Today Ashleigh defends her dissertation. Since I won't be able to attend her talk, I wanted to give her blog-props on all her hard work. I frequently refer to her as "my friend Ashleigh, the molecular geneticist," because it makes me feel cool. Now (or very, very soon) I will have to say, "my friend, Dr. Ashleigh, the ect. ect." I tried to find a photo of her from her first year in grad school; I can still picture her sitting in our dining room (before I lived here, and when they were living in Anneke's room while they looked for a house) with her study group, and I can still hear her talking enthusiastically over my head about her classes and all the things she was learning. I couldn't find one, so here's one of two hot mamas at the beach from our camping weekend at Saddle Mountain three? four? years ago. I'm proud to say we can still wear these swimsuits. I'm also proud of my neighbor and friend and will miss her dearly when she goes on to her post-doc in the Bay Area.
