Can I graduate? Pretty please...

My life is never quite in sync with what the world thinks it should be and it seems as though this year, March is coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion. Not the reverse. Let me explain. The first week of March, I'm cool, collected, a slave to my job but overall simply focused instead of out-of-control busy. This week has been more along the lines of knowing how much I need to get done and oscillating between bursts of intense production and procrastination. I am going to go ahead and tell you that at 8:15 this morning, it's all changing. Today is the dreaded turning point of March when instead of being a nice spring lamb, it turns into a raging lion. Which will continue until I've finished my dissertation.

Tomorrow is my year 6 PhD TRAC meeting where I meet with my thesis committee and tell them all the things I've accomplished over the last year and please please please can I graduate? 6 years working on a PhD is still less than the 6.5 year average at UMass. I guess I can be glad about that... but it's been a LONG road. I am ready to move on. In order to graduate you need to publish a first-author peer-reviewed publication, minimum one, preferably two. But when you work with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, you take what you can get. I'll have one first-author publication and a couple second-author papers. I am absolutely satisfied with that. The problem is, my paper isn't published yet. Actually, it's not even submitted. The reason it's not submitted is because I was trying out one last thing (famous last words of a scientist) and actually got something to work... on Monday. I rushed to repeat the experiment and am waiting 2 weeks for the colonies to grow on plates, count them and submit the paper. This last experiment really boosts my paper and thesis quite a bit. I identified novel aspects of innate immune mechanisms contributing to the control of M.tb in host cells (theoretically, although all experiments were done in vitro) and I am certain that my thesis committee will be thrilled. My hope is that they will give me the 'go ahead' to write and defend my dissertation, but I think that will commence once this paper is finally submitted. My advisor is confident that my time has come. I hope he's right.

I have a lot to do for tomorrow...