Today, at 2:00 pm, my wife - and intellectual superior - completed the last significant phase of her Ph.D., successfully weathering the storm of a fairly intense dissertation defense. She stopped by my office shortly thereafter, grinning and glowing, and still riding the mad adrenaline rush provoked, I'm sure, not only by her committee's onslaught of critical questions but also the knowledge that four years of academic rigor/torture have come to a quick end. (More await her, certainly, as a future professor of German Studies.)

In any event, I'm proud of her. Beyond proud. I'm in awe. And now I get to say that I'm the husband of the illustrious Dr. Stefanie Hofer, an expert on the subject of German national identity, generational concepts, and the depiction of leftist terrorism in recent German film.

She hasn't let her achievement go to her head, though, as she has said on numerous occasion that she would not require anyone to refer to her as Dr. Hofer. However, don't be surprised if, in the future, you have to call her Doktor Steffi.

I've already begun pronunciation practice...