His Dumb* Face



Just now I asked my husband, "Do I have a good recent photo of you?"

 

And he replied, "Yes, you do. The one from the newspaper that I just emailed you yesterday."

 

"Okay."

 

He saw me opening up Blogspot before asking, "What are you going to post?"

 

"Your dumb* face."

 

 



The #2 best part about this photo is my hair, glowing slightly,
curled up on his coat collar. #1 best part is that dumb* face.

 

I LOVE this dumb* face. This dumb* face is actually the best dumb* face in the entire world. I will proudly defend this dumb* face to any detractor, but let's be honest, no one is detracting this guy. No one. Except for possibly me on occasion, because duh, I am his wife. I see that toilet seat up. I see it.

 

Why am I rambling on about him and his face? Well! So glad you asked. I'm rambling on about him and his face because he and his face just finished up his (their?) last week of classes as a student ever.

 

EV. AR.

 

No more classes, no more books, no more living away from home half of the week and driving his wife to distraction.

 

For the last 2.5 years, him living away from home in order to make graduate school happen has been our reality. I didn't ever make that public on this blog, for obvious safety reasons. But since August of 2010, he has lived part of the week in South Bend, two hours or so away from home, in order to make this whole crazy mess happen.

 

(Just in case you're fuzzy on the details: He's been on leave from teaching to pursue his PhD full-time at Notre Dame. He still directs our local planetarium and works part-time at the Adler in Chicago as a part of his work at Notre Dame. He kind of wiggled out of T.A. duty with that one. I'll high-five to that.)

 

The whole "no more classes" thing is pretty dang huge. Now what?, you ask. Next semester he'll read and prepare and read some more to prepare for his comprehensive exams, which are basically exams that ensure that he has a grasp of a broad amount of knowledge and is ready to then narrow that knowledge (weird, huh?) into his dissertation topic. After the comprehensive exams comes the dissertation, which as anyone with any experience in grad school knows, will take some time. Like, maybe we're halfway there? But probably not.

 

But still! Classes being done is a big deal, a BIG DEAL, and I keep bragging about it to anyone who sits still longer than 5 seconds, so why not brag about it here?

 

Here's the other shot the newspaper sent him:

 

 

 

 

That one made me burst out laughing, because it looks like he's doing his usual I Explain Things to You Face and also, well, what do you know!, there's my hair again. And guys, all these photos are an attempt to get the newspaper to replace his old Boy Wonder photo that they've been using for the past several years. I love him so I lie to his dumb* face, but I don't think he looks much older than 17 here.

 

Congratulations on NO MORE CLASSES, you sexy underaged bastard, you! I love your dumb* face so much.



*By "dumb" I actually mean "insanely intelligent" because uh-duh. I'm a smartass and his blog moniker is The Professor and he's insanely intelligent.