Hooray!

Today I handed in my final papers for my classes. SUCH a relief! I don't know why, but I just couldn't get them done until last night, and every page seemed like a marathon session. As for their quality, well, I'm just focusing on the fact that they're done. Tomorrow the class I TA for takes their final, so then I'll have to dive into grading. It's kind of annoying: we got one of the last slots for finals, so there's a very quick turn around to get the grades in. But on the plus side, it's coming after everything else is finished, so I can focus exclusively on that. Then I think I'm going to take at least a week (or two) to relax and think only at the bare minimum level necessary to function. After that, I'll probably need to start gearing up again for the fall. I have to figure what exactly (or at least, close to exactly) I want to write my dissertation on, since I'll need to start doing research for the writing class I have in the fall. While I know I still want to look at the U.S. and the Arab-Israeli crisis, I need to pin down what aspect. My current thought is to do a comparison of how official U.S. policy formed during the debates over partition (from roughly 1946-48) with how public and/or personal opinions (among diplomats, state dept. officials, etc.) were shaped at the same time. But I still need to do some preliminary research to see if that's viable and not done to death.

In addition to that, I also need to start seriously concentrating on comps (comprehensive exams). Since I will undoubtedly be stressing about those for the next year or so, I'll give a brief explanation. For my fellow historians who read this, feel free to skip to the next paragraph (or if you just don't care - either way)! :) Essentially, after taking two years of course work, all PhD students have to take comps. For history, you choose three fields: a Major/General field (mine is U.S. 20th Cent. Hist), a Specialized Field (U.S. Foreign Relations), and a transnational field, where you work with two professors (instead of one), and focus on two regions under one topic (mine is Post-Colonialism/Nationalism in the Middle East and Africa). So for your first two fields, you have a list with 75 books each. The transnational is 50. (I think). So basically, you read your books and talk with the professors for each field and try to get the basic arguments/ideas that show up in these fields, how the history has changed, and to an extent the actual context. Then in August of next year, I'll do the written exams. It's one day per field, usually about 6-8 hours/day where you go in and answer a variety of questions based on the field using your list (although you don't get to bring your notes or anything - but at least now they do let you have a copy of the list, so you don't have to remember who wrote what). Then, assuming I pass that, I'll take the oral exam a couple weeks later (a couple hours of your committee members asking you whatever they want). Then, if I pass that, I'll start teaching my own class within a week or so, depending on how the schedule goes. So yeah, that's going to be a big part of my life until next August. I've already started having bizarre dreams about it, and I'm sure that will only get worse.

But anyway, enough about me (I know you're all here to read about the baby anyway). :) Ronan's doing pretty well at the moment. We had a rough couple nights this past week. Last Tuesday, he got sent home from daycare with a fever of 103. Wed. I took him to the doc. and he had some blood drawn to see if we could get a clearer idea of what's going on. Ronan's essentially been congested since he started daycare last year, and he also sounds a bit like Darth Vader at times when he breathes. But the blood work came back normal - we're basically just dealing with a revolving door of viruses. It's a pain for everyone, but I'm looking at it as a hazing process all parents and kids have to go through - either when they start daycare or when they start regular school. For the most part, Ronan seems happy and normal and it certainly doesn't slow him down. Unfortunately, that night after seeing the doctor, Ronan threw up on Tom (while I was at class) and his fever got to 105. We called the Children's Hospital and our pediatrician happened to be on call, so we talked to him as well and he told us that the number wasn't the problem so much as how Ronan was acting and if he was dehydrated. Since he seemed otherwise fairly normal (although he was asleep at this point), we decided not to take him in. His fever did go down and finally broke the next night, but it was a little nerve-wracking for awhile. Thankfully, tomorrow is his last day at daycare until the end of August, so hopefully he can use the time off to completely clear this stuff from his system. Otherwise, it should at least help us rule out some things.

I'm actually a little nervous about being a full-time stay-at-home-mom again. I'm not sure how we're going to fill up our time each day. But Ronan's pretty good at entertaining himself, so we should be fine. I foresee many trips to the lake. He's not a fan yet of the playground there, so we'll probably just keep walking around, but it's just so nice to be outside and get away from the house.

I think that's about it for the moment. I realize this was a long post - hopefully now that I'm (mostly) done for the semester, I can post more often and avoid the novel-length ones.