Leaving Las Leeds, Part Three

I woke up Monday morning feeling very rough. My alarm hadn't gone off but I was sure I had heard Lynne get up. She was my lift into uni and if she left without me I was screwed. I looked over at my alarm clock just to check the time. It was 2:00am. Shit. Get back to sleep, get some rest. This was the first of many times that I woke up in the middle of the night. Why? Lets recap. I had come to Leeds to get a PhD. After four years of work I had one final exam where I had to defend my thesis and prove that I had done a good piece of work. Now, although I thought the work should be ok, you can never quite tell. Who knows what the examiners are going to think. Then there was the matter of my preparation. I had basically got not much sleep for the last week, been working on a completely different project and hadn't even looked at my thesis for two months and topped it off with a two day bender over the weekend that left me with a half finished presentation to sort out before the viva. Not really text book stuff.

When the actual morning did come and I finally got into uni I was still feeling the effects of the weekend. My head was clearer but the stomach wasn't all there. Maybe it was a bit of nervousness. Maybe not. Either way it wasn't the best. I managed to finish off my presentation and get the project set up for the demo. Then it was time for the viva.

Apart from my internal examiner being 15 minutes late and having a bit of a mess sorting everything out the viva went well. They liked my work and I escaped after only 2+ hours with only minor editorial corrections. Result. The last four years of my life were not useless. So I had to finish cleaning out my desk and a celebration drink was in order, despite not needing it at all. A quick pint in the Eldon and then off home to get my final packing done. After my bags we packed it was a final leaving drink in town with everyone coming out to see me off. I always knew a few people would show up but it still surprised me how many people were there. I guess I never really took the time to realise how many good friends I was leaving behind in Leeds.