And Juuuuuuuune

Life goes on, keeping up a hectic but manageable pace. Everything has felt more pleasant lately. The stuff with Penn's sister is still a mess but, to use a weak analogy, it's no longer like a storm overhead but rather a thundercloud on the horizon. At least, that's the case for me. I think it's healthier that way. I needed some distance, I needed to get back to my normal life and stop obsessing about the life of someone whom I can't control or help. For Penn it seems to come and go in waves, but he also seems to have found some healthy distance, too, so that's good.

I got some fantastic news last week. This past semester was supposed to be my last of funding. I can't even begin to fathom how quickly the time has flown by recently, but somehow I have already been at University Land for four years and so my funding is officially up. Earlier this semester, one of my fellow PhD candidates and I co-wrote a letter asking for an additional semester of funding because A) there is a precedent for providing an additional year of funding when needed and B) that additional year of funding is pretty much ALWAYS needed, which is why as of last year they now automatically give incoming students a five-year contract instead of a four-year one. Turns out, not surprisingly, that it's pretty close to impossible to write and defend a dissertation in just one year. Anyway, while there is a precedent for giving additional funding, they certainly don't provide it to everyone, but I really did feel like I was deserving because I aced my coursework and met all of my other benchmarks on time and I really think with one more semester of funding I can finish the dissertation. So we wrote the letter and hoped for the best and, amazingly enough, we pretty much got it! We've been promised assistantships for the fall semester (I'll be teaching a course and editing an academic journal, as I did this past year), and--get this--fellowships for the spring semester! Next spring I'm going to be paid to stay home and finish up my dissertation! I am beyond thrilled about that! There's always the chance that everything could fall through when the official budget is handed down at the beginning of the fiscal year in July, but for now everything is looking really, really good financially. Sigh of relief! (For the record, Penn and I have been saving money for months and we were prepared for me to not have a job in the fall, much less in the spring. We were going to get by on his salary, savings, and my tutoring and freelance work until his promotion and raise in the spring. It would have been tight, but doable. Now, though, it appears that we won't have to pinch our pennies nearly as much. Hooray!)
I now feel extremely compelled to finish my dissertation for graduation in May of next year. I can't let my department down when they have given me this generous additional offer. I plug away at the dissertation every week. I'm about 1/3rd of the way to my goal of having two chapters finished by sometime in July. I figure if I can finish two chapters by July I'll be well on my way to having the whole thing basically done by December. That's my goal right now: finish the bulk of the writing by December, defend as early as possible in the spring semester. I really, really hope my plan works out. I'm worried because my summer is about to ramp up as I begin two major projects, one of which will take me to Scotland for ten days in August. Still, I'm finally feeling inspired about my project again and eager to just be finished with this degree already.

Let's see, other news..."Lurch", the new dog, is still wonderful. I can't believe I waited so long to have two dogs. They are great companions to one another and I love watching them galump around together.
I had a nice Memorial Day weekend. Penn and I took a day trip with another couple to visit some local caverns (breathtaking!) and then hike in a national park. The scenery on the hike was beautiful, but the hike nearly ended up a debacle. Our friend who planned it had sold us on "an easy three to five mile hike." So that's what I prepared for. I was in sneakers rather than hiking boots--not that I own hiking boots, mind you, but I would have purchased some if I had been warned we were doing serious hiking--I ate a PB&J before we set off but brought along only one apple and one protein bar (Penn only had beef jerky), and Penn and I each had only one water bottle. First of all, we looked more closely at the map before we set out and realized that the "three to five mile hike" was going to be more like a "seven to nine mile hike." We decided to set out anyway, though, figuring if we kept up a reasonable pace we could walk that distance by nightfall, even though it was already 2:00 in the afternoon. Ten minutes into our hike we got caught in a sudden downpour. We considered walking back to the car at that point and waiting it out, but we figured (correctly, thankfully) that it would be a passing shower and that the day would probably be clear afterward. That was really the last luck we had. Forty-five minutes later we made it to the first of several waterfalls and as we were admiring it Penn realized that one of our water bottles had leaked all over our backpack and was now empty. So we were down to just one water bottle between us with more than half of the hike left to go. Then everything just took so much longer than we anticipated. The path was very rocky so the going was slow on the downhill, and then the path back to our car was uphill and it was never-ending. Seriously, the last three miles of that hike were the definition of demoralizing. We were just climbing up and up and up this switchback path. All of us were basically just trudging along at that point, puffing and panting and trying not to pay attention to various aches and pains in our bodies. I know the only reason I kept dragging myself along was because I was with three other people and didn't want to seem like the out-of-shape loser. Of course, it turns out everyone else was doing the exact same thing, but peer pressure had a positive effect. We just kept walking and walking, driven by the fact that we really, really wanted to make it back to our car before it got dark and bears* came out. I was having visions of us being in the forest after nightfall, trying to get out by just the light of my cell phone (which I had accidentally left in our backpack for the hike). We eventually did make it out and back to our car, but not before I said to Penn, "When did this hike turn into a death march?!" As it turns out, none of us are out of shape losers. As we drove home that night I looked up our hike on my phone and it was described as a "strenuous downhill climb," only we walked UP that "strenuous downhill," which I think gives me the right to officially describe our hike as "really fucking strenuous." I do feel really accomplished for having made it through!
We also celebrated Memorial Day by going to a baseball game with another couple. It was a million degrees outside. I think I ended up spending $16 on bottled waters to get through the game.
Huh, I realize that neither the hike nor the baseball game actually sound all that pleasant in writing. But it was a fun weekend, I swear!

Sunday we're heading to the Outer Banks to spend a week vacationing with my family. Penn and I rented the house for everyone as a thank you to my parents for paying for our wedding reception. Hopefully it will be a fun trip. I'm so excited to see everyone!

*We saw a bear on the drive home! Two bears, actually, a mama and her cub, sitting right in the middle of the road! Our friend who was driving had to swerve to keep from hitting them and came within about two feet of doing just that. I had never seen a bear in the wild before, much less one that big. It was amazing. I'm just so glad we saw them from our car and not while we were out in the open on our hike.