Proposal Defended. IRB Complete.

After all the hype and anticipation around getting to the day of my proposal defense, I almost can't believe it has taken me this long to write this post.

Last week, today, I successfully defended my dissertation proposal. I was energized, charged, ready to go…and then, as if in the blink of an eye, it was over. Just like that.

I can loosely recall the details, because this experience was definitely up there among the "out-of-body" type, but I'll gather as much of a recap as I can below.

The morning of the defense, I got there about two hours early. I prepped the room, seated myself in front, and went into my zone. I listened to Dr. Joy Degruy's speeches in my headphones to get pumped up and prepared for the onslaught of questions that I had been anticipating. The time quickly approached for things to begin.

Just as quickly as we started, it was over.

I gave my spiel and then navigated two rounds of questions from my committee. At first, I wasn't so confident. I wasn't sure if the answers coming out of my mouth were coherent or if they were even directly addressing what I was asked. But I shortly settled into myself. I focused enough to hear and process what they were asking and then, with as much confidence as I could muster, I simply said what I thought.

When it was all over, I got really good feedback from my peers and from the faculty. It was nice to hear, but if I'm being honest, I definitely rummaged through my memory of the experience and scrutinized my performance for several hours, if not days, after it was done.

Ultimately, I concluded that I am proud of myself. I know I worked really hard to prep for that moment--let alone to even get to the place where there was a written proposal worthy to defend.

When it was all done, I was in this weird space--somewhere between celebrating and charging full speed ahead to the next step of the process. Maybe that's why it was hard for me to even think about writing this until today.

This afternoon, I finally marched my IRB packet down to the office to signal the completion/beginning of another huge step en route to the finish line.

I feel a little weird. I'm exhausted. I've been sick and watching nothing but television for the past few days. Part of me feels like my body just needed to exhale and release without worrying about anything academic oriented for a little while. But even in rest, you never fully take a break. I came to the conclusion today that maybe it just won't feel fully good or exciting until it's really, REALLY done.

I definitely don't want to rush my research and limit the contribution that it can make, but there's also a part of me that simply wants to be finished with school. I feel like it's really my time to transition from being a student to something else.

In the meantime, though, I won't miss out on the opportunity to say "Thank You" to God for ushering me through that experience.

Proposal = Successfully completed

Job. Well. Done.