Long time no see

Oh dear, time is flying and no updates from me. Sorry for that. It´s been quite busy around here for weeks and I just did not get around to write. It was worth it though because now, tatttatttaaaa I am finally a PhD!!! My defense was on Monday and it went really well but I was a complete mess the day before.

I had given a trial presentation to my boss and it was my worst performance ever. At one point I totally lost it and couldn´t even remember what I wanted to say.

After that I decided to go through it a couple more times by myself but before I even got to do it once I managed to lock myself out. I was stuck in the hallway between the different departments with nowhere to go except up and downstairs. By then it was Sunday evening and nobody was working. The friend that I stayed with had left her entrance card in her office so it was no idea to call her. I had only one other number of a collegue in my mobile and she turned out to be my guardian angel. I called her, she left her dinner on the stove and biked to work to help me out. What a fantastic girl!

After she had saved my life I did some more work on my presentation and finally returned to my friends house at 9:30 pm, convinced that I would fail. Things just didn´t improve and I was sure that both the committee members and my opponent would eat me alive once they got to meet me.

As I did not want to worry my friends I decided to pretend things are all right but as soon as I entered the door and they asked how things were going I had a complete meltdown and told them I was NOT going to do this... After 2 glasses of wine thinks started to look better and they asked me to hold the presentation one more time and oh joy it went ok. To celebrate they baked us some apple cake. It was midnight by then and the best apple cake I had for a long time. :)

Next morning I was quite calm, got ready, went to buy some snacks for after the defence and went to work. My friend H. was with me all the time and distracted me, which was great.

The defence started at 10 am and I sailed through it. It was actually quite nice to discuss my work and even though I did not have all the answers nobody ripped off my head. Monsters turned into humans and things were just fine.

Afterwards we had a get together in the lunchroom and app. 30 min after my viva the committee, the opponent and my boss came in to announce that I made it. WOWOWOWWOWOWWW! I got a really nice clock as a present from people at work and everybody came to congratulate.

The rest of the day went by really quickly and at night we went out for dinner at a Greek restaurant and barhopping after that. H. and I were home by 3:30 am and sat until 4:30 am to chat. I had such a good time.

Next day I flew home again and almost missed the flight due to an accident on the highway. Had 6 min to run from the buss to the gate. At the gate the lady made me weigh my suitcase and it was too heavy. She told me to check it in. By then I had 3 min left before the gate would close. No way I had time to go to check everything in. She did not care. I ended up throwing away clothes, my copy of my thesis and magazines to get the weight down. The lady was really hard on me, and 10.9 kg was still to heavy for her (had a 10 kg allowance). Once I had slimmed it down to 10 kg she still couldn´t leave it and made me put my luggage into the basket to see it had the right seize. By then I was almost ready to hit her.
Finally I got to get in, stressed, sweaty but superglad that I had made it.

M. and the kids picked me up at Stansted airport. S. came running towards me and said over and over again: "Mommy, I have you back, ohhh, mommy I have you back!"
Could you get a better welcome?

Since then more than a week has gone by, I am back to being a mommy and it slowly starts to sink in that I am also a PhD. Life is great! :)