I'd Like to Introduce You to Me

I know many of you already know, either through facebook or through my sister's blog, but I passed my dissertation defense on Monday. So one day I'm just a lowly grad student, and the next I'm still a lowly grad student, but one who will have a title for the rest of my life. I am now Karen Merrell PhD!

I had some great support. My mom and Audrey drove up from St. George, Connie drove up from Cedar City, Aunt Janis drove down from Pleasant Grove, and Brian flew up from LA to hear the public presentation part of my defense. They were very attentive, and impressed my professors with the great questions they asked me. After my presentation, they kicked everyone out except for my committee and asked me questions for an hour. I was a little nervous about this part, since I had no idea what to expect, but it went over pretty well. There were a few questions I didn't know the answer to, the answer to one of them should have been obvious to me but wasn't, but I knew everything else they were asking me. For the most part, I even knew why they were asking me them.

Well, then they kicked me out, deliberated for five minutes or so and then called me back in and congratulated me. And then handed me back the huge stack of corrected dissertations. And now I have to go back and correct them, tweak the format so they can be submitted to the library electronically, and then I make 6 or 7 copies on fancy scmancy paper, and then submit them to be bound and whatever else they do with them.

Well, that's my story. Kind of crazy! It hasn't sunk in yet, I think. But it does feel great to be done. I feel more relaxed than I've been in months!

Smell and Memory

So there are some smells that instantly transport me back in time. The smell of cinnamon-scented Glade air-freshener takes me back to Grandma Merrell's house in Animas, the smell of Woolite takes me back to washing sheep at the fair, the smell of horses take me back to most of my childhood as does the scent of burning trash (we lived in the sticks, ok? everyone burned trash). The smell of cows takes me back to the interstate right outside of El Paso. The smell of a Pantene sometimes takes me back to the time I went to the Air Force Academy for a week in the summer. Sometimes when I'm walking in the rain, a breeze will rush by adding a subtle scent that I can't really put in words and I'll feel like I'm in Argentina again. All of these are fairly normal to me and don't really catch me off guard anymore. Sometimes I'll pause and bask in the memory before going on with the rest of my life. Every now and then an unusual smell will take me back to an unusual place. Like today, for instance.

I went to the dentist today. Nothing unusual so far, other than the timing. My dissertation is due to my comittee members in about 16 hours or so, so I probably shouldn't have taken the time to go the dentist, but I scheduled my appointment back when I was deluding myself that I would have my dissertation done mid-February. Back to the story...

So I'm laying back in the chair watching the end of Transformers on the ceiling (this is some fancy dentist's office!) feeling a little sad that I had so much work left to do tonight. I wasn't really bemoaning the work, but rather the fact that to keep my wits about me I turned down the opportunity to suck on a little happy gas. I briefly considered it but realized that Dissertation + happy gas+ looming deadline = train wreck. It would probably be a funny train wreck, but not worth it in the long run. I have been working on this degree for just under 6 years now, after all. Not worth the risk.

(Author's note... Some of you squeamish folk might not appreciate the next paragraph. I think it's funny, but my sense of humor runs toward to the macabre at times. Don't say I didn't warn you...)

So I'm in the chair and the dentist is drilling some tooth in the lower left quadrant of my mouth. The sound was pretty much horrible and I could see smoke coming up out of my mouth, but neither of these things really affected me. After all, that's kind of SOP for getting cavities filled. The smell of my own teeth burning, however, took me back about 5 years or so to when I got lasik surgery to correct my vision. Suddenly I was in a different chair, hugging a very large stuffed rabbit for comfort (even though I wasn't all that nervous at first. I'm just saying that if you were laying there with your eyeballs peeled and some nurse puts a large soft plush thing on your chest, you would hug it too!), and instead of my jaws being held open, there were these metal hook things holding my eyelids open. My eyelashes were taped out of the way, my corneas were peeled back, my vision was very very blurry (what with the corneas not being in their accustomed spot and all), and I was staring into a blinking red light smelling my own eyeballs being vaporized. The smell of vaporizing eyeballs isn't the same as the smell of burning teeth, but today my brain linked them somehow. Weird. Neither of these experiences was a bad one. In fact, I'm really happy with my lack of needing contacts and I will be happy with my cavity-free teeth as soon as I can feel the right side of my face.

