A happy PhD student

The star of the day is PhD student Rachel. I took this photograph of Rachel at her office desk this afternoon immediately following her PhD examination. At this point of the proceedings, her examiners were elsewhere discussing the outcome of the viva. A few minutes later, Rachel was called back into the examination room to hear that she had passed, subject to the completion of some corrections to her thesis.

Provided that all goes to plan, Rachel will be awarded her degree at the July 2023 graduation ceremony. In anticipation of this, a few of us gathered after the exam for a couple of drinks to celebrate Rachel's success today.

The extra is a posed photograph of Rachel answering a viva question in the examination room. After the exam, Rachel asked me to take a few shots here for her to share with friends and family. I may well use this one in the future to illustrate discussion of the viva experience in my own work, for example in training materials or blog posts.

As well as celebrating PhD success, today I have been preparing for a wee drinks party at our flat tomorrow night, and the arrival of weekend guests. In other news, BT (finally) came to install our 'full fibre broadband'. This means that we now have Internet access throughout the flat. (Until now it has only reached as far as the study, sitting room, main hall, and kitchen.)

Our weekend guests Katherina and Andrew arrived while I was on campus. They brought a delicious Palestinian meal for our supper, after which Mr hazelh and I introduced Andrew to Azul.

Exercise today: walking (17,897 steps).