That time when I have completed a major event in my life…time for travel.

After I decided to leave behind computer science as a major and closed up all things to do with the video game shop, I traveled over to Europe.

After I finished up my undergrad schoolin’, I greyhounded about the US visiting friends and relatives (read the beginning here).

When I finished up my MA at BSU, I roadtripped out to pacifica and back, visiting relatives and peeps (chronicled here),

And now that I’m pretty much done with the dissertation (or will be as of July 21 or 22), I’ve decided it’s roadtrip time again: me, my car, and a wide open highway.

I want to meander on over to FL to see my nephew, move it on up to MN to help my grandmother put up wood for the winter, and then mosey on over back to California, all relaxed and such and ready for school with a clean slate.

I’m thinking about three weeks is what this will take. Good times.

playing video games.

it was a pretty good flick for $3. Not doing much with myself lately, just laying low playing vidja games.

Taking care of diss/job apps/occasional web work as it arises.

So there MAY be an issue with the scheduling of the dissertation defense. namely, in order to schedule it, the final approval forms must be in and a minimum of three weeks is necessary to schedule the defense.

The problem is that once the forms are put in, you are technically out of school.

The financial aid requires, to receive the full enchilada of the last quarter, that the forms don’t get in until August 1st.

That SCREWS ME OVER for defending the first or second week of august.

There are no exceptions to the three week rule per the dissertation administration. But the scheduling is all taken care of by my chair so I’ve let him know what I’ve chatted about with the financial aid folks and the diss admin folks, and it’s out of my hands now.

The financial aid folks seem willing to work with the issue, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed there. Still though, without that last payment (which I need to pay bills in August and to pay the last part that I owe pacifica), I’m relying on credit cards to pay the bill. This pleases me not at all. It’s doable, it’s just very distasteful.

The other option is to put it off until my chair is out this way again, which is October. That puts my schedule back TWO MONTHS. That’s pretty inexcusable.

and distasteful is far preferable to inexcusable.