I passed my dissertation defence on Friday! Yay! I was having sleepless nights, and was very nervous up till the days of my defence. I tried to calm myself (so did Hannah and my advisors), telling myself everything would be fine. However, it was hard not to feel nervous since my examiner is one of the top 5 scientists in my field. And I have been working on my PhD for the last 4 years (since 2012), and it seemed that everything would be a waste if I would to do badly in the defence.
On Friday, I woke up at 5am (don't really think I slept much at all), had my morning routine, coffee, practised a bit on the Q&A session with Hannah (yes, she woke up with me at 5am in the morning! Poor Hannah), and off I went. When I went to the room to prepare for my presentation 30mins prior, the examiner (Dr. David Bourne) was already there as well! We greeted each other and I am glad he remembered me (we had previously communicated with each other over emails a couple of years ago). He asked me how am I feeling, and I said I am nervous... His answer "You will be fine..it is a process. You will be fine. It is just my job to be critical about your thesis." With his answers, my heart stopped racing, and I felt more confident! The presentation went smoothly (I had already practised it at least 5 times myself, and twice with Hannah), Q&A session was more a wonderful exchange of ideas and knowledge, rather than an interrogation. I felt great, learnt a lot and before I know, three hours had already passed! Time for the examiners to discuss about my result! I excused myself and went outside the room to wait for their answer. I was tried (felt drained of all my energy!), and I was yawning non-stop. Out of the corner, Hannah poked around and asked me how were things going?!... I was so glad to see her, although I might be too tired to show my appreciation and happiness. I told her it should be fine. And FINE it is, a couple of minutes later, the defence chairwoman (Dr. Deidre Le Fevre) called me into the room, shook my hand and said I passed my defence. Dr. Bourne and Dr. Giovani Coco (HOD representative) also congratulated me. I only had some minor changes to my dissertation, but I am now Dr. Lee!
Dr. Bourne treated Hannah and I to a lunch at Scarecrow (an organic restaurant) after the defence. We talked about a lot more things than just coral microbial research.. we talked about trialthon, beer, science, diving, being young, being old and power rangers! It was great!
After lunch, Hannah and I went to the School of Biological Sciences, and told all my friends and colleagues there that I passed my defence, and we would be heading to CHICAGO!... (that would be a story for another post) :)
Congratulations!!!
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