Things to do when you have a PhD

Video from Paul Cuff on Vimeo.

One long day

This entire last week was one long day for me. Actually, the chaos started two weeks ago when I got back from Illinois (UIUC) and I confirmed with Stanford that the only way to get the letter that Princeton demanded by the end of July was to finish my dissertation in the next two weeks. Unfortunately, the timing was terrible. That meant that I would be finishing my dissertation right when the family is leaving for Russia.

I honestly don't know which day was which this last week, except that I remember taking the family to the airport on Wednesday. Here's what I wrote my family about the experience:

How to finish a dissertation in a week:
When you are tired, set a timer for 1.5 hours and lie down on the floor.
When you are bored, go play with kids and wife or check email and news.

But it sure felt good to print out the fancy, acid-free, cotton pages and turn them in. Even with the rush, I think it ended up being pretty good. And Laura stayed up really late the night before to spend hours proofreading for me. Here's a link to the dissertation.

I did have a moment to enjoy shooting some photos with the family. Our friend, Seth Lloyd, took family pictures for us with his nice camera for a going-away gift.