Whirlwind Trip

Last Tuesday at 11:55 pm, the wife and I loaded up the car and drove 15 hours straight through to Chicago. We got there around 2 or 3 pm Chicago time...I went to bed early Wednesday...and Thursday afternoon I defended my dissertation. It was a pretty intense experience...they grilled me for about 2 hours...and I am so glad that I NEVER have to do that again! So that evening we drove back into the city (my grad school is about 75 miles outside of Chicago)...and saw some old friends who are due at the same time as us with their second child...who is a boy. There first child was a girl...so we inherited a 20 gallon tub filled with barely used and really nice (some of it was designer and independent labels that we could probably never afford...and probably never would buy even if we could afford it) stuff. So needless to say, our baby is pretty set. And that was before the baby shower! On Sunday we had a baby shower with about 30 attendees...and we got a ton more clothing...some of which will have to go back because as much as I'd like to, I just can't justify 35 onesies of the same size. Our friends and family were VERY generous...and we are grateful for them.

Between the dissertation defense and the baby shower, I also had a major interview at a very good hospital for an 80% clinical/20% research post-doctoral fellowship. I just found out that I am their lead candidate so far...with only one more to interview, so fingers crossed. We also saw a bunch of friends to celebrate the defense and becoming a doctor, and we went and saw some of the wife's old college friends.

We left at 3am on Monday. And it took us 16 1/2 hours to get home due to construction traffic. Ugh. I feel like I haven't slept in weeks.

Now it's time to write thank you's and make returns. My goal is to be done with both of those things (until the next shower) by the weekend. I also need to make some dissertation revisions before submitting to the graduate school. Wish me luck!