Congratulations, and well done!
Now you can relax, kick back, and begin to rediscover this strange phenomenon called “free time.”
I’ll bet Clark is pissed.
of both murderology and murderonomy, no doubt.
Wooooo!!! Congratulations Podkayne. 
Can you send me the good defense vibrations now please? My defense/viva is in two weeks time.
“…in which I successfully correlated General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics as well as discovering where socks in the washing machine go.”
Not bad for starters.
Many, many congrats, Doc Pod.
Woo hoo woohoo! Congratulations! Enjoy your victory. 
That’s frickin’ awesome.
If I were terrified of the the math, my first Astro class last spring got me hooked.
So… if it won’t blow all your gears, or your cover (“why cover?” he asked the crowd. “Ain’t noone here but us chickens!”) what is the idea behind your thesis. Sounds, from what you gave us of the title, like something having to do with exo-planets (if that’s still the phrase)?
Thanks, everyone! I actually moved away to the location of my new job at the beginning of the month, and I flew back to defend my thesis, and so all my friends are lined up at my door to take me out to dinner, FCM. If anything, I have to be careful not to get too exhausted with celebrating, 'cause I do have some revisions to do!
I’m tuning up my Positive Thesis Defense Polyhetrodyne Vibrationogenesis Machine as we speak, Angua. I gotta tell ya, after having my advisor kicking my ass up and down all summer getting my thesis ready, the defense was a breeze.
I had myself convinced that it was going to be horrendous, but my committee was nice. They actually complimented my work, something my advisor, I think, is constitutionally incapable of doing. And the only revisions my committee required are adding a two-page introduction providing some more context for the problem—although if I’m not careful, I’m afraid I’ll get locked into an endless revision cycle with my advisor. He’s kinda that way—a real stickler—but the nice thing is that once he gives the nod and says a paper’s okay, you can be assured that it’s bombproof