hey, you want what with me?

So, here’s that update I was promising.

The options weren’t looking very good.

The option I was favoring–doing the defense on the deadline date– wouldn’t work at all because of the flight schedule of one of the traveling committee members. (This person wouldn’t be back until after hours that night.)

The other workable option was to defend by April 11–before the other committee member left–and get it over with. This would have been very difficult for me and my advisor though, since we’d need to get the paper to the committee RIGHT NOW and it isn’t ready yet. That’s the option we’d be chasing right now though, if not for a miracle of miracles… Leap-day luck, if you will.

I have to say, when I woke up on February 29th, everyone’s facebook statuses about making their own luck on leap day were kind of pissing me off. Lucky day? Bullshit! Leap day is historically unlucky. And today was to be the day I’d find out I’m not graduating until August. And we were supposed to have a snow day, but we didn’t even have any snow on the ground. And while I love teaching my class, I was in NO MOOD for it. I really didn’t care about anything. It took me half my usual time to get ready for work even. I’m not sure what I forgot to do, but I was ready fast and not looking all that great.

When I got to work I decided to take some advice I had brushed off the previous evening though: Mr. N had found a vague statement on our PhD student checklist, saying defenses must take place by 2 weeks prior to graduation day. This conflicts with their published defense deadline. Namely, the published deadline is actually 16 days before graduation. So a defense taking place the day after the published deadline is still a valid defense date if going by the info published in the checklist. 15 days is more than 2 weeks from graduation.

So I called the person in the graduate department that deals with this stuff, and explained my situation.

I told her–before I even started to explain–that I realized this was probably a shot in the dark. Along with every other grad student, I know that this department simply does NOT budge on deadlines. Not at all. And I told her I respected their need to be stringent, but asked her to please hear me out. Then I spilled it. The problems in the fall, the problems scheduling in the spring, the people going out of town or out of the country, how I was trying to be proactive in scheduling early, but it just won’t work out for them during those dates, and finally ended with the ‘two weeks’ statement Mr. N found in the checklist.

And… she said my request was acceptable! And that she would make a note in my file of this exception!

I couldn’t even believe it. This just doesn’t happen. I’ve heard of people being denied graduation for being only minutes late turning in various things. I’ve since asked her for a written/formal proof of the exception, just to cover my butt as I move forward. She said she would email it. She emailed it. Holy shit. I still can’t effing believe it.

So then I sent an email out with the new defense date.
Then I realized that the day we had wanted to do the preliminary approval hearing is actually Good Friday, a campus holiday. So we have to move that. I sent another email.

I hate sending so many emails to my committee. I’m sure it’s bothersome and probably not professional either, or following protocol. Too many emails means you should just ignore them and not read them, right?!

Then I got a call from my advisor, wondering what was the deal with the freaked out text message I sent him the night before. LOL. (I believe the actual text said, “I’m freakin out. Check your email”)

Turns out, he had seen none of the emails — not the ones from committee members with conflicts, and not the ones I sent in the morning. He was having trouble with his email program. Once he got that fixed, he received all of the emails at once. Whoa, nelly! He politely suggested I simmer down on my email frequency. Haha. At least most if them were only addressed to him (and contained various ultra-intelligent commentary that can be compressed to say: “omg wtf!”)

I explained to him all that had happened. He took control and sent another email requesting the committee pick a good date for preliminary approval ASAP, and asserting that we MUST do the defense on the new date I secured. He requested that the committee members confirm today. At 3:48 pm, after a very long day of limbo, the email came in.

Solid dates, solid times. For both meetings.

I sat at my desk and sobbed. (Good thing I forgot/didn’t care to put on most of my makeup this morning.)I sent my advisor back an email and here is what it said, and I quote: “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

But life goes on and I had to teach my class at 4, so I tabled my elation …and that was my leap day. Made my own luck, yes I did. Now let’s hope it sticks. Nobody told me that so much drama would be involved, but I guess that’s expected when emotions cone in to play. Tonight though, I am thrilled.

*this post was written from my Eee transformer tablet, and it’s worse with typos than my phone. Sorry. I usually edit these on a computer before posting, but not today.