Meeting is over, start the clock
It actually went better than I had expected. In some ways it was the baby brother of the important meeting I had with my advisor a month or two back, in which I pretty much said “Look, this is what I’ve got. Tell me if it’s worthy of a Ph.D.”. It’s pretty tough to stand in front of learned faculty and lay your past 6 years of work out there like that.
The committee had some good recommendations for experiments to do as I wrap things up, but to be honest they seemed fairly satisfied with my progress to date, and there aren’t really any “must do” items on the list (besides wrapping up what I’ve already got). We have a couple of ideas for potential experiments that are exciting to me both on a scientific level and also because I’ll get to play with some cool toys.
Everyone keeps asking me if I am relieved or excited. To be honest, it’s not really either. It really just feels like there are many many things that need to be done, and now that the timeline is out there I have a ticking clock running. I’d like to draw an analogy, if you’ll bear with me.
When I was an undergrad, I was in the drinking sailing club. We’d often go out for group sails on our 22′ tub christened the Harmony. To get out to sea, we would have to sail out through a narrow channel that had been dredged to allow for boats of significant draft to pass. This was usually not too difficult, and of course once we cleared the channel we could sail wherever we liked. Eventually, though, we had to bring the boat back in to dock. Inevitably, both we and the boat would be a bit worse for wear, and it was usually dark. Regardless, we had to try to get ourselves back up through the channel and into our docking slip. This was always the most difficult and intense bit of sailing.
Well, I think grad school just entered the channel. There is not a lot of sailing left to do, but it will likely be the most complicated and pressure-laden section.
