Where did October go? I guess it was lost in the struggle to balance all that we have going on in our lives. But we are doing well. I think Carolyn is being pretty patient with me, as I am often gone during the evenings due to my responsibilities in Church. I try to be home for putting Célia Marie to bed (7pm), but then I often leave for meetings and interviews. It seems like I only spend time with her after 9:30pm. Unfortunately, that is when I start to nod off.
Célia Marie took an important step in her development yesterday. Literally. She took three steps towards me. She quickly got to the point where she could pull herself up and walk around holding onto things, but then she plateaued for a month or two. But lately she has been showing signs of preparing to launch herself into the big-girl club as she has been standing independently for several seconds. Yesterday I was holding her hand and walking backwards as she walked towards me. Then I let go of her hand and she took the remaining three steps to get to me. It was controlled walking, not falling with three steps thrown in. I was pretty excited. Carolyn was in the back bedroom and I hollered for her to come see how amazingly talented our little daughter is.
Additional excitement came about a week ago when I found out I had been awarded the UQ IPRS (International Postgraduate Research Scholarship). It came as quite a surprise. I had checked our bank account online to see if my fortnightly pay and scholarship checks had been deposited and saw that a significant amount more was included. Once on campus I called the scholarship office to notify them of the error and they told me that as of July 1 my former scholarship was replaced with the IPRS. The lump sum was backpay for the difference between the two scholarships. I was ecstatic! Carolyn was ecstatic! Everyone is ecstatic, or at least they should be.
This means we will be getting a good amount more per fortnight than before. Also, the lump sum gave us enough to meet out savings goal for the year. Things had been looking very tight and we weren’t sure if/how we were going to make it. Finally, this is a much more prestigious scholarship and will look great on my CV. As you may recall, when all the dust had settled, I missed out on the IPRS by only 3 places (for more information see December 26, 2005 blog entry). Well, what I had been told as nearly impossible and certainly unimaginable happened. Three people ahead of me dropped out.
The good news continues to roll in. Just last week I received an invitation to a symposium in Salt Lake City commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the Rotary World Peace Fellowship on June 14-16, 2007. So we will be heading back to the US once again. We are even more excited about this than the scholarship news, honestly. I plan on combining the trip with some field research for my dissertation. I’ve been tossing around the idea of returning to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as a case study for my Ph.D. This looks like a great opportunity.
The Ph.D. is progressing well. I submitted my Statement of Intent (SOI) this afternoon to the independent reader. The SOI is a detailed proposal of my dissertation research. The reader is someone qualified in the field who assesses the work and presents questions and critique at my SOI defense next Friday. The defense is open to the public and anyone can pick up a copy from the school office to read and pick apart.
It feels good to have made it to this step and to have done so relatively quickly. My supervisor, Morgan Brigg, has been a great help. He sees me every two or three weeks to discuss what I’ve done, box my ears if I’m too far off base and suggest paths to explore. He's put quite a lot of work into this.
