A Conclusion, Of Sorts

I have a few things to write about various challenges that I've been working on, but that can all wait until tomorrow: yesterday I had my viva for my PhD thesis, and I passed!

It was a little on the grueling side: three hours of me standing at the blackboard in front of two senior academics while I explain my research and why it is worthwhile - and more importantly why it is correct! I was hoarse by the end of it, and my legs were killing me (they still are), but the end result is that they were happy and I only have what are technically called "minimal corrections" which means that there are mostly just minor things I have to attend to. There are a couple of sections where the examiners were happy that the material was original and was correct but where they felt I needed to make some changes in the way that the information was presented, and that's OK too.

I've been given three months to make the corrections, but I'm aiming to have them boxed off in the next six weeks or so. In parallel with that I'll be jobhunting, but hopefully overall I won't be as busy as before and will actually have time for some fun stuff like, oh, I don't know, writing flash fiction? Taking a break? Doing something other than reading with my spare time?

Stay tuned...