Next Exit coming up

Well, I have not written since the day before our wedding aniversary. SO much has transpired since. I had a HUGE party on the water (literally)-it was a private boat part at Navy Pier with some of my family and friends helping me celebrate. The party might have been a little premature, but well worth it and super fun. We all had a blast!! They even toasted (twice at that) without me in the circle to recieve the honor of the toast LOL. Who does that?! My family & friends, that's who. Our food and desserts were delicious...and abundant. There was cake to take home later, but for some Chicago law, we could not take home any of the food, unfortunately. We danced all night, partied hard, laughed harder, and had photos to capture the moments. I so want to do that again. Perhaps, a family cruise :).

There were some issues on this latter end of the road trip-On The Road To PhD, but I suppose it is inevitable. That was also part of the party being a little premature in August because I had already planned it in February since I expected to be finished in August. I accelerated my program so that I could complete it sooner, but some unfortunate things emerged. Certainly, I expected some drawbacks, but GEESH. Mostly, the IRB process and un-thorough guidance with a methodology consultant were the culprits, which I expressed concern about. Then, some limitations of my research emerged and I needed to extend it in order to answer my research questions and obtain deeper, more solid data. That part, I fought a little because I did not want to go through this process again, but as I thought about it (and knew subconsciously), I needed to extend the research, which would extend my time in the program, but would also strengthen my dissertation and future work in the field. SO, of course, I continued the research and had to wait on IRB approval again before doing so.

With that said, it is done! I am taking the next EXIT on the road! I had my dissertaton defense on December 6, 2012, just one day after what would have been my (paternal) grandmother's 82nd birthday! I NAILED IT-the defense. I almost ran out of time (15 minutes) though to discuss my over 200 pages of written work. My committee asked questions about my research, existing literature on the topic, my recommendations, thoughts, and so forth. We discussed this topic (contributing factors to sex trafficcking in the U.S. I explored the systemic side of the industry) and I had to defend my work. I'm not done yet though because I now have to wait for them to decide my fate :) and give me a final decision. Either I passed, or I need to make some more revisions, or did not pass. We're hoping for the first choice obviously where no new revisions are needed...

XOXOXO