So today was the last day. Infinity welcomes careful drivers.
10:30 am - Print colour pages and put them into the thesis
12:00 pm - Take the thesis for binding - cringe as you spot three errors straight off. Damn you Word for your fucking 'intelligent' formatting! Fuck you and die. You made me look like a monkey! A monkey-man... with fists!!!
13:00 pm - Hand in thesis. It's done. Oh look. I got it handed in during the first few 6 months of the writing up period so I get a £150 refund on the fees. Wooo hoo!
14:00 pm - go to bank and talk loan/borrowing type stuff.
14:45 pm - sister calls me and worries me by saying there might be a problem with moving tomorrow
15:00 pm - begin clearing desk, backing up files
16:00 pm - see supervisor and hand him a copy of the thesis. He's happy so I get to leave on good terms. This is a bonus for the future.
15:20 pm - leave the MIB with a box with my things from my desk. PhD is over. Now for the big league.
Yeah that was my day in a nut shell. Tonight I stop being in immediate email/LJ/Facebook/internetz contact. Tomorrow we are moving. Things have hopefully been sorted out with regards to the van and so forth. We have lots of boxes and I hope enough space in the van. It may mean a few things get left behind to be picked up on the Saturday. It's been weird today. I now leave confident that the guys in the Popelier group (now no longer my group) are able to continue with the work that I began. I am really confident that in the next year there should be some really impressive advances and it's nice to know I'm welcome to go back when I want to help/advise on the work.
Now I have to get my head round a new bit of chemistry and use tools which compared to those which I have developed are quite out dated but then again thats how it rolls.
Right now all the rooms in the flat are a mess. There are little bits lying about that need to be boxed away. But otherwise we are almost there. I'm gonna work my ass off now tonight and put the rest away and start cleaning bits out. My brain feels a bit like swiss cheese. Full of holes where it has been ransacked for knowledge.
But tonight that all doesn't matter. In front of me is my thesis. Finished. Done. Next to me is my bride to be, and ahead of me is the lands of Leamington Spa (where we might just take the waters... just like in Dune), the Castle of Warwick and the Coventry of ... of... Lady Godiva.... hmmmm!
The thing I realised is that everytime you go up the education ladder you feel like you back at the bottom. Your previous achievements mean little. But now it's different. My achievements mean a lot. My papers, my work, my thesis, the lot. It marks me out as something different to the rest of my peers. It's what got me my new job. Hell apparently I even take with me a reputation thanks to what Popelier has told Rob.
That's it then. This is the soon to be Dr Ether siging off from the Guild station (Market Buildings) and awaiting a new up link at the Magic Lantern Shop (Lantern Court) or Le Chateau d'Handley.
I am sure I will see you all again some time soon.
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