The dissertation is done, dude!

Ok, so I'm alluding to a cheesy early-90's movie called (if I recall correctly) "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead," which involved... Christina Applegate? Something like that. One character has a great line - he's been using dirty dishes for skeet shooting targets in lieu of washing them, and afterwards he turns to a friend and says, "The dishes are done, dude!" There may be a little bit of pot smoking in the movie, which led to the dirty dishes in the first place, now that I think about it.

Anyway. Good times. I'm actually maybe mostly a little bit done with my project, and I'm printing out the final revisions to bring to my advisor tomorrow. Final page count is north of 350, which is a lot of paper. [side note that the printer? is not my friend today. I am irked at it. It is not printing reliably, which is a serious flaw if you are - as it claims to be - a freaking printer!] I'm thinking I should plant a tree to somehow compensate the earth for the reams and reams of paper that graduate school has consumed.

There's a charming scene in the Ann Pachett memoir "Truth and Beauty" where she and her writer friend finish their books at about the same time - they each have a fellowship and have been working on their respective books for a year - and they print the books out and stand on them to see how much taller they are. I don't want to do this, but I do want the kids to do it, so presuming I can get them to cooperate and can get Chapter Six to print (grrrr) I'll have them do this and take some blog-appropriate pictures.

Notes on the upcoming: Grace has a dance recital the week after next, the kids start soccer practice this week, and I'm running a 5K on Sunday, so we'll have all sorts of visual fodder to spread across the Internets. You know spring is here when your Saturday schedule involves soccer practice, an outdoor play at the preschool, the opportunity to pick up a free rainbarrel, and the 5K you've been planning to run. Something had to give there, so I chose a different race, which is clearly organized by human beings, since it starts at a very forgiving 10 am.