light at the end of the tunnel

I've been incredibly busy this past month, & will remain busy for the rest of February, but I find myself with a night off (finished my grading, already lesson planned for the rest of the week), so I thought it might be nice if I wrote an update.

My MA program is almost over. Hard to believe, but it's true! I just finished my Second Benchmark (62 pages of it...at least I got an A) and only have a few edits on it, plus about ten pages of conclusions to write, and then I'm done. With the thesis at least - I still have to give my symposium presentation to the MA committee, but I feel that while that will be stressful and nerve-wracking, it will be nowhere near the same stress level that I've maintained since September. And I can end the program with a sense of accomplishment unlike any I've ever known in my academic career; not only did I finish an MA program in less than a year, and did some serious research and writing, my students greatly benefited from all my hard work. I heard one of my students (a focus student, no less) say this morning that she felt the last essay she wrote for my intervention was the best essay she's ever written.

Robbie is still hard at work on his PhD. He told me after reading one of my last updates that this isn't his last quarter as a student - next quarter is. I wish it was his last quarter of classes - right now it's 6:30pm and he just called me to say he's leaving Davis. Not seeing my husband until almost 8pm every night is not fun. But on a more positive note, he did get an article on his research (the work he did in Australia for almost 3 months) published in the USSD (United States Society on Dams) newsletter! He doesn't want me to put it on here, though...oh well. I'm still proud of him!