I have a master's degree...in science!

A brief, albeit disproportionately eventful, chapter of my life ended today. Fifteen and a half months ago, I headed off to the University of Bristol. This morning, I got an email from the head of the palaeobiology master's program there to make it official: the final grades are in for my thesis, and I passed, meaning that I am now entitled to add three extra letters to my name (yes, that's right, three: that's one of the overlooked benefits of getting a British MSc rather than an American MS). I hope you all don't mind me patting myself on the back a bit, but it's not everyday I actually get to revel in the glorious feeling of accomplishment. Mind you, sending an Anglophile paleontologist to a England for a year to study fossils hardly constitutes torture, so I really can't claim I suffered much. I also did well enough in the classes there that there was never any real danger of not receiving my degree. Still, to have started something that big and to have finished - especially after having been out of academics for a few years - is a very nice feeling. That's all I have to say about that for now; back to my normal, self-deprecating self tomorrow.