Thanks be to God!

After a six-week slog through unhappiness, illness, and a whole lot of work, several wonderful events in my life:

– By this point, I have my head back on straight enough to realize that I have had a lot of wonderful help in keeping it together while Sydney’s gone.  Mom, Sarah and Lisa, Sydney’s mom, Christi, numerous friends from church, Kate, Heidi–you guys rock.  It’s taken me awhile to figure it out, but I’m feeling incredibly supported and encouraged because of your help.

– Sydney comes back in five days.  Even a wimp like me can handle that, right?  I am having to work hard to resist the temptation to drive out to Detroit to see him upon his first landing in the US, but, well, I’m my father’s daughter and common-sense is keeping me in check . . . so far, at least.

– Two of my advisors got together earlier this week to discuss my upcoming qualifying exams (May 14th).  They then sent me an email with all sorts of great ideas about how I might frame my project, avenues to explore, suggestions of books that might help me along the way, etc.  I loved knowing that they had taken the time to figure out how they could help me prepare!

– Today I learned that I won a fellowship from my department.  It will give me a) an extra semester of teaching-free funding so that I can work on my dissertation, and b) another semester in which I will teach a course that I have already designed and proposed to the committee.  The course theme is something that has come out of my dissertation work thus far.  I am excited about both halves of the project–no, excited really isn’t a strong enough word for it.  I love teaching, and I would really like to teach some of the things I’ve had spinning around in my head for awhile, but I’ll also be grateful for sustained time for dissertation work.  And man, that award came at a really good time.  Oh yes, and winning this fellowship will be a great boost when I walk in to take my exams later this spring!

Alright, time to go read some books so that I can take advantage of some of these wonderful things . . .

Erin