I did it!!!

Well, I defended my study today. It was very low-key and my committee was perfect -three male professors: one was my advisor who I've known for almost 8 years, one an instructor I've taken at least 4 classes from in my masters and specialist programs, and one I've never had for class but who I defended my license portfolio to (who, incidentally remembered me well and said good things about me).

It was great. I didn't present anything, we just pretty much talked about my process and they asked questions here and there. They all liked what I had to say and even stated they learned some stuff. That's ALWAYS good when you defend stuff!! :-) All three were convinced that the subject is "new" and current and could definitely be used to spark more research, should be presented at national conferences, and should also be published in "trade" publications (like magazines for principals, rural education, etc -I made it clear I was NOT interested in revising it to shop it around to hardcore research journals -THAT would be a lot of work). So because of that, I have some revisions to make to it. Nothing major at all, just some language changes to make it sound more "researchy", a little bit more streamlining, and formatted better. I could have been completely finished with only some minor language and format revisions, but the professors promised to guide me with the revisions to get it ready for submission and sharing. Of course, they see "dollar signs" in their eyes...not dollar signs per se, but definitely "kudos signs" for themselves. They want to take my research and run with it...SO, their way to do that was to "let" me revise it. Then I'll be awarded my specialist degree. Which is no problemo. Hopefully I can get it done this summer by the middle of August. If not, I'll just wait until December to "graduate". The most important thing to remember is that I am DONE and I did well. Ambition has created a contingency to obtaining the actual degree. :-) So soon you will be able to check my study out of the MSUM library. :-)

So I'm super duper tired. I got about 3-1/2 hours of sleep last night and wanted to go to bed at 8:30 tonight, but it was getting stormy. So it's after 10 right now and i think it's ok to go to bed now and I won't die in a tornado or anything. I HATE storms...soooooooooo much. Tomorrow I have to work at JCP from 7:30 to 5:30 and then I have a FULL night of fun and friends in Ada with a demo derby at 7pm (it's the fair weekend) and then HOPEFULLY games into the night. I say hopefully cuz I think my friends want to mingle and visit with their other friends who go to the demo after the demo. But I don't wanna waste time talking to people I don't know when I could spend some quality time with my friends before I move away. Oh well, we'll see how it goes tomorrow!

So, I'd better get to bed so I can play apples to apples until 3am tomorrow!! (probably not, we're all old now and fall asleep by 11pm....well, except for me, of course! LOL).