"Master of the Universe" feels good...

I passed!!! Woo-hoo!! I have successfully defended my thesis and I am now a MASTER of the universe! Whew, what a load off. I'm so relieved. I have a few corrections and changes to make before it must be submitted electronically on Friday but, that isn't too big a deal. I only have one final exam to take, which will be cake so, I'm pretty much set. All I have left to do is graduate. Now I must begin hunting large, cardboard boxes....

On Saturday night I went out with some of my girlfriends and had dinner and drinks. It was great to catch up, see where everyone will be next year and, of course, talk about boys :) I guess, as a female, you never really outgrow that, huh?

Wrapping Up and Moving Out

In a few hours, I will have finished my very last final exam in literature...ever. Woo-hoo!! I'm so excited. I only have one more final exam next Wednesday (in Applied Spanish Linguistics for Second Language Acquisition), which shouldn't be too bad. I'm SO happy to be done. I'm sick to death of linguistics, Spanish lit. and literary criticism. I miss history...and facts... and objectivism...and reality. I guess I'm a bit too realistic to exist permanently in the literary realm. I need to get out before I start to hate to read, which would be an absolute shame.

I defend my thesis this Friday afternoon and I'm extremely nervous. Two of my committee members are totally laid-back, whatever kinda people but, my chair is really hard-line. All of the cross-exs with her will be in Spanish and she has pretty high expectations of me. My thesis is a big mixture of Latin American culture, history and political science (to accomodate the areas of interest of each of my committee members). The title is, "NGOs as Agents of Historical Change: A Comparative Study of Violence against Women in Argentina and Brazil". I know, I know, it's a mouthfull. I didn't want it to be so long and pretentious but, it just somehow morphed into that. I was really jazzed about it at first, then the newness wore off (especially when I had a hell of a time doing research in Brazil) so, by the time I got back I almost hated it. I've been struggling with this love-hate relationship I have toward my thesis; now that it's almost done, it feels like an old friend that I have to say goodbye to. I'm very excited to start my Ph.D. I feel like the world is opening up to me...finally.

I'll be traveling to Nashville in the next 2 weeks to try and find an apartment (at a reasonable distance/price). I'll be living alone for the very first time, which is the way I want it. I've dealt with way too many crazy, weird, lazy, dead-beat roommates. I'm ready for a break; I want to be alone, enjoy the peace and get to know myself a little bit. I just don't know what I'm going to do with all the crap in my current apartment....I'm certainly not hefting it to TN...any takers???

Going to HE (double hockey stick) in a Garrison-shaped basket

I was supremely irritated to read the DA (university newspaper) this morning due to the outcome of an election. You see, WVU has recently seen the retirement of President Hardesty (who served for 12 years). So, the search has been on in the last few months to find his replacement. Several extremely qualified candidates were given a crack at the interviewing process. However, strange things began to happen and people began to murmur their discontent, and continue to do so--some are doing more than murmuring. The fact of the matter is this: the BOG (Board of Governors) on campus, which functions much like the U.S. Electoral College, decided that Mr. Garrison was to be the next president by a vote of 16-1 over Mr. Nellis (who is a former Dean of the WVU College of Arts&Sciences). I'm sorry, I just gotta call a big 'ole BULL SHIT on the BOG for this one. Come on! You people couldn't have made this whole charade more obvious if you tried. The fact that Garrison has NO experience in university administration AND the fact that he used to be the HEAD of the BOG AND the fact that he's in bed with practically every major political player in the state (not to mention being Hardesty's pet project) is clearly representative of outrageous personal preference. There were actually candidates who dropped out in mid-process because even THEY could feel that this was a fixed job. Dr. Nellis has done so much for WVU in the past, not to mention the fact that he has a great reputation with students, faculty and administration alike, and he's so incredibly qualified for the job (ex- Dean, ex-University Proctor, etc.) that only an idiot would opt for someone else. Wait, let me correct myself---only a BOARD of idiots would chose another person. It's just so totally asinine I'm overwhelmed. They even went so far as to call an "emergency" faculty senate to have professors vote and give feedback on who would be the best candidate (after some publicly complained). WHERE ARE THOSE RESULTS??? Because you can bet that the faculty didn't vote overwhelmingly for Garrison; clearly, this "emergency" meeting was just a nice, politically-correct way to make everyone feel as though their opinion had been heard when, in reality, it didn't mean anything at all. Screw you, BOG; stop pretending you give a shit what anyone else thinks. Stop wasting our time and energy trying to make you listen to what we really WANT and NEED here at WVU. Obviously, nothing can or will get in the way of your agenda so, good job, you got what you set out to get from the very beginning. Congrats to you, Garrison; you're set for life while everyone who works their ass off at WVU can suffer from your incompetence, continual rises in tuition (5.5% already scheduled for this fall), and stagnate employee salaries. You can piss around and call yourself "president" while always knowing that you BOUGHT yourself the most important position on campus. Let's give them all a round of applause for their magnificent satire...(curtain falls and lights fade out).