Isolation, or how I’m trying to survive my prelim

I left my apartment building this afternoon for the first time since I came home from being at work with Kevin on Monday. All because of my prelim exam. For those of you not in academia, the prelim exam (or qualifying exam or comprehensive exam as it’s also called, they all mean approximately the same thing) is a huge exam that graduate students take to prove to their departments they’re qualified to be Ph.D. students. If you don’t pass your exam, then you sometimes have another chance to try to pass depending on your school and/or department, but usually it means you get a master’s degree and have to try to get into another school if you want to try to get your Ph.D. So that’s what I’m in the middle of right now. It tests all your graduate level classwork, your research so far, your knowledge of the scientific method, all that good stuff. The way my department does it, I have three professors on my committee that each gave me an in-depth question that I have 1 week and 8 single spaced pages to answer all three of them in. Then my committee has a week to review my answers, and then on July 1, I have an oral exam with my committee to defend my answers and answer any other question under the sun they want to ask me. Then these three professors will determine if I qualify to be a Ph.D candidate.

So I got my questions Tuesday afternoon. It is now Friday evening, and I have been holed up in my apartment with the kitties researching and writing for these questions and occasionally taking breaks nonstop. Well, I stopped to do the GGG podcast on Tuesday evening, and to sleep. Today I was going stir-crazy, even though Kevin and I are heading down to Virginia to go to our friend Christoph’s wedding (one of my friends from high school, he’s practically my brother). I went out to the grocery store down the street to get drinks and snacks for the car ride down, and it was glorious. Sunshine, fresh air, and people!

I haven’t been completely isolated, the kitties are keeping me company during the day and Kevin is home in the evenings. And of course, there’s everyone on Twitter during the day. Being home in Virginia will be very non-isolating, which will be a welcome break. We’re going straight to the wedding, then spending the night at my parents’. I haven’t seen my dad since we were down around New Year’s, and my brothers, future sister-in-laws, and my mom I haven’t seen since they came up here when my nephew passed away at the beginning of April. So it’ll be a full house at my parents’, as usual, and I’m sure crazy as usual. Here’s just hoping I get a *little* bit of work done. I’ve got the spare Macbook Pro battery charged, and printed or wrote out most of my research so I can write on the trip down. Now back to cleaning the apartment and packing.