August 2009 Archives

The defense went swimmingly! I'm so happy that so many people came:

Right after the group picture I shouted for joy and executed a secret plan that was about two years in the making: jumping in the fountain!

Of course, I probably should have taken my cell phone out of my pocket first! Well, at least it didn't take me long to get the mindless professor role down pat :)

Thank you to everyone who made getting a PhD in four years possible -- I couldn't have done it without you!

Dissertation is being bound.  Parody is written (see below). Now I just need to defend the darn thing (tomorrow!).

Closer You are to Done

I'm trying to tell you something about voters
And what makes some of them party floaters
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to make me take inference more seriously,
There's just one truth after all

Procrastination is a monster that's insatiable
And rigor has a call that's hard to hear
I pretend that my fear is just writer's block
and keep watching DVDs til two o'clock
Now I'm asking for your signatures

I went for a doctorate, they made me climb a mountain
While watching townie children play in the fountain
There's more than question you can answer
That will get you out the door.
The less you seek the source of imperfections,
The closer you are to done.
The closer you are to done.

On the road to a doctorate of philosophy
I tried to split my life between Princeton and DC
Never could sit still or waver from life's purpose
Visited Hong Kong and Thailand, Petra and Darwin's tortoise
I spent four years learning how to frame problems, wrote my thesis
Now I'm free!

[Chorus; instrumental]

I stopped by the dbar at one a.m.
To drink four pints of ginger ale and visit all my friends
I awoke with renewed spirit to finish a thesis section
As soon as I'm done working on this election
...which one should take precedence?

I went for a doctorate, they made me climb a mountain
While watching townie children play in the fountain
We go for a doctorate, we do climb that mountain
We watch townie children who play in the fountain
We go to Chicago, we stress out over generals
We read up on Arceneaux, and fake our way through orals
There's more than one question you can answer
That'll get you out the door
The less you seek the source of imperfections,
The closer you are to done.
The closer you are to done.
The closer you are to done.

Now I just need to come up with a good song parody (to keep the trend going)..."Closer to Fine" has been stuck in my head. The academic references have obvious parallels (esp. since I finished in 4 years); more coincidentally, the fountain reference is also relevant since this is the view from outside the Politics dept: