D Day

Happy Birthday to my brother, Jordan.

For your gift, I will blog.
You're welcome.

I've now enjoyed about 10 days of absolute freedom. I had my master's defense on November 11. I was absolutely sick to my stomach scared for that moment. I couldn't eat or function in any way. My advisor told me to prepare a 20 slide PowerPoint with only talking points on them. I wasn't supposed to use notes or anything else. I had to just memorize all the information from my 100+ page paper. I had practiced a few times, but could never do it without my notes. On d-day, I was amazed by how well it went. There were three members on my defense team: my advisor, another education professor, and a professor from the languages department. I felt completely comfortable with them and went smoothly through my presentation. I didn't use notes, and just flowed from slide to slide. They didn't ask me any hard questions (like statistics or research and writing). After one hour and forty-five minutes, they sent me out of the room while they deliberated. That was the most nerve wracking six minutes of my life. After that, Dr. Squires opened the door and said "Congratulations! You passed!". I was just beaming the rest of the day!

I met my parents for lunch afterwards. They were on their way to Arizona, and just happened to be passing through on d-day. We spent a couple of hours together, and then went our separate ways. The rest of the day I was on cloud 9, beaming everywhere I went. It felt like a 91,594 pound weight was lifted off my shoulder.

I celebrated my new found freedom with my besty, Wendy. We will forever call November 13th "Freedom Bash 2010". We began this glorious day with some delicious German Pancakes while we watched "Date Night" (funniest movie EVER, btw). Then we went to the gym for a couple of hours, showered, went to a matinee, "It's Kind of a Funny Story" (not my favorite movie, but only $2 wasted). We then ate dinner at Wendy's apartment, painted our nails, and watched another movie, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" (SO funny). It was the best day EVER!

Now my life consists of doing whatever I want, whenever I want. It is AWESOME! I'm reading the books I want, going to the gym, cooking, watching tv/movies, seeing my friends I've alienated the past 2 years, and keeping my apartment clean! All great things!

I've never been so happy in my entire life.

And yes, you must all address me as Master Van Orman or Master Janae.

A huge thank you to my good friend, Liza, for loaning me her laptop since mine died. I am thanking my lucky stars it did not break before November 11th.