A good night's sleep

Last night, I had a marvelous night's sleep.  Today is the first day of DOU's spring break, and I could hear my upstairs neighbors clomping around and chattering at 1:00AM.  Lord only knows what sort of debauchery went on last night (or will go on tonight).  But I don't even know, because once I screwed in my earplugs, turned out the light and hit the pillow, I fell into deep, pleasantly dreamful sleep.

You know why I slept that well?  Because I scheduled my dissertation defense yesterday. 

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah.

Long story short, after unsuccessfully stalking the one committee member who hadn't given me word of availability yesterday, I met with Dr. Chair to discuss more emendations to the final chapter.  I also asked hir if zi had heard at all from the missing committee member, and Chair then thought to check hir email files -- you know the ones that zi was supposed to forward to me as they came in.  Sure enough, that prof had emailed Chair assuming that Chair would forward to me.  But Chair hadn't.  Sigh.

Anyway, as soon as I got that info, Chair and I agreed on an optimal time and date, and off I went to the internet, and reserved a nice fancy conference room where my committee members not on campus can dial in and participate via video link.  (Like Star Trek!) 

The reservation is set.  The date approacheth.  It's really going to happen.

As noisy as my neighbors can be, I have no doubt that my recent insomnia is due primarily to the awful stress of finishing the diss.  I lie awake at night sometimes, unable to sleep for all the fears that bubble up when nothing else can distract me from them.  And so last night, at that time of day when my mind usually begins to obsess about all the ways my career and life can fall down a metaphorical manhole, I soothed myself to sleep with the thought, It's really going to happen.  It's really going to happen. 

Sure, I've got emendations to squeeze in before the end of March, but hell: revising an already-extant paper with two weeks' revision time, in support of a firm deadline requirement?  Seriously, that's nothing I haven't done before a zillion times.  Simply knowing that this firm deadline really exists now, and that all of us must work toward that, lowers my blood pressure about ten points.

It's really going to happen.  And I can do this.