Doctor Tyler, PhD

Last night, Tyler spent the better part of 2 hours in his candidacy exam for his PhD. For those of you that don't know, I'll explain to you exactly what the process is from a non-educated perspective. Tyler is in his PhD program, which basically consists of TA-ing his professor's classes (as he did in his Masters program) and writing his Thesis paper. All of his classwork has been done for some time so he (in theory) can devote a lot of time to researching and writing. Then when he feels he's at a pretty good point in his research, he creates a committee of fellow PhD's who have a background similar to his own. There are 4 examiners plus his two supervisors to form this committee. They get together and formulate 3 questions for him. He spends the next 4 weeks writing and researching to answer these questions in 15 pages or less, each. Then, he hands in his paperwork and they spend the next week reviewing his answers and coming up with follow-up questions while he continues to study his brains out to make sure he knows everything and anything that they might ask him about in preparation. Then, last night, he goes into a room at 4pm and sits across from these 4 examiners (while his two supervisors sit and observe) and they fire him question after question with regards to his writing to make sure he REALLY does know exactly what he's talking about with regards to these subjects...one of which, by the way is focused on his thesis topic. They ask him questions for about 90 minutes, after which he leaves the room, they deliberate for about 5-10 minutes (again, in theory. In Tyler's case they deliberated for an eternally long 30 minutes!), and then they come out and tell him if he passed or failed. There's no grade scale, there's no percentage it's just either yes or no. Once that's done, then he is a PhD candidate (or ABD, All But Disertation) and all he has left to do is finish writing his Thesis and then defending it...which is supposedly less stressful than the candidacy, but we shall see.
There, now that we have the description out of the way, I can describe what the last month has looked like for us. Tyler has worked pretty much 18 hours a day, most days staying late at his office so he's not distracted by the kids and I. He has put on hold every other aspect of his life (his scouting calling, personal interests, TA-ing his classes) while he prepared. The kids and I would come and visit him at his office a few times to bring him dinner and give him a quick break and chance to visit with his family. We would sit in the boardroom of his office and eat our dinner and then head over to the mall or usually stay at the office and play hide-and-seek in the cubicles. Or racing around on office chairs. Office spaces can be pretty fun for kids after hours. Other times we would send him emails with encouraging messages or a picture of his family so he didn't forget us. We have done a lot of fasting and praying as he made these preparations. Tyler wrote all of his questions and reviewed them. I reviewed them for spelling, grammar, and to make sure it all sounded like it made sense (it's all pretty technical, so I can't say I was a big help in that aspect). Then, when he finally passed in his answers, we watched as he read and read and read for hours and hours to prepare. The last few nights before the exam were pretty sleepless for him. He had a blessing from his brother the night before, and then Thursday we spent some time at my parents house while I baked Aunt Krista's famous pumpkin roll (not sure if it's famous anywhere else, but it's Tyler's favorite) for him to take into the exam...some innocent bribery. He left at about 2:30 and I sat on pins and needles until about 6:45 when he finally called to say it had gone well. PHEW!
It's been a pretty crazy time for us. But the amazing thing is, it was the most stressful time we've had together, and yet we weren't stressed. Well...Tyler was...but as far as our relationship with each other, and with our kids, the stress didn't show. We were able to compartmentalize I guess. I know I was sustained a great deal by Heavenly Father as I took on the brunt of running our home and taking care of our kids by myself. My patience level was a lot higher than I expected and I know that didn't come from my own strength. Tyler and I have felt closer together over this time and closer to Heavenly Father as we realized we had to rely on him whole-heartedly. It's been great. After Tyler's exam was done, he came and picked me up while the kids hung out with Auntie Sam, and we went out for dinner with his committee and a few colleagues. They treated us to a nice evening out to celebrate his success. I'm glad he's surrounded by such supportive people. It was nice to see Tyler slowly starting to unwind as the dinner progressed, and he was able to relax, like REALLY relax, for the first time in months. Maybe even years, because this thing has been looming over our heads for about 3 years. I gave Tyler a t-shirt that said, "You can call me DOCTOR" on it as a gag-celebration. We picked up our kids and drove home feeling more exhausted then we had in a long time. I think we ran on steam for a really long time, and the steam was finally gone.
I am so proud of my husband. I've always known he was smart, but over the last few weeks he has proved that he is so far beyond that. He's practical, and generous and organized. He takes his role as provider very seriously and works really hard for our family. I read an article in the April Ensign about education (By Elder and Sister Oaks) and they spoke on how gaining an education and furthering our knowledge is a form of worship. I know that our testimonies have grown and I have appreciated the opportunity to be challenged and to come through it.
Now that it's all done, we're looking forward to celebrating Lucy's birthday this weekend and heading off to Disneyland on Monday!! We'll hopefully have time to add posts about our trip as we go...so stay tuned!