Phinally PhinisheD

Yesterday I achieved what I had been waiting for so long to do - thesis submission! Here's how it happened:

Firstly, I went through and did a final check for minor errors e.g. spelling. It was a good thing I did, because there were still two that I had missed. I didn't work off the pdf for this. Instead, I went through all of the words in the WinEdt files that were underlined in red. I could ignore the vast majority of these because they were acronyms or Australian spellings. It's amazing how much you skip over when you just read the printed product, and especially when you've been reading it over and over for months.

My supervisor had emailed me the signed Submission of Thesis form overnight. All I needed to do was to sign it myself (easy) and get the head of school to sign it (not as easy). For that, I needed at least one temporarily bound copy of my thesis. Thankfully, we have a good printer and binding facilities in our building, so it was a DIY job. My first mistake was to forget to set the printer to double-sided printing - I think I was just so nervous about things. Once I had rectified that, it was off to the binding machine. It's one where you punch a line of rectangular holes in the margin of each page, then slot the plastic coils through the holes. Unfortunately, I wasn't careful enough and a batch of ten pages had a line of holes that...well...weren't holes as they went off the page. So, I had to reprint those ten pages. But in the end, it was done.

Then it was off to the HoS's office. Another setback was that he wasn't actually in. I had to leave the thesis and submission form with the secretary. This gave me time to manufacture the other three copies. Thankfully, the production of these went smoother. The only other mistake I made was that I picked up a batch of eight pages with my non-preferred hand, and turned them over before punching them without me realising. Eight pages in the reverse order and incorrectly punched was the result. So, back to the printer again.

Just as I completed the other three copies, I received an email saying that the form had been signed. I hurried back over to the HoS's office, just in time to catch the secretary as they were leaving. They kindly went back and retrieved the signed form. Then it was back to my own office to do a final check that all the pages were there, and all were in the correct order. Thankfully they were. It was 3:50pm by this stage. For some reason, I had it in my head that GRSO closed at 4pm or 4:15pm, so I hurried over there (although of course I hadn't needed to, since they don't close until after this time) and dodged the approaching shower, trying to keep my thesis copies dry.

Once inside the GRSO, it was a really simple affair. There was no problem with the paperwork. I handed over the four large volumes, and in return I received one of the highly-prized PhinisheD mugs.

and here is a larger shot of the mug itself (what a mugshot hehe).

And that was that. I carried that mug very carefully back to my office. And so what am I doing today? Cleaning my office up. Getting rid of anything that I can't see a need for when it comes to corrections...plus, we're apparently moving soon, so I need to clean my office out anyway. But speaking of mugs, I think it's time for a cuppa.