Two weeks after completing my career as professional student (and two weeks into my new career as an academic bum), I was flipping through the Boston Metro and what did I see? No, not another Gibbs College ad – it was an ad for the 2007 Health & Fitness Expo, where none other than Caridee English (the model formerly known as America’s Next Top Model) would make an appearance! Naturally, Mandie and I hurried over to the Hynes Convention center – with cameramen Alex and Travis in tow.

Caridee was absolutely lovely, and autographed my arm, my pill box, and my Schepens Eye Research Institute I.D. She also gave us autographed photos and declared us to be her “favorites…for now.” Aww! I think she liked us, and wanted to be our friend. Which would be awesome, because then I’d only be two degrees of separation from Tyra Banks!

I valiantly defended my dissertation against my vicious examination committee yesterday. Actually, they were extremely pleasant. I was really nervous about my dissertation seminar, but it actually went very well (thanks to Microsoft Office 2007 Powerpoint speaker tools). To celebrate, my wonderful advisor Patricia D’Amore took the lab out for dinner.

Now that I have my PhD, I will finally get invited to all those exclusive parties that only PhDs get invited to. I also made the deadline to attend Harvard’s commencement this year. Bill Gates will be the speaker – which is an ironic choice, since he dropped out of Harvard and all, only to become (even more ironically) the world’s richest man. At least it’s not as ironic (I’m not sure if that’s the right word) as Brigham Young University’s commencement speaker today.

Ironically (irony is today’s theme), I was extremely distressed last night, even though I had just successfully defended my three-week-old, sub-100-page dissertation and eaten the first non-tofu meal I had in weeks. Piper is staying with me while her owner finds a place to live, and minutes after I got home and collapsed on the couch, Chairman Meow pried open the screen door and Piper escaped. It was cold and rainy last night, and I was worried sick that she was cold and wet and hungry and/or got hit by a car. Plus, she is deaf – so it’s not like I could call her or anything (not that cats ever come when you call anyway). I put up flyers all over the neighborhood. Then someone called this afternoon and asked if I found my cat, because it was spotted at a party last night. I hurried over to the apartment where the party was. Apparently, she followed a bunch of guys home and was the life of the party they threw last night. So instead of being cold and wet and hungry, she was hanging out with Northeastern students (and probably doing Jell-O shots) all night. Oh well – cats will be cats.

APRIL 25 HIGH NOON CONTACT ME FOR DETAILS BE THERE OR BE SQUARE (OR SEND GOOD VIBES MY WAY)

It may have taken eight years to complete the PhD, but it only took three weeks to write the dissertation. To prevent repetitive stress injuries, I had Chairman Meow take over the typing from time to time:

Here Chairman Meow checks the final draft for typographical errors and spurious conclusions:

It was not easy, but we did it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I intend to sleep for the next 72 hours. Then I have to worry about defending the dissertation…

I have exactly three weeks to write my entire Ph.D. dissertation. Lord help me. Fortunately, Chairman Meow is doing most of the writing: