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Saturday, December 31, 2011

The Catch and the stone

We're hoping this is a struvite and not something worse.
After watching Catch struggle to go to the bathroom all over the house we spent a few hours at the emergency clinic last night where they excised this stone from his urethra. It may seem small, but think of the size of a cat and then think of the size of their genitals (well maybe skip that one). In any event, his x-ray was pretty clean, so it's medication, surveillance (read: getting excited when the cat pees! and is otherwise behaving normally), isolation and wet food.
I ran to the grocery store last night before it closed and grabbed an odd assortment of wet food, I imagine I looked rather odd in my rush, just grabbing things that said seafood...somehow getting the cat tins of beef seems completely ridiculous (as if buying tins of square mystery seafood parts is any better). I will now devote the weekend (not going to Bellingham) to figuring out how to figure out feeding the cats wet food for their future urinary health. There's quite a bit of literature out there on pet food.

The two boys are howling at each other through the door to the bedroom, scratching at tails and paws in the gap between the door and the floor, which made for a fun night.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

AB...D

I wanted the title of this post to be the alphabet song...you know ABCD...minus the C. But no strike-throughs in post titles apparently.
Although I have some superstition in announcing before I have all the signatures on the page (one of my committee members is out of the country for break), I think it is now safe to assume my new title.
I have successfully advanced to candidacy, making me a PhD Candidate...or in shoptalk, ABD, which stands for 'All But Dissertation."
I never have to do that again.
This, to me, was a huge revelation, one that I will likely swim in until my fingers become pruney.

In real terms, what that means is I now get to focus "almost exclusively" on my own research. No more classes, no more exams. Just me, my project and I.
The almost exclusively part reads: as a graduate teaching fellow I am still obligated to, well, teach. I'm the lead instructor for a course this coming winter on Latin America and I'll be a grader in the spring. I've been offered the opportunity to teach the local foods field course I developed last year again this summer, so I'm also looking forward to that.
The other part of the "almost" is the grant writing. I have two grants under review right now and will submit three more before the quarter is out. The grants are another huge step in fulfilling the obligations of an ABD...they serve two important purposes: 1) they prove that my research is interesting to an academic (and/or professional) audience via obtaining external funding and 2) they provide me with funds to complete dissertation research which is pretty fucking essential.

The full weight of being on this side of my degree has not yet hit me. So...ahem, "one stage of my journey is over," yet another begins.
From the immensely useful PhD comic

Friday, December 16, 2011

Nuptials

I'm Aunt Zee again!

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Nearly there

After a 2.5 hour session today I can report that I emerged from my exam defense still whole. I have 1 rewrite and a small addendum to turn in next week.

I have conditionally passed my exam.

Whew.