Thesis Madness

I'm headed to Maui tomorrow for my last thesis observing run. Good thing too. I recently found out about some painful deadlines that pushed my thesis timeline up by a month. I had "heard" that the deadline for the defense was the end of Mach and the final thesis copy was the beginning of April. While this is close to true, thesis is due Apr 4th and defense by Mar 13th, the mid-March date and some extra "defense" requirements threw me off. I'm on Maui for the CfAO workshop March 11-18 and I'm in MI until Feb 29th. I had planned to do the defense the third or fourth week of March, but now my only shot before the deadline was the first week of March. That made me panic because scheduling busy people is impossible. Then, there's another hiccup. After asking around, I found out that the thesis committee is "required" to get a good draft of the thesis 2 or 3 weeks before the defense. In the past, most IfA grads had not done this. Some problems with other grads have happened in the past few years. I don't know names or details but the jist was that some faculty felt that they couldn't review the thesis properly before the defense. So my committee wants a draft 2 weeks early.... That means I need to hurry up and get it out the week of Feb 18th. I've got 5 weeks.... I'll make it, but it will be tight. I got really lucky and only had one scheduling challenge - Mike and Karen had conflicting open days. I have to cut one of them from my committee to make it work. Good thing I have one extra. I think the strange thing is how different life will be soon. By the time my mom visits in May, I'll be a PhD making 55K in a new job. Hell, I might have even had surgery on my wrist. Damn things happen quick. Anyways, it's time to read, polish and plot. The clock is ticking.