This Letter Says I Am An Idiot.

[baratron]

...I could have simply printed off the third copy of the thesis in June 2004 when I got the original letter and still had my old computer, and that would've been the end of it. Duh.

Mind you, I'm happier with the minor edits I made to the formatting. Moved around some of the graphs' legends, redid the Index so it was actually correct, reprinted all the Figures to be in full colour rather than black and white, replaced the mysteriously missing Page 111. Plus as well as all the emotional wibbling about whether I'd passed or failed (which coincided with my dropping out of the PGCE and thus feeling lousy about my academic ability - have literally only realised that now as I typed it), it was really inconvenient then as we were in the middle of moving house. Hmm.

I did scan in the Examiners' report and was thinking of posting that, but I'm not certain it would be appropriate to post the examiners' names online for some reason I'm not entirely sure of. It would be more friendly to scan it, OCR it, and post the text; but I didn't install the OCR software when I got the new printer and now we can't find the disc. Turns out the CD-ROM that's been sitting on Richard's desk for months and months is actually the Mac OS X version, which means I don't remember when or where I last saw the PC version as I thought I was looking at the PC version all this time! Argh. Anyway, contrary to what I'd been expecting from the dreadful viva, the report is very fair and mostly positive. The criticisms made are constructive and I agree with them (I was horrified to go back and read the thesis again to find that I'd only written three pages of Conclusions!).

Also... the thesis has been accepted as is. No corrections needed. IT'S DONE!!

So yeah. It's all good. Roll on next academic endeavour.

Comments

[kshandra]

Go, you!

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Hey, never mind when you could have done it. You've done it now, and you are awesome.

[leback.livejournal.com]

*happydance* Hurrah! Congratulations!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

It's all over, done, in the past, time to move forwards. The End.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

YAY!

[nitoda]

Congratulations - may we call you Master Baratron now then? ;-)

[ailbhe]

Yes, naturally your MPhil proves you are an idiot.

Wait, WHAT?!

(Congratulations, but jeez, so not an idiot).

[baratron.livejournal.com]

The letter is dated 25th September 2008 but the date of award will be 31st January 2004. It has taken me *this* long to get the third copy of the thesis in. (Well, four years 3 months - the University of London didn't manage to write to me until June 2004.) And if I'd done it all those years ago, the result would have been the same. Hence I am an idiot for worrying about it all this time instead of just DOING IT.

I'm sure there is some deep philosophical message in this, but I'm not sure what it is right now.

[wandra.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[erik]

Retroactive congratulations!
(I received my high school diploma, dated 1984, in 1994 due to a similar paperwork problem.)

[mjl]

Well, better late than never or something... congratulations!

[memevector.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

I think it goes with the territory to have a certain amount of "doh!" in such situations, but in another sense I think it's all the more inspiring and wonderful to hear stories like this. Because often people think "It's too late now" when it really isn't. And sometimes for some things it is too late, but this is a beautiful data point on the "Maybe it's not too late" side. If you see what I mean.

[otterylexa.livejournal.com]

Yay! *hugs*