similutaneous relief and annoyance

today was a great day. it was the day that i converted my dissertation from a word document to a PDF file and submitted it to the thesis office. fortunately my committee did not want me to make any major changes to the beast before i submitted it, so all i had to do was proofread and format. that process is WAY more complicated than it needs to be, especially when Word inexplicably decides to change the formatting of your page numbers and you have to swear and yell at it and pound the keys before figuring out how to fix it. regardless, after working hard this week i finally got all my i's dotted and t's crossed. my hope is that once the incredibly anal-retentive thesis people nitpick the crap out of it that there won't be much more to do (though i realize that this is extremely naive of me.) in any case, it feels more official now that it has been submitted to the thesis office. like i really am almost done.

so why would i be annoyed? because as soon as i submitted the diss, i got an email from the thesis office saying that they received it (woo hoo!), that i'm number 236 on their list (okay...whatever), and that i will be billed a ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY-FIVE-DOLLAR processing fee. okay, okay...i should have known this was coming since i did have to turn in my thesis to them 4 years ago or whatever, but it still came as a shock. sure, peoples' salaries probably get paid from that money, which is a good thing, but damn! just when i thought i was done giving my money to the university they find one more way to nickel and dime me. for those keeping track at home, that means just to graduate i had to pay tuition this semester, pay a graduation fee, pay for regalia rental, and pay this stupid ass processing fee. AND i also have the option of paying $95.00 so that my copyrighted dissertation would be widely available for people's use. (if i don't pay that then people would have to pay to use it, which is weird...) so anyway, it caught me off guard a bit.

on a happier note, i'm finding myself feeling randomly nostalgic and just kind of satisfied. though i didn't write extensive acknowledgments in the dissertation (because let's face it, i just wanted to be done writing...not because i don't appreciate all ya'll) i have been feeling very grateful for the many wonderful friends in my life and for my great family. and now that i can put my mind on something else for a while, it goes to you. :) thanks friends for all that you've done to support and encourage me. i truly could not have gotten this far without you.

now to get to a GIANT stack of grading that i've been putting off. no rest for the weary.