Los Haitises National Park , The Dominican Republic on My Birthday Yay!!! I've successfully completed my first year as a PhD student. That involved getting something called a high pass (similar to like pass with distinction I guess) on a grueling 6 hour comprehensive exam. It had to be a high pass. Just a regular pass is good enough to get a masters, but not to begin the PhD program. Oh yeah, that whole first year wasn't even the PhD program, it was prerequisite classes for the program. So year 2 is the real year one. Now you know why US PhD programs take that much time. (If you're interested click here to see the requirements so you know what I'm going through). But hold up, let us back up a little bit since obviously, it has been a crazy amount of time since I last wrote. What did I even say? I can't remember. I think I was telling you why I was going to do this program. Nearly a whole year has passed since then.  It's been a really tough journey full...