Drum Roll, Please....

Today has been a definitive day in my life. Really, it has. In fact, I can't think of another day in my life so far where two major milestones, two life-changing events (interrelated though they may be) have taken place in the same day.

But today? Today I sat before my committee and defended my thesis and took my comprehensive exam. Two hours sitting across the table from three professors, answering questions about everything I've learned about theatre EVER was one of the most intimidating and stressful things I have done in a long time. And to think, I went into this with full confidence that I would pass and I was still that nervous when it came time to actually do the defense. I don't know how I'm going to do this whole comprehensive exam thing again in a couple of years, much less defend a dissertation.
But the important thing right now is that I passed my exam and my defense, and now I get to graduate for sure! I am a Master of Arts (officially as of May 12th, but technically as of right now)! Go out and have a drink for me to celebrate!
One of the best parts about the whole thing is that I have an entire month to kill between now and graduation, and absolutely nothing to do between now and then except take a final in my Classical and Renaissance Theatre class. I think I have loved this spring semester more than any semester I have had so far. I even loved the parts of it where I was writing my thesis (although that's mostly because I had a lot of distractions, like Justin Timberlake).

So that's all great, but the really major thing that happened today was that I finally decided on a Ph.D. program. I know I've been terrible about updating you here at the end of the process, but it's just because everything happened so fast and I had so much to think about. I ended up getting awesome financial aid offers from both schools. One offer came in on Monday night, the other came in on Tuesday morning. From that point I only had Tuesday, Wednesday, and today to make a decision since I need to have my official answers reach the schools through mail by Monday.
I won't bore you with the whole decision-making process except to say that it was the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my entire life and that's no exaggeration. I talked to faculty at the schools, I talked to students currently in the programs, I talked to faculty here, I talked to my friends here, I talked to my parents (who are in Mexico for the week and are now going to have a ridiculous phone bill from hashing the whole thing out with me, sorry Dad!), I asked my basset board friends who live in both areas of the country for their opinions, I was practically asking strangers on the street for their opinion. In the end I felt like I made the most informed decision I possibly could, considering I didn't have the time to visit both campuses.
I'm feeling good about my decision. I chose the school that is going to give me the biggest stipend for my teaching assistantship (even taking cost of living into consideration, this school is still giving me more money than the other one would have) and they are also going to give me health insurance, pay my full tuition for up to four years, and give me $2000 of travel/research money for my first two summers. It's an amazing offer, and one that I ultimately just couldn't refuse. I also feel confident that I will be able to find good dissertation advisors in this program, and I'm excited about where I'll be living. And that's what it came down to, ultimately. My friend and professor, Christin, who just finished her Ph.D. in December, pointed out that the Ph.D. is such a self-directed degree anyway that when comparing two very similar programs, the programs themselves don't matter as much. So she said, "Where would you rather live?" And when she put it that way, my decision, which was already becoming pretty obvious, was clear.

Alright, enough of the suspense. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. And you probably just scrolled down to find out what I chose anyway, right? So...

[Haha, just kidding! This used to say which school I chose, but now that identifying information has been deleted. Figure it out for yourself, or e-mail me or myspace message me if you know me personally and want to know]