Done.

(The PhD completion seminar post-mortem)

I was nervous today. More nervous than I had been in a while. Probably not as nervous as say before my Physicians exam but still plenty nervous.

Instead of staying at home last night, fretting, I went to a trivia night with Nicole and some other crackerjack ladies. I drank a bit more wine that we ought to have, and our team won! It was a hoot of a night!

I went into work about 90 minutes before my presentation was due to start, and was greeted with this placed on my desk

I performed some final tweaks to the presentation, and sat around waiting, reading The Age on my mobile to pass the time. I saw this passage and got outraged, killing a few nervous minutes waiting

from theage.com.au

[I mean really!?!? Firstly most murders are committed by somebody known to the victim. Secondly, why why oh why is the onus put on women to change their behaviour?!?!?]

Seriously my heart really breaks for that family. How unimaginably horrific. I have no adequate words. I hope the man gets caught, and soon.

The room started to fill to capacity. Plenty of bums on seats. I started the presentation, a little bit wobbly. Just after I started, a Professor known for tearing strips off PhD candidates swaggered in, and took the seat directly in front of the lectern. Internally I said a big "oh fuck" and then just got on with it. Shortly after, my old friend/ colleague came in - a lovely surprise given that she had said that she was not able to make it. I started to hit my stride.

When I finished, lots of questions came from the floor. Numerous questions from the Prof sitting front and centre, quite challenging ones. More from another Ass.Prof (on my confirmation committee), who is also known for his hard hitting questioning.

I had spent quite a bit of time worrying about questions from these characters. Whether they would tear me a new one.

They gave it a red hot go, but I dealt with it. Actually toward the end of the questioning I felt quite exhilarated, thinking "bring it on, bitchezzz".

Then it finished. People came and gave me a pat on the back. Including the two ass whoopin' profs.

Now I am back in my office. It takes a while to come down from these things and I don't know if I will get much work done today.

It just shows you though, how the anticipation of something is often worse than the actuality.


And now I feel only like napping.