet fanfare* Yeah, this is silly; the piece of paper isn't what makes her a steward, and students are just as important as teachers to the academic ecosystem. But I was very conscious that I was walking beside a Prof today; we've stepped off the top step of one staircase and onto the bottom step of the next.
