It went so greaaaat!

The presentation. How excellent it was. And the defense - how I held up!

It was supposed to last an hour in total, the entire hulabaloo. My presentation lasted 20 minutes, and the whole thing went on for 1.5 hours. Can you imagine how many questions they had time to ask? And especially how many I had time to answer.

I wasn't nervous before the presentation. I was excited, and eager. I don't understand, usually I get quite nervous, at least just before when everyone has gathered and it is time. But I was actually rather relaxed. I started losing my concentration at the end of the 1.5 hours, but who wouldn't have, right? When continuously bombarded with questions, you are bound to exhaust after a while.

Afterwards everyone was so reassuring and gave such nice compliments. One of the opponents said "well, this couldn't have gone better!", and my professor said "you did excellent, the questions won't be harder at the dissertation (in two years), it was so good!", and everyone seemed to agree that it was excellent. And most importantly of all, I think so too. At least now. The evening it just felt quite empty. The morning after I felt disillusionized (both part of the very common post-great-effort-anticlimax). But when I got to the lab that afternoon (the day after the "thing"), I felt so good, because everyone again complimented and were very kind.

Today my legs have turned colourful, and I am off to cut some brains!

Have a nice day!