Defense count down--3 Days

First of all thanks to my lovely wife Mary for adding me as an author to this website. Second, thanks to you for actually reading this. Now that that is done, let's get down to business. I am exhausted. I have been working like a madman so that I can get my butt up to Durham so that I can be with Mary.

To bring you up to speed let me tell you what the score is. I am defending my thesis in 3 days. Things are going pretty well as far as that is concerned. My thesis is submitted to my committee (check), the talk is written (check), and all I have to do now is practice it some so that I can get the transitions down ( ). Hopefully on Wednesday I will be a Ph.D. with everything but a diploma in my hand. Unfortunately that is not all that it takes to get this over-worked student up to Durham. I also need to have all of my papers submitted.

My advisor wants me to have all of my manuscripts accepted for publication before I can leave. This actually isn't such a big deal because one of the two that I have submitted was just accepted (with revisions) to The Journal of the American Chemical Society (yay!). So I am working on revisions for that paper as we speak (type....whatever). The other manuscript we sent to Nature and it was rejected on the basis that they thought that it was not good for a broad enough audience. Lame. So we are sending it on to Science instead. For the past day or so, my advisor and I have been emailing back and forth with revisions for this second manuscript and hopefully we will send it out today.

All that being said, things are feeling like they are on the upswing. I have a good job waiting for me in NC (postdoc at UNC) and I am successfully rapping things up here in Atlanta. It is tough living away from Mary though. It's really different not cooking for two, not getting groceries for two, etc. Therefore, I really can't wait to get my butt up to Durham to be with Mary. But until that time I am staying at Michael and Connor's house, which is fun but different from what I am used to (living with my wife).

I hope all goes well over the next few days. I will keep you posted. Thanks for listening (reading) me Rant