Seven years ago, I walked into Susquehanna Hall as a graduate student for the first time. My first class with Orrin Wang (as I mentioned in an earlier entry) left me feeling unprepared for the task ahead of me. I dropped that class the next day, the first in a long line of experiences that reinforced that nagging feeling that I was secretly a fraud--that someday, everyone would discover that I was just faking my way through this, that I didn't really belong here, a feeling I've heard that we almost all share.

In the Book of Genesis, Joseph (or multi-colored coat fame) interpreted a dream for the Pharaoh--seven years of feast, seven of famine. From this vantage point, I can only interpret these last seven years as the feast years. I have met scores of amazingly intelligent people, learned more than I could have ever have dreamed, and burned through a veritable forest of computer paper. I never did take another class with Orrin, something I actually quite regret. But beyond that . . .

Tomorrow, I defend my dissertation, and if I am not mistaken about the tradition, can reliably call myself Dr. Claycomb (even though the hooding ceremony happens in December). I will start teaching at a new institution on Tuesday. I will be faculty.

So today, I'd like to raise a quiet toast to the really-not-so-bad life of being a grad student. The pay wasn't great, but I really have had a great time.

Tomorrow will surely be a milestone in my life. But today ain't so bad either.