Tuesday 20 January 2015

mock viva

Well, I survived my mock viva. I feel pretty confident about the thesis itself, and god knows I can talk for England, and the US as well, and probably a good chunk of the rest of the northern hemisphere.

But the question is this. Can I, at a given point and in reference to a particular topic, remember, out of the thousands of ideas flitting around inside my head, which one is:
A) the most relevant,
B) the safest - in terms of not opening doors for my examiners to wander through uninvited,
C) the one I can articulate most cleanly,
and most importantly,
D) the one I actually wrote about in the actual flippin' thesis I'm being examined on

?

When I can manage to pluck the right idea out of the thousands, I'm on a roll, no problem. But sometimes I just... start... talking... and some ideas come out... and I can tell they're not the zinger I was hoping for, so I just... keep... talking...

And this is a VERY BAD THING. I mean, these people have families and lives and dinners to get home to. In fact, one of them will most likely be missing dinner at home that night just to get his butt down to Guildford to examine me. I do not want to keep him from his rest because I'm too busy chasing down every stray tangent that happens to flit through my head.

So, my dear examiners, if you happen to be reading this, never fear. I am on the case. I am preparing to be pithy, I am exercising my excision, I am breathing in brevity. I will be as laconic as a it is possible to be while actually communicating complete thoughts.

Unless you ask me something really interesting...

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