Ask not for whom the bell tolls...

Well everyone, tomorrow is the big day: the thesis defense. All the months of blood, sweat, and tears (not so much the tears) are about to come to fruition. Tomorrow I will present the thesis to the committee for final review, and discuss their questions and comments. Once that's over it will be time for final revisions based on their input and then (drum roll) the final manuscript will be submitted and forever immortalized in the Barrett archives.

Well, actually I should be more specific - once the defense is over it will be time to head over to Mill Avenue with friends and have several 'adult beverages' in euphoric celebration. Then it will be time for final revisions.

My second reader has brought up some questions and comments that I find a bit difficult to tackle - I've been chewing on them for a couple of days and will definitely need to address some of them in order to make the thesis stronger. He has actually also suggested that I look into getting the case studies I did published, because there isn't much literature on those two subjects out there at the moment.

Tonight I am putting some finishing touches on the presentation and mentally preparing myself. I'm trying to tell myself that it's not going to be a huge deal, that if my committee wasn't going to approve the thesis they would have given me an indication already. I'm still pretty nervous though. I just hope it's over fast!