Catching up

The summer's already gone by somehow, and as often happens with summers most of the things I planned to do never happened. These include going to the beach, hiking and camping, spending time with friends (there's been some, but not nearly enough), a bunch of work-ish stuff, and writing a blog post. So, now that we're having the convenient kind of hurricane in which you can't leave the house but the power's still on, here you go.

At the beginning of June, I defended my dissertation. This was not a well-documented experience, photographically speaking. (I do hope it was sufficiently documented otherwise to make my PhD valid.) Jeff came along with me to Chicago, and he was in charge of photos. So we got this:


That's the room where I did it, folks. And that's my jacket on the chair. It was hot and I never put it on but it made me feel more professional nevertheless. The most painful part of the defense was probably the time when this picture was taken, as we waited for the examiners to show up. I wasn't nervous about the defense, but I did worry a little that they might have forgotten.


Post-defense. The best photo we got. Sorry.

After Jeff went home I stayed in Chicago a bit longer. I got to witness Alistair's first encounter with a Blooming Onion and a Funnel Cake.


He approved, and can now consider himself a thoroughly American (if half-British) child.

From thence, I continued my midwestern junket with a trip to Ann Arbor. I got to see a much healthier Eva and much happier family than the last time I was there, and it was delightful.


Before heading back to Philly I stopped in Chicago for graduation. I wasn't yet eligible to graduate, but I got to see Abigail and Andrea in their professor costumes.


Seven years in the making! It was a cold and miserable day, and graduations are boring, but it was just fantastic to be there to mark the end of graduate school for some of my dear friends.

There was some wrapping-up in Philly (goodbye, Philly) and a move back to Maine for a week before moving in with my parents in NH. From their house it's an easy commute to my new job at UNH and a somewhat longer commute to Rockland, where Jeff remains for the time being. A much improved situation all around. My new job is Assistant Director of the Honors Program, which I am finding a more satisfying thing to write in my email signature than "PhD Candidate." Having glimpsed the abyss that is the current job market, I feel very fortunate to have landed in such a good place.

I've generally been commuting to Maine on weekends (though this weekend I insisted that Jeff drive down--into the hurricane, as he pointed out--to my place). Maine in summer can be magical, and this summer has been lovely. We've had a few weekends of blue skies and blue water, and Jeff experienced the best hamburger in Maine.


The downside to weekending in Maine is this:

Going up with the traffic on Fridays and back on Sundays is something I could do without. But Labor Day is coming soon. And there's still time for a bit more of this: