o lolli lollipop

it's been seven years. (well, if you don't count the two years i spent at Berkeley making the transition from Environmental Science to Computer Science and the semester of intro CS i took before that when i was still working in Virginia.) okay, fine, the point is that it took a long time and now it's over. today i filed my thesis and got my lollipop. technically, i'm not a Dr. until they confer my degree in December, but it's good enough for grad work, feel free to call me doctor. i'll even answer to Dr. Dre.

as my friend Jaety pointed out, at the end of our trying intellectual and emotional journey we are rewarded like kindergartners, with a lollipop and a gold star. so here it is (as requested by my Aunt Linda), a picture of me getting my lollipop, and one bonus pic of me with my rewards on the steps of Sproul Hall. (for the full action sequence, you can go to my photo album.)

lastly, two acknowledgments that didn't make it into the thesis. first, a big thank you to Emily and Paul Reichardt who joined me for the last leg of the journey and served as my historians. second, to Garrison Keillor for a quote that has provided much-needed perspective the last seven years:

Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.