Um, I would like to graduate please....

Well, as some of you may have noticed, it's been a while.
"What are they up to..." You ask?

Well, trying to follow through with the non-existent New Year list is half of it, the other half has been b-day celebrations, and the *other* half being...GRADUATION APPLICATION!!! Can you believe that his degree may be wrapped up by the end of the summer? In.Cred.I.Ble. Incredible!! Seriously, can you believe it? I Can Not.

When we moved out here we thought this venture would take us 3-3.5 years. At the time, the plan was a double masters thesis degree with field work, and we knew that was going to eat up over 3 years of our lives. Then, oh then, out paths changed. I became a little ill last spring and had to take a leave from school. Concurrently, the project started to take longer and longer (phase I, which needed to be completed before phase II, which was mine, was already 6 months delayed). Tom and I had a lot of time to have big long chats about life, about what matters in life, about what we thought we should be doing with our life... and our perspectives changed. Life is short!

My health returned. We met with my supervisors and discussed our concerns/ideas and they were more than accommodating. Along the theme that 'life is short', we asked for field time in Panama so we could get some international experience and exposure to field work in remote settings. We spent the rest of the summer doing just that. When we returned to Canada the decision had to be finalized: stay with the original option, or switch programs??? I loved the field, I was feeling much better, but our visits with mission organizations during our trip completely solidified our decisions. We want to get on with this!! Yes, we were itching to get back out there, yes for sure, and the thesis project would have brought us out there for 8 months, but we knew then that we wanted to returned with our agenda, not McGill's. So, we did it. I switched. I cried. I cried. I cried.

But now? I've never been happier. Seriously! This program (rooted from the Faculty of Human Nutrition, but options for courses in parasitology, water and sanitation, global health, food security, policy and poverty, etc.) has been fascinating and completely applicable to what I really want to do in the long term. It's more holistic and offers a wider range of knowledge. So, not only has this switch been waaaay better from a personal growth in required knowledge point of view, I've also made some incredible friends from my classes and...oh....AND... we're out of here in HALF the amount of time. How exciting is that?!?!?

The only snag was my funding. Would my funding agency accept our change of heart? In the end my proposed project for this program also fit their bill and it all worked out splendidly. How blessed are we!!???!!

So now, we're looking down a very dark 6.8 month long tunnel (dark must mean working hard!) and then a white sheet at the end. A blank, white sheet....What will be be doing in September???? We're working on it people. Oh, we are working on it. ;)

All I have to do now is graduate!!!!!!