So the defense went well...

I had many fortuitous circumstances. First, some long-term family friends were in town photographing the aurora, so on a lark I asked them to watch me do a dry run of my presentation. J has a PhD in nursing, so she was kind of perfect--she knows the process, she's technically and scientifically minded, but in a different field so she had no background information. They day before the dry run, she asked to see my thesis. That made me nervous, but also happy that she was going to do a genuine review. As I gave my presentation to her, R, and the Bs at the Bs' dinner table, I actually felt nervous! At the end, she gave some really excellent feedback, and I made the additions to my presentation. When I gave that new, improved presentation, my committee members said that they really appreciated those slides, mentioning her suggestions in particular, and asked me to add them to the thesis! So... thank you very much, J!

I got to the presentation room early, to make sure that the logistics would work okay. I have one committee member, D, who is on sabbatical in Spain, so he was going to join via Skype. It would be 11:45 p.m. for him, but he's a very nice man, so he agreed to it. When I got to the room, I realized that its ethernet cable wouldn't reach where my laptop would sit to stream in D. So I was very happy for an excuse to drop in on the engineering IT department to get one. They wished me luck, and I went to my old lab, retrieved my new lucky teacup, made myself a cup of tea, and went back up to the conference room.

Friends and colleagues trickled in. Some I don't see but once a year, but they came to support me. One of my coworkers had made a beautiful platter of three kinds of cookies to share and keep the audience awake! Several friends from physics said hello to D on my laptop. Some of my students came, too. They made me feel a lot less nervous--I'm used to talking at them, after all! A lot of long-term friends from the physics department were there. By the time my adviser introduced me, the room was packed, and some final people trickling in were dragging in additional chairs from across the hall. If you had asked me beforehand, I would have guessed that a larger crowd would have made me more nervous, but when it actually happened, it made me feel loved and respected. C had apparently hobbled all the way across campus on a sprained ankle with a crutch, and my extremely busy second-level manager was there, too! So I relaxed.

The presentation went well, and the questions were good. My thesis will definitely be improved based on my audience's and my committee members' feedback, and there were no random hecklers who asked mean-spirited questions just to be ornery. I walked away feeling that it was a very good experience.

So... I guess that all sounds quite anti-climactic, but it was also the best I could hope for. I spent much of this morning sending out thank-you emails, because, as they say, no-one ever climbs alone. Here is my final slide:


So... thanks! A lot.