Last year on July 18th I successfully passed my confirmation of status and was officially entiteled a DPhil candidate. During that hot summer day I had to set a my own final submission date for the thesis. I set March 9th, thinking that there's plenty of time to write up and finalize the thesis. Having to set such strict goals is kinda odd, I know, but the Oxford system is a but unusual in many ways.
Anyway, yesterday March 7th (just two days before the deadline), I submitted a copy of my thesis to the examination schools. Now that the examiner arrangements and hassles with timings, schedules, etc. are over, all I have to do is wait until they read my work and agree on a date for the official viva.
It's a bit early to be celebrating anything, as it is not yet known whether I would actually be given a degree or not, but I thought I'd put this here to mark that milestone. Here are some selected pictures from yesterday. Before going for a pint with colleagues at the Turf tavern, I had a decently long walk around university parks and Worcester college, which is a very peaceful place in the heart of the city. Looking at the ducks and the calm wildlife I realized that, actually, all of that PhD stuff is irrelevant. Life goes on, and the squirrels are happy with what they have: trees, acorns and sun... we should be too.