PhD earned

I presented my thesis defense on Thursday. I think it could have gone a little better. One of my committee members interrupted me during the talk and that started a series of aggressive questions. I felt caught off guard, but I did my best to bounce back. Everyone said I did a great job, but that some of my answers did sound defensive. Oh well, lesson learned. I was under the impression that my committee would question me in private, instead of in front of the audience, especially with questions like, "Why didn't you do this?" I thought it was quite rude, but one of my committee members gave me a lecture on how he was offended that I paused my seminar so he would stop whispering to my boss. He later asked me a question during the private part that was explained right after I stared him down and waited for him to stop whispering. I left the defense incredibly annoyed and pissed off. Not how I envisioned my big day. Whatever, I passed, it's over. I do have to add some background figures into my thesis introduction section, but that won't take more than a couple days. I had to make corrections anyways, because some of the recently accepted papers from our group now have official citations. I made my poster for the upcoming conference in Canada already, so I just need to get it printed next week. Sadly, no one got a photo of me with my family before the defense. Totally spaced out and forgot to ask someone to do that. I had even gone to get a haircut and have my hair blown straight that morning, so I actually looked nice. :(

Anyways, my mom, my sister, and my best friend Jennifer came to the talk. We had pepperoni crescent rolls for lunch, but I used Daiya vegan cheese and Yves vegan pepperoni in my rolls. After the talk, there was a little reception in our department. My labmate, Laura, baked some vegan chai spice cupcakes for me using tea and rice milk. How sweet. There was chocolate non-vegan cake, Oreos, beer, and wine available. After the reception, which turned into an excuse for faculty to drink beer and talk about their time in grad school, we went to Yard House for a drink and dinner. I ordered a Gardein chicken rice bowl and margarita. My sister got their mac and cheese squared, my mom got the turkey club with sweet potato fries, and Jennie got the spicy jambalaya over linguine noodles. My mom and my sister headed home after dinner, but Jennie stayed the weekend with me! We went to Rocco's Tacos on PGA with some friends for another drink and laughs. We didn't stay out too late, because it was a Thursday and I don't really drink anymore. I felt like I could have fallen asleep at 7 PM because I had been so amped up on stress hormones all day.





On Friday, Jennie and I went kayaking around the intercoastal (with a rented two-seater kayak from Jupiter Outdoor Center) and had a late lunch at Yard House again. I got the fried gardein chicken fingers and fries, one of my favorites. She ordered the jambalaya again, silly girl. We grabbed some snacks at Whole Foods around the corner - chocolate Almond Dream ice cream and popcorn. We brought our snacks home and watched some movies. I drove her back to our hometown on Saturday, bringing the cats with us. I left the cats at my mom's and returned to south Florida today. I am meeting a friend from Baton Rouge later, so I'm really looking forward to that. It's been over 3 years since we saw each other.