Earning my PhD

I finished my last exam of my last year of University last week. I walked out of an old, beat up and generally forgotten gymnasium only to find myself going backwards and forwards trying to decide whether to skip my way to the parking lot, or to run back in, yelling "I'm not ready yet! Give me another one!".

Every new graduate gets that "now what?" feeling, and I had it very quickly. Thankfully, I got married in second year (not typical, but it got a lot of wedding-planning chaos out of the way) and John and I have settled into our new little home in Toronto, so there really wasn't much to do in the way of preparing or settling. I know where I live, who I live with. Really, now what?

We left for Orlando where John had some sweet photoshoots lined up immediately after I finished my last exam, so I didn't have much time to get anxiety over things out of my hands.

Lauren Mann and the Fairly Odd Folk  - one of John's photos!

We decided to dedicate the trip to growing spiritually and in our marriage. And we did! It didn't take long. In the middle of West Virginian mountains, 12:30 AM, we ran out of gas, had no telephone signal, and - of course - it was pouring rain and nobody in the old creepy plantation houses answered their door. It really was a scene from a horror movie - I've said this to a few people, but I truly expected a hook to pierce through our roof. We freaked out a little bit more than a little bit and decided that we'd fall asleep until we could either a) flag down another car or b) fall asleep until sunrise, all the while c) avoiding any men in large trenchcoats / white vans / the guy in the Scream mask.. all those things. Those things, all put together, kick-started our spiritual/marriage growth and the rest fell together.

Eventually, we managed to get the attention of a trucker at 5:30 in the morning thanks to me frantically waving my upper body outside my window and John flashing our lights, honking the car horn and all the other (appropriate) things you can do to get a trucker's attention at 5:30 in the morning. Turns out, we had just enough gas (Hanukkah, anyone?), found a BP, filled up, went on our way and found our hotel to sleep at for a couple of hours until we arrived the next night.

Other than that, the week was pretty smooth sailing! We read this crazy new book, Love Wins, (just kidding, it's not crazy but I'll share my comments on it once I can process them a little more), John took some sweet pictures of the band Blessed By a Broken Heart, and the folky awesome stylins' of Lauren Mann and the Fairly Odd Folk, and - of course - photos of our resort, which is an excellent resort which I recommend staying at but don't know the name!

One of John's lovely photos of Blessed By A Broken Heart :)

And now, we're back to normal life. I had a job interview today, and I have one lined up next week. They're a little nerve-wracking, we'll find out how they go. Currently my husband is making fun of my addiction to Christian-women-with-cute-babies blogs and, lovingly quoting Will Ferrell,

"those babies can star in a show called Babies I Don't Care About" 

and is suggesting starting a blog called If You Want To Look At Babies Go Have Your Own.

More on that in a few years.. wow, what an abrupt end to my wonderful blog writing experience. But this is real life. The one my father in law says I'll be earning a PhD in.