Due to a weather related delay leaving Mongolia we had got to spend a night in Korea in a lovely hotel near the airport.  The floors were heated, the babimbob was filled with fresh vegetables, hot water came out of the shower heads, and we slept in a real bed for the first time in over four months. It was true heaven.

We made it to Madison on a Tuesday night, and I defended my thesis the next day. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience, and I got to answer all sorts of questions about my research. It is hard to believe that that was the last time I would be at UW as a student, and now that I have gotten final approval from my adviser (January 10th) I am no longer in school.  As much as I enjoyed grad school, there is something even more enjoyable about being free from homework, aside from that which I assign to students!

Graduation was on December 18th and held at the Kohl Center, the basketball arena on campus.

I was very fortunate that my dad and his partner Libby, my mom and her partner Frank, and Brian were all able to attend the ceremony.

My wonderful cousins who graciously put us up while we were in Wisconsin, were incredibly kind and threw me a graduation party.  Some of the guests even dressed up for the occasion!

I got a yummy cake

and got to see my wonderful friend Anne

and our super friends David, La, and Chris.

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I submitted the final version of my thesis to my committee on November 28th with much stress and relief. Stress because the power was out most of the time and the internet painfully slow. In the end, Brian used his giant brain to upload my thesis to his computer in Wisconsin when the power was on at 2 in the morning, and then I attached it to an email sent from that computer. I have no idea how it all actually worked except for the fact that it did work. A lot of work to email a 500kb document!

Update-after my defense I had a few edits to do, but since by then we had the internet antenna installed on Darkhuu’s roof the emailing process was much smoother. I am not going to miss getting stressed about emailing anymore!

I am now in the final thralls of thesis editing where I write something, my amazingly hardworking advisor reads it, marks it up and down with track changes, sends it back to me, and then I write it all over again.  I am always amazed how after each edit it is so much better, but I am still very anxious to finish.  Then it won’t nearly matter as much to me that the power plant in Dalanzadgad is a big hunk of junk and that we only have power now from 7-9 a.m. and 6-10 p.m.  It will also mean that I can finally get to Christmas crafting.  I wonder what kind of crafts I can make out of dung…

After several furious weeks of writing I have sent off a full draft of my thesis to my advisor.  For the most part I very much enjoyed the writing process and am proud of my results–I just hope my advisor agrees with me.  The next steps are to get feedback from her, make changes, and then send it off to my committee.  The last step before graduation is to defend it before my committee on December 14th.  Wish me luck!

Writing my thesis.

I am on my way! All 100 surveys have been collected, coded, and inputted into my computer.  I have conducted 2 interviews, have two more planned for this week, and my lovely transcriber has already completed half of an interview.  The interview process is really fun and I am really happy that I am able to do it all myself.