Anti-climactic

People always say that the PhD defense feels very anti-climactic, and I'd have to agree. It felt very much like giving a seminar talk and then having a committee meeting. It is so weird that all of that hard work led up to such a mundane ending. And it doesn't quite seem real that I am actually Dr. Forestell now. That's all I had to do? Why didn't I do that years ago? But then I remember that the last few months were full of stress and work, so I guess it wasn't so easy after all.

After my defense I gathered some grad students (who were apparently working on my shirt) and we went to the local Brazilian Tex-Mex place for some yummy margaritas with my mom and dad. The plan was to do a nice family dinner afterward, but we filled up on Tex-Mex and I was exhausted so we just went home and went to bed. The next day my older brother came to town, so we all just hung out around Austin, ate good food, and did various errands in preparation for the move. Speaking of eating good food - I have to say that working on a dissertation, enjoying all your favorite foods one last time, hosting visiting family members, a cross-country road trip, and two parties in my honor do not add up to a healthy lifestyle. I am going to have to go on a major diet once I get settled in New York! But I decided that having some last fun in Austin was more important than looking good for my parties (even though people like my kindergarten teacher will be at the one in Virginia!).

Anyway, back to the defense aftermath. After a brief day of respite I immediately had to refocus on how to finish packing my apartment and somehow do all the corrections on my dissertation in one day. Thank goodness for my mom, who packed my apartment, and my brother and Amanda? who packed my office. So my last hours in Austin were not a lovely reflection on my time here, but rather a scramble to the finish! The good news is that I didn't have much of a chance to get sentimental about things. Maybe it will all hit me later and I will realize the enormity of everything!