Viva la viva!

Excellent news to report: my viva this morning went exceptionally well. Both of the professors who convened the defense were very nice and had probing questions and wonderful suggestions. It was a smooth interchange on both sides and went on for about 45 minutes. At the end, both said they thought my research seemed very promising towards a great contribution to the field. Hearing that from two highly esteemed professors who only know me through my work made me elated. I'm still quite ecstatic about the whole thing. And on that note, let me take this opportunity to publicly apologize to my parents for calling them at 4 am their time to irrationally gush about how great my viva had gone. I was so excited I forgot what time it was back home...sorry, I love you guys!

After such a wonderful viva experience, I walked out into the beautiful sunny day today and realized I never should have doubted how things would go. I mean, when you look up and see this:


you should know only the sky's the limit. ;)