That was it.

The viva was even more stressful than I could ever have imagined. The day started around 9pm the night before as I couldn't sleep at all. No amount of counting sheep, hot milk or relaxation could knock me out.

Anyways, I took the train in to Glasgow and had a latte in a cafe in order to try and relax, and also to go over my opening statement again. After this I took a walk up to the university and waited to be called in.

After a wee while the covener came out and collected me and so it began. Four hours of questioning and defense later I was back in the foyer waiting on their descision. Unfortunately by this time it was lunch time, and where I was sitting meant a steady flow of old colleagues passing by. Each mentioning that they hadn't seen me in a wee while, and asking how my viva went.

The truth at this point thoughb was that I didn't have a clue. The external examiner had done a very thorough job of going through my thesis, checking equations, figures, references and general science. This meant that while I had concentrated on knowning my own contribution, I had to be on my toes when it came to other peoples as well. Unfortunately in places I fell down, and in one instance had to admit that I just did not know the answer. This was one of the times through the viva that I felt that the examiner was just going to put down his pen and say "i think we'll just stop here".

After 40 stressful minutes I was called back in and made aware of their recommendations. This is when I was told that, yes, there is still a wee bit work to be done and a few corrections to be done, my thesis is good. And that was it.

Dr. Dave.

A nice relaxing next few days I think while I get used to not having the viva hanging over my head. Yeah, I still have some stuff to do, but everything thats been suggested is stuff that I've considered in the past, but just not expanded and put in the thesis.

And at least the dinner and drinks after the ordeal were good, with much laughter had.

Thesis, thesisnot, thesisit?

I'm currently sitting in my flat in Paisley, with a pile of papers, lab books, annotated drafts of my thesis, and an empty coffee cup. Tomorrow is D+1 day for my Doctorate. On Tuesday I shall make my way to Strathclyde University in order to sit down and defend my thesis as part of the oral examnination, or viva as they call it.

I'm pretty terrified over it as I have no way of gagueing how it will go. The examiners have only my thesis, and a few of the papers and proceedings i've published in order to assess my work. Which is fine except for the fact that I am not a good writer. Even taking a fresh look at my thesis I can see mistakes in tense, grammar and spelling. Can you fail a thesis for repeated mistakes with "in to"?

Then theres the issues of scientific content. I really wish I could find a way of knowing which parts they are going to quiz me on. Will it be the dental disease chapter (as they are engineers, and this is potentially an unknown for them) or will it be the lengthy maths of the miniature optics simulations (where OpenOffice excelled itself in the utter-bastard stakes by renumbering the equations wrongly during pdf export). Perhaps a lack of error bars in one little graph will take up three hours of discussion on specitivities and sensitivities?

All in all, I feel like I have a fight on my hands. I really wish that the feelings of confidence i get where I look at my thesis and think, yeah, i've done enough, would last more than an hour.

I used to think that my driving test would be the scariest, and most stressful exam I'd ever sit, but it doesn't even come close to this.