What smells take you guys other places?

Everything is so Amazing, and No One is Happy

A friend shared this video with me a few days ago. I think it's a great commentary on how we as a society are so used to the amazing things that we have right now. I, for one, have spent some quiet time alone pondering and being amazed at some of the amazing technologies of this day and age. Indoor plumbing, the interweb, cell phones, chocolate, the list goes on and on...

A Fair Bit of Success

Last fall it was brought to my attention that the county fair was accepting entries. Debbie and I entered several things. I entered jam, an apron I made for Athelia, some produce from my garden, some pictures I took on my camping trip, and some baked goods. Not that there was a lot of competition, but I was pretty proud of myself. I brought home a dozen ribbons, most of them gold. It's just something fun that I thought I'd share with all of you!

Old Timey Country

I recently found this clip on YouTube. I have memories of my dad singing the first song in the clip, and memories of my mom singing the second one!



I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did!

I Like Pretty Food

I want to share a few pictures of things that I ate that make me happy. One is a salad that I made with lots of things from my summer garden, one is an example of the pizzas that I was making on my free grill (hooray for freecycle) over the summer with all of my surplus tomatoes and basil, and one is a fat lot of cinnamon rolls I made for a special occasion. I really love food!

Karen to the Rescue!

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this yet! I mean, I was pretty much a hero. Really saved the day and all. If I did post this just let me know. Even if I have already told this story, it's worth telling again. Since I am a hero and all.

So there I was, walking down the hill from the Benson Building on one mighty fine summer afternoon heading to my car. Walking past a drain gate I hear some peeping. I pull the grate off, hop on down, and lean down into the large hole. Definitely peeping. I call BYU police to ask what I should do and they say that they are the ones that take care of it and will be there shortly. I hunker down to wait for them to show them where the duckies are. At some point I see a friend coming down the hill and I flag him down and ask if he by any chance keeps a flashlight in his truck. Being the boy scout trained guy that he is, he pulls a mag-lite out from under the front seat. I go back, lean down into the hole, and see two little ducks wading in the water.

It was too far down to reach them even if they hadn't run away when I would get close. There was a constant trickle of water so it was too slippery to climb down. I found an old door and blocked off most of where the trickle came in and where the ducks must have slipped down. The drain pipe was pretty broad and was blocked up at the far end. It went back a good few dozen yards and then there was a cement wall.

The mommy and daddy ducks heard their lost babies and would come close to the drain and quack at them. The babies heard and would peep back. It was cute, but made me want to save them all the more. As some other people were walking to their cars they would stop and wait with me. Some stayed and were really trying to help, while others were just interested in the show. A girl called her mother who lived a few blocks away and she brought two pool nets that we used to try and fish the ducklings out of the hole with. A physics student went back to the Eyring and brought back a whole bag of bagel crumbs that were left over from something. Before that we had tried to lure them with a few cake crumbs that some other girl had left over from her lunch.

We fished one out and set it free next to its family and after mom and dad had checked the little guy out, they and the 9 or 10 other babies waddled back down to the duck pond. Much to our surprise, we still heard two little duckies peeping from the tunnel. After much further efforts, mostly on my part and that of the aforementioned mother and daughter of the pool-net fame, we did manage to get the other two out all at once. Since the rest of the flock had already gone back to the duck pond, we carried the little peepers down there in the pool nets. We let them go and they ran back to their family!

Like I said. I'm pretty much a hero. The police never did show up. After several hours, we called them to ask about whether or not they were actually coming. Apparently there was some people-related incidents that necessitated the presence of the BYU cops. After we got the ducks out I saw a momma deer and her two fawns come out and start to eat the bushes. It was cute too! And that's my story. You know, the one where I'm a hero... Yeah... cool... hmmm...

Big gulps eh... welp... see you later...