Indiana....Fin

Although I have spoken to most of those who keep up with this blog, I thought I would go ahead and make my final post on here as a student. For the record, I successfully defended my dissertation last Thursday. Apart from a few of my friends (jokingly) calling me "Doctor Bice" (which is VERY surreal, when you realize that it's suddenly true) not much is different; I'm still in a big hurry to get back to Erin and the girls, and I probbaly won't relax much until I do. As of right now, the dissertation is printed out and awaiting binding at the copiers tomorrow morning. My deposit appointment is scheduled for Thursday morning, which means that after that's done and I get the van loaded, Dad and I will be hitting the road for Houston and I will finally be saying "Sayonara" to West Lafayette.

The good news is that there will be no more of these dissertation updates, and Erin and I can get back to using this blog for what we started it for: posting pictures of the Bicelings. Erin has been keeping me informed of all the kid-related developments and I think I can guarantee plenty of good pictures coming soon (there is a 2nd birthday party scheduled for Madelyn the weekend I get into town).

I'd like to take a moment to thank many of my friends and family who have been tracking Erin, the girls, and myself throughout this process. We appreciate all the support, and we are looking forward to when we can see you all again.

One final thought: I was reminded today by one of my fellow graduate students to inform Erin that she can now be called "Mrs. Dr. Bice". I don't know if anyone actually does that anymore these days, but it probably wouldn't hurt if you called her that the next time you talk to her; she suffered through this process as much as (if not more than) I did, and deserves to have the title with her name.

At Long Last...

Greetings from Indiana! Well, there finally appears to be an end in sight. I officially finished writing the dissertation today and submitted to the committee. While on Friday I did reach a preliminary end to the writing, I had to address a couple of minor edits and add a couple of appendicies when I came in today. Once that was completed, the writing was all finished ans I was suddenly left with a feeling of "so what do I do now??"

Anyways, here are the final dissertation stats:

Number of Chapters: 7
Length of main body: 216 pages
Length with appendicies: 255 pages
Total length: 275 pages

Whew! That's alot of trees that will be sacrificed. The defense is sceduled for the morning of the 21st of September, and with a little luck I'll come through relatively unscathed.

I did make it down to Texas this past weekend. I took a long, well-deserved weekend and played with my girls (who are getting funnier by the day), and spent some time with my wife (who is as relieved as I am that things are drawing to a close here in Indiana). We went out house hunting and I think we may have found a house that we're interested in. If everything keeps going well, we may be in a home of our own by Thanksgiving...which is very exciting after two months of transience.

I guess that's all for now. Erin and I hope everyone is able to find their way to Houston to visit soon.