Update - I'm finished!

I totally forgot to post here that I finished my PhD. My defense was on January 10th. I think it went well. I talked and talked and talked... and I had to just keep talking. I've never talked so much in my life. At one point, I could hear myself talking, and I thought "is that me? Am I STILL talking?!?" Then, I had minor revisions, and I finished those. That part took a long time because I kind of went on my own little journey with the revisions. Maybe I didn't want it to be over. And then I had a library formatting appointment, and I finished that. And now I am slowly emerging from my nest of books like a bear in the spring. 

Sometimes people say they want to read my dissertation. Eventually it will be public... but I actually feel weird about it. Imagine a book is serving your guest a meal. And an article is serving your guest a snack. A dissertation is like bringing your guest into the kitchen so that they can watch you mull over every decision, talk through why you do what you do, why you don't do what you don't do, and basically second guess every step of the process. It's an open demonstration of the process of inquiry... I don't think of it as a product in and of itself. I challenged myself to use hermeneutics, which was totally new to me, and so it's also an open demonstration of the messy process of growth and working through the awkwardness of trying something new. I'm glad I went through the process and definitely feel like a changed person because of it. 

As a student, overall I found SFU to be a very supportive institution with many supportive faculty members. I was in the ETAP program. It's not a huge program and I didn't have a huge cohort, and I definitely liked that experience. As someone who went to UBC, I always imagined SFU to be a place which encompasses the spirit of the sixties - open minded, free thinking, and creative. It lived up to those expectation. I feel like I had a lot of creative freedom at SFU and that enabled me to take risks I may have otherwise avoided. I intentionally spent a lot of time in a space of uncertainty. I think the biggest benefit of such a space was that it enabled me to go within to look for answers, instead of always looking to authority or others. And so now I have a certain self-knowledge that I did not have before. 

If someone told me that they were thinking of doing their PhD at SFU I would tell them go for it, have fun, and keep an open mind. And don't rush. 

Now I am going to chill out for a bit and spend some time with my family and friends. Once I have chilled for a bit, then I have some projects that I would like to work on.