Milestones

It has been silent in Tangerine land lately, but it has been rather busy in the land of Real Life. Since I last wrote I completed the tenth and final course towards my doctorate. I then had to endure a six day comprehensive final drawn from the coursework. Comprehensive finals were exhausting and brutal. They were every bit about emotional endurance as well as being an elaborate academic exercise. It took three weeks for the exams to be graded, but I found out last Thursday, that I PASSED! So...no more classes and no more tests. There is one final thing to do in this program and that is the Capstone Project. It is similar to a thesis or dissertation, but it does not need to be original research so there is more latitude. I am not sure what my capstone will be yet, but I do have a Chair lined up and some time to work that out. I won't return to "school" until the end of June, so the break is nice...

However, the break is not as nice as it could be, because we are also moving, and to make it worse--into a smaller space. We have been this apartment (the second story of a big house) for ten years...and friends, a lot can accumulate in that frame of time. I have made several runs to Goodwill. It has made me think a lot about how I spend my money. I spend for things that I think I can't live without, only to be packing them away for donation a few years later. My vice has always been buying books. I do it for shopping therapy, but books are such a poor investment. I get pennies on the dollar at Half Price. I have been pretty brutal this time through in letting things go. It is hard, but I hope I will be rewarded by having a clutter free home, and that my storage closets will be for things that I actually like and use. We will have a garage this time, so that will help with some of the furniture we like but won't have space for upstairs. However, I don't want a garage full of boxes that will be moved again and again that hold things we clearly don't need.

I hope to be a more active poster here once the dust settles. And I hope I have a more interesting and fun life to inspire those posts. Lately it has been all about school, which is boring to write about, and even more boring to live.