Friday: I already went over the insanity that was Friday at work with the flood of students all day long. Friday after work, my man Damien was at the house so him, the husband and I hung out for a while before heading to the Outback for dinner. I had one of their Margaritaville ‘Ritas, which was three times the size of a normal margarita, and a steak. Yum! Thanks again to Damien for taking us out. 🙂 After that it was nap time to recover from the weariness of the day, and that nap ended up extending into the next morning.

Saturday: I got up and got dressed for the defense then got Ian up so he could get dressed. Then I changed clothes because the shirts I had put on were bothering me already. Then I changed again because those shirts were bothering me as well because I’d gone from two short-sleeved to two long-sleeved, and I knew it wasn’t going to be that cold. Then I went to one long-sleeved, thought I looked like a fatter dork, and finally ended up in a tanktop and short-sleeved button-down shirt. All in all, I hate clothes. That is, until I lose about fifty pounds. Then they’ll be better.

      After getting Damien up and letting him shower, we went to the defense. Dr. Phillips was already there, and she let us into the LLL lounge. Dr. Nelson popped up, then the Mikes and Jamie came. Tony arrived last, and after much blabbing and sorting out what we were doing, the defense started. The first part was me prattling on about what I learned, and I basically went over what I did as well as what I wanted to do but what limitations stopped me from doing that. I concluded with saying that the thesis is like a big test–a big, two-semester long test, which I had to keep stopping and going over my notes for, keep reading for, keep studying for, and keep working on. Basically, it was a test of everything I’d learned about linguistics in trying to incorporate it into research and my own interests. A big, long, grueling test.

      Then they spoke, first Dr. Nelson asking questions and pointing out things that needed clarified (or “needed to be clarified,” for non-hoosiers), then Tony, who had a lot of points he wanted to note of both the positive and negative sort, and finally Dr. Phillips who steered the questioning and comments toward the future of my project and what can be done to expand and improve upon it. The conclusion was all about the future of my thesis and research. Then I got booted out of the room so they could deliberate, and I spent that time laughing with the gang out in the lounge about how I used the words “fucktard,” “cracker,” “honkie,” and “bitch” during my defense. After a bit, my profs called me back into the conference room to tell me that they decided I get an A and that I get to graduate (upon revision of Jerry). Huzzah!

      The next twenty minutes or so was spent trying to get everyone together to go to Mogger’s for lunch. All nine of us got a long table and ordered beer, soda and food and had a hilarious time. Drs. Nelson and Tony sat next to each other across from Ian and Damien, and Dr. Phillips was with the Mikes and Jamie. I sat in the middle, an unfortunate seat if I’d’ve needed to pee, but it was fine. Conversation ranged from likening our gang to the people of Rent (Miller as Angel, Ian as Tom Collins, me as Maureen, Lushbaugh as Roger, Jamie as Mimi, and Damien as Mark) to random linguistics stuff and DnD. Great lunch, seriously. Miller even toasted me by saying a few words (or one word): “mandible.” Awesomeness. 🙂

      After lunch, it was back to the house to change and take a nap while Ian and Damien went to Ian’s art show. He won two second place prizes for his Illustrator and Photoshop projects, though he should have one first in the former. The gang showed up for DnD, and we started up my campaign again with some ambushes and assassination attempts on the players’ lives. Good times. Then there was a lot of role-playing (I <3 role-playing!), some fiendish dinosaur fighting, and a raid on a once-holy temple. They've just got one encounter left in this module before it's done, and technically we could have played through it Saturday, but it was already three in the morning Sunday by the time we finished. D'oh!

Sunday: I got up around noon and was in a sort of haze for the first hour or so that I was conscious. I remember being on the computer, something about killing the pitfiend in the tutorial of EQ for a while. Damien ordered out to Footers for lunch (thanks again!), and we watched Cool Hand Luke, which Ian borrowed from Lushbaugh (who also lent me an MST3K, which I need to watch soon). After that, Damien went home, and Ian and I played EQ together until about one, leveling his character from 17 to 25 (or was it 18 to 25?) and two of my characters from 16 to 20 (my halfling druid) and 17 to 22 (my high elf cleric). It was a lot of fun, and we might group again like that tonight. I just wish my keyboard at home weren’t fucking up so much. It isn’t reading key entry correctly and seems to have a problem with keys “sticking” as in it thinks the keys are still being pushed even though they aren’t at all. Doofy thing. I need to check the battery, which I think we’re out of.

So that’s my weekend. This morning, I was too tired to remember to get out of bed and take a shower, so I’m a little gross but not too bad. I got to work early because I couldn’t remember why I was up when I was and just came in, figuring I’d work it out here. So far I’ve told Heather about Jerry’s defense, and Susan told me that we really need to get the planner for next year done this week, so that will be the project for today…after I get some caffeine. I think I’m going to go make some tea and have a fruit cup for breakfast. The catloguing department at the library is having a little graduation party for Sarah, so I’ll be going to that in about two and a half hours. Gotta stay awake for that! So until later, I leave you with a word of wisdom from Miller: “mandible.”