13 Days and counting!

I have 13 days until I am free from my candidacy exam!! Let me tell you, I'm very excited to have this done. What's more exciting is that when I talked with Larry today he found out that no one else wanted revisions of my written proposal, so he followed suit and said that I didn't have to worry about it!:) (In case I forgot to mention, Larry had "significant revisions" required which meant I would have a lot more writing to do) His exact words were "I don't want you wasting any more time on it." Larry, I couldn't agree more. So that's a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, which is only marginal compared to the weight still lingering for the oral exam, but it's still very helpful. I'm not really sure if it's because I am sick of this exam or if I subconsciously feel smart but I'm somehow not very nervous right now. (Key word: right now). Surely this will change soon as 13 days becomes 2 or 3. Oh yeah, I didn't even tell you... The date for the exam is October 3rd at 2:00pm - wish me well!!

As for the part of my exam where I was "scooped," I'm not really worrying about it too much. For those of you who don't know, being scooped basically means that someone else published work on something that you're either currently working on or writing a grant to do. For me, it just so happens that a group published a paper saying that part of my hypothesis in my candidacy exam is actually true. The problem is that my proposal was supposed to be novel (aka never done before). In my defense though, it was published online ahead of schedule on the same day I handed in my proposal to the committee, and it wasn't in print until about a week later. They don't know this yet, but I will be upfront and honest with my committee during the oral exam if it comes up. However, as of now there's no need to sound the alarms. Hopefully they'll see it from my perspective that it was really beyond my control, and maybe they'll commend me for at least being right!:)

Other than candidacy I don't have much else new and exciting to tell. Bridget is due to have her baby any time now. I read on Tuesday (I think) that she's 70% effaced and 5 cm dialated, and it seems like it's taken her quite a while to get there! Keep truckin' Bridget! They're expecting a boy, and no names have been released as of yet. I don't normally expect people to have their children named much before the birth anyways - I'm fairly certain I'd change my mind about a hundred times, so I don't blame them for keeping it secret;-)