Still AWOL

Its been pretty silent over here in Descent-world. I don't know how Rixa does it... she's able to work on her dissertation, move, start home improvement projects, go to France for six weeks, love and care for her toddler and stay updated on her blog.

Me, on the other hand. My blog was very much neglected as I spent the last month intently working on my thesis. Today I'm posting to say that I just finished my Discussion section!!!!

Yay!!

Now its time to hear my advisor's thoughts and suggestions for changes that will take place, because of course there will be those. I just am hoping that they won't be too major. Little tweaks I can handle and still graduate on time. Big revisions and bye-bye graduation ceremony and 2 week vacation to Hawaii....

After my family and I got back from California in August, we spent a week at a conference in Oregon (on acoustic communication, for my husband's research). There we celebrated our 4 year anniversary. We ate dinner at an awesome bakery in Corvallis Oregon called New Morning Bakery. Then after dinner, we were strolling around the streets downtown and we found The Pottery Place where the three of us painted a platter commemorating the occasion. Since we forgot to pick up when we left town, we are waiting for it to be mailed to us. Maybe I'll post pictures when we get it.

When we finally got back home (oh how excited we were to sleep in our bed!), I turned to thesis writing. Our schedule basically consisted of waking up and then I would get to work while Peter and Willem went around to whereever they could find to play. I got between 3 and 4 hours a day to work. I pounded out the results section, updated my literature review, formatted according to the APA and UH style guides and then wrote the discussion of my results. Maybe later I'll post a summary of the findings.

I really cannot wait to go back to normal life. When school starts for Peter again, it'll just be me and Chunka doing our thing. I hope to introduce Signing Time to the kid and get back to working with the Birth Survey and Solace for Mothers.

In January, I'll also be applying to the University of Washington's PhD program in health services with an emphasis in maternal and child health . I'm considering registering for some of the webinars offered through Conscious Woman on the topic.

Other planned adventures are a trip to Texas so Willem can see his grandparents and see where his daddy grew up, a trip to Washington DC for a conference where Peter will present some of his research and we will also visit Peter's aunt and grandparents, a trip to the Cal-Stanfurd Big Game (because no one puts the FU in Stanfurd like Cal does) and a trip to Hawaii for GRADUATION!!!!!

It will be the first time I'll have a vacation in Hawaii. Every other time I've gone has been for "work" either performing with my dance company or taking classes for school. On this trip, we'll be there two weeks and hope to fly to the neighbor islands of Kauai and Hawai'i, we'll hike Diamond Head, Peter will scuba dive, Willem will play in the ocean again. We haven't figured out everything we want to do, but it will definitely be a good trip. My mom and best friend will fly out for the graduation ceremony and we'll party at the Waikiki Aquarium afterwards.

All in all, there are good times behind us and good times before us. I am blessed.