22 Days and Counting

Whenever I get on the computer, the first thing I see on our Google homepage is a large countdown screen that has been informing us for the past few months of the days, hours, minutes and seconds remaining until Alan's final graduation from the academic world. For as long as I have known Alan, he has been a student. And he is not one of those students that attends classes for the sake of getting the credit and moving on- this man enjoys learning. Early on in our marriage when he was taking his first anatomy class, I remember thinking it was strange how he would come home and want to tell me all about it- as if he thought I would sincerely be interested (which of course I was not). As the years have gone by (and were going on 8 this fall) Alan has taken innumerable classes having to do with everything from organic chemistry to accounting to lectures on orthodontic practice management. Truth be told I know the names of very few of those classes, because after the first few years I just stopped asking, and he stopped telling. When people ask me what Alan's thesis is on, I have had to respond with the truth: "I have no idea." What I do know is that when I turned on the computer a few months ago and saw the clock counting down, I realized that after living his whole life as a student, I think he is really ready to move on. It’s a huge leap for us- a mind-boggling, life-changing, can’t wrap our head around it change. I hope we’re ready!
(the picture is of Alan at his UCLA graduation 6/04)