Slow Week and All of That

On Tuesday morning I arose at 7 a.m. and donned a shirt and tie (two things whose monumental significance cannot be overstated) to defend my prelim. The prelim is basically a big test in the form of a paper we spend 6 months writing and then have to defend in front of our committee. By passing it, I've more or less passed the last big hurdle on the way to getting my Ph.D. Except for that whole dissertation thing, but how hard can that be?

Anyway, tuesday was the culmination of a looooooooong and draining process, so I've mostly spent the last week in a mixture of partying and recovering. Not that I don't have a great deal to do before this semester's over, but the nature of academia is such that you so rarely get an objective milestone to meet and pass. And when one of these rare events presents itself, one has to milk it for all of the congratulatory partying and time off that one can...