Doctor Nerd

PhD Update

A quick update: I passed! I passed my meeting, with conditions of making certain changes to my 130-page manuscript. I plan to take this entire week to make the revisions, edit for any last confusing sentences (I found a couple after taking a couple weeks of break from the paper and then rereading it again), typos, formatting, etc. I will send the final draft to my advisor next week and he'll review it one final time to make sure I made all the revisions we agreed upon, and then he'll send in the paperwork to the college that says I passed. After that, I just need to get the paper into the correct online publishing format and submit it online to the college, and then I'm done. You have to pay for it to be microfiched, take a long survey on your doctorate experience, submit your paper online, and then you're done.

I don't think I'll feel truly done until the day I submit my final paper to the library online and get confirmation that they received it, but I feel SO different now. I felt so different immediately after the meeting. I felt FREE. I felt instantly like a new person, even though I haven't finished all the paperwork and revisions. I feel different. That was my last hurdle and now I just have to turn in the paperwork over the next 2 weeks or so. I feel FREE! On the flight back we were having some pretty moderate-severe turbulence (we flew out as the winter storm Atlas was building in severity, and we flew over the storm for most of the flight so it was really bumpy)...but I kept telling myself..."You got a PhD" and it would take my mind off the turbulence and make me feel better.

I don't like saying I have a PhD because it's not final and I still have to submit my stuff to the college, but in just a few weeks that will be done. My advisor and I are aiming to get the final draft published by October 23, which means on October 23rd I'll really be done with it all. I'm kind of hoping I can get it done earlier, like the 18th, but we'll see how it goes.

He did also mention that I might have a chance at publishing it, so I think I will try to do that if I have a chance. I don't really care if I publish in a B or C journal because I want to work in an applied setting and I don't care to go down the tenure track, so it's not as critical to me.

I feel so free it's incredible. We flew back into Seattle and it was clear sky and a PERFECT landing. I couldn't even tell we were moving for the last 30 minutes -- that's how smooth it was. It was night so we got to see the lights of the city, no clouds (the storm Atlas had hit Seattle a few days earlier so it was gone), and it was very pleasant. Now I'm sitting in my apartment with a view, it's a totally clear day and I can see Puget Sound, the Olympics, and some other landmarks. The trees are changing color so it looks absolutely gorgeous. I went outside on my deck for a bit and sat in the sun looking out at the view. Here is the view I'm enjoying:

I feel slightly recovered after last week, but I expect it's going to take about a week to recover fully. I slept about 8.5 hours the last 2 nights so that's a good start, but I need more. Today I feel the most excited and free that I've felt in nearly 8 years. I started writing some more of my fiction novel on the plane home and had fun with it. Today I got more excited about being able to work on it some more. I really want to self-publish it, just for the fun of it. I don't really care about marketing it or being serious about it, I am just having fun creating an alternate universe.

Nerd Status?

I finished watching Portlandia Season 3 yesterday. I loved it. It's really accurate and makes me laugh a lot -- even more than the previous seasons, which were very sketch comedy. I like sketch comedy, but typically it provides a more intellectual kind of satisfaction than laughter. Creative and accurate and funny, but less "laugh out loud" funny. Season 3 is definitely more "laugh out loud" funny. One of the episodes was a public service announcement from the Portland Nerd Council about real nerds versus fake nerds. The nerd in there says that he watches Star Trek TNG and plays Skyrim...and as I have recently rewatched TNG and was playing Skyrim right before I watched that episode, I started to reflect about myself. I started to wonder, what makes you a real nerd? Do you have to be fat? Do you have to be shy? Do you have to be male? I think the old stereotype was that you did have to be male, unsocial, and unattractive. As I started to reassess my "nerd factor" and the fact that I believe "nerdiness" is much more pro-women these days, I started to run down the list of what I think pushes me over the border into nerd-dom. Here are some of the indicators that led me to conclude that I'm a nerd:

• I wear one ring every day. And by that I mean that I wear The One Ring, like, the one that was forged in Mount Doom by the Dark Lord. That one ring, inscriptions on it and all. 
• I've built my own computer
• I love RPGs
• I own a tabletop role playing game
• I own an RPG dice set and a leather pouch to carry them in
• I played WoW for about 4 years...I can't even remember how long. The amount of time spent playing the game was utterly shameful
• I am writing a fantasy/science fiction novel for kicks
• I wear a doctor who and a unicorn shirt on a regular basis
• My phone cover is a TARDIS and my ringtone is the Game of Thrones theme
• I have been playing video games since around 2nd grade, starting with Doom and Indiana Jones, among many others
• I still believe that Zelda: Ocarina of Time is still the best game of all time
• I get more excited about playing a game or going to renaissance faires than I do about seeing my family
• One of the most exciting moments of the past few days was buying my avatar a house in Skyrim
• I like dressing up for costume parties more than I like going to non-costume parties
• I have a PhD (in 2 weeks) and I read scientific journals for fun in my spare time
• Finally...a game. Can you find the 3 nerdy parts of my car?

Of course there are many other things I've done in my life that make me nerdy, but I think those are some of the biggest indicators I can think of at the moment. I mean, of COURSE I love Harry Potter, Star Wars, and one of my favorite authors is Philip K. Dick. So at what point do you become a nerd? I dunno. Are you a nerd? What makes you a nerd? I think there are a variety of types of nerds. Let us all take a moment to reflect on our nerd status based on this important public service announcement by the Portland Nerd Council :)