I got some good news…

I got some good news yesterday. Last fall, I tried to submit my thesis to the thesis office, so I could actually collect my Ph.D. It came back in December with masses of neatly-worded corrections to style and format. I groaned in despair and put it aside for a day when I was feeling very patient and painstaking. And then yesterday, I got a sweet call from the thesis office, just checking to see how I was doing. I apologized for sending them such a mess the first time; I tried to follow the instructions, I really did, but I got quite muddled in the process. And the lovely lady on the phone said that it was okay, and that she looked forward to seeing the next version -- she said that she had enjoyed reading my book, and hoped it would get published someday. And I said, oh, I guess you didn't know that it's been accepted for publication and is coming out this summer from HarperCollins?

And *then* the nice lady said, oh, I think that we can just use that for our library copy then; we'd just shrink down the formal signature pages (that say that my committee has approved my thesis as fulfilling the requirements for a Ph.D.) and bind them into the finished book. And I said, really? That would be so incredibly cool. And she said that it's only come up a few times before, but she was pretty sure she'd heard of such a thing -- she'd check and get back to me. And then she checked, and got back to me, and it's fine to just send them my finished book. So while I'm sorry I spent eight hours on the first pass attempt at thesis formatting, I'm awfully glad I don't need to spend another eight hours trying to do it again. Hooray for friendly phone calls to check and make sure a student hasn't fallen off the face of the planet. Yay for competent administrative staff. And thank god.