Turned in my PhD Thesis!

Thursday evening I hit "send" on my PhD thesis (called a dissertation in the US). In the end, the title was: "Tricksters, Witches, and Warriors: A Feminist Experiment in Rewriting a Patriarchal Narrative in Children's Fantasy Literature." It is 88K words long (including the bibliography), it also has a 90K-word novel that accompanies it as an enormous appendix. It's already been sent out to the internal and external examiners, who will have it anywhere from six weeks to 3 months. Then we'll schedule my VIVA, where I'll defend my work. (VIVA is short for "viva-voce" or "oral examination.") It's extremely rare that a thesis passes a VIVA without suggestions for changes, so realistically, I can expect to be given another three months (give or take) to get those completed. THEN, I will receive my Doctorate!
     The whole thing has taken me three years, so far; while the last two months have been serious crunch time. I met with my supervisors every week, sometimes twice a week. (This was usually a joy, as I love and respect my supervisors dearly - Maureen Farrell and Bob Davis of the University of Glasgow.) But the writing was intense to say the least. My hand hurts, my head hurts. Honestly, I am seriously spent.
     With it out the door, I am suddenly faced with a new thing in my life - free time. What's that? I'm sure I will fill the void with some other project soon. But for now, I'm finding it hard to focus and have turned into a complete and utter slug. It's part of why, in the service of self-preservation, I need to step back from my blog for a bit—if anything to just let my hand heal. I also feel like I'm looking UP for the first time in months. Thank goodness my friends have stuck by me through this; because I haven't been terribly present of late.
     So, while I already have some ideas cooking for my next steps, I need to give myself a little down time to refill my coffers. I hope you, dear readers, will stick around for when I get back to my normal activities. Until then, I wish you peace and love for the new year, in which I will gain a brand new title!

I do like my Facebook avatar, I think it's a darned good likeness. :)