Commencement season is upon us again.

This weekend, the U of I has been overrun with kith and kin (kissin' kin?) come to see little Joey or little Jennifer graduate. Fortunately, as with Noah, the Lord stopped the rains in time (Friday was still a downpour), and the commencers - or whatever they're called - can commence doing what commencers do.

It struck me seeing all these other strangers finishing up that I have now been walking around this same campus for almost eleven years now - since August 1993! The only thing standing between me and walking down the same aisle for my diploma is ... me. (I realize "is I" is grammatically correct, but it sounds clunky.)

That won't be happening officially until next May (2005), since there is no commencement for PhD candidates between Mays at this campus. But I can still be awarded my degree this October if I just keep at it.

My current deadlines:

June 4 - Get draft #1 of my dissertation to my dissertation director Bob Hart, who's seen me through every step since 1998. This deadline is somewhat flexible, since he just needs time to read and edit it. I'll then have a chance to spiff it up (and fix glaring errors) before handing the second draft to my committee.

June 14 - Get the final draft to the members of my dissertation committee: Bob, Gary Cziko (the committee chair), and Jim Levin, who's actually out at UC-San Diego. (I'll email him a copy.) Traditionally, committee members get two weeks to read the dissertation before the oral defense, so June 14 is the latest I could do that.

June 28 (Monday) - My oral defense, when I present a summary of my study (experiment) and answer questions from my committee for up to two hours. Usually by this stage everyone is pretty much satisfied with the basic dissertation, and they'll just sign off after grilling me - often with "suggested" (polite for "required") revisions.

July? August? - Deposit date. There is no deadline here; I just have to turn in the final version to the Graduate College for binding to put in the library. (I get several copies too.)

There is one prof. on the committee (who shall remain nameless) in addition to the three members I mentioned above, but I've finally decided to boot her off my committee due to the fact she hasn't answered a single email since my prelims in September 2001! (She hasn't even answered email I've sent just to her.) I don't consider it professional behavior, and I don't think she has earned a right to sit at my June defense now and criticize the dissertation (and potentially delay me many more months). I need just three professors to to sign off after my defense, so as long as they all live to June 28, I should be OK.

Anyway, back to work. This is just one more attempt at procrastination. ("cras" means "tomorrow" in Latin, interestingly ...)

Check back later ...