A happy day in my life??? Gosh. How does one go about picking just *one* of those???? No, okay, got one!! In 2008 I decided to go back to school. I decided that I wasn't finished with my learning (not that I believe any of us are ever finished our learning, whether we go the "traditional" route of education or not!) and wanted to see if I could survive getting my Masters degree! (Never mind the anxiety of "will I get in or not??", once I was in, it was all about whether I could actually *do* it!) My school likes to try to push their M.A. students through their degree in 12 short months. Many of my fellow students in my cohort, however, decided to take 4 (instead of 3) terms to complete our requirements. Throughout my graduate degree I continued to work at my full-time job as well as doing school full-time (although now that I think about it, I only took the "full time" course load of two classes for my first term) AND T.Aing part-time. It was quite a load, let me tell you! My happy day was definitely the day I defended my M.A. graduate paper! I was so incredibly nervous. It was the kind of experience where even though you're sitting there with your "final" paper you keep thinking of all of the things you wished you had done differently. Maybe you could have read just *one* more external source! Maybe you could have tweaked the title or opening or closing paragraph just that *one* more time! And it's funny. I remember my Graduate Supervisor asking me during my defense: "What did you learn??" and my answer: "That nothing is ever finished!"! Is it ever true, too. In my faculty you can "Pass with Distinction", "Pass", or "Pass with Revisions" (and I suppose there is a "Not Pass" option, although I'm sure none of my fellow colleagues would have considered NOT passing a viable option). There were definitely some who defended and had to do additional revisions and I was almost certain that that was going to be my fate--especially because one of the members of my committee was pretty darn tough during my defense. But nope! I got the "Pass"! I could take a sigh of relief even now...just remembering it.
Definitely a happy day!
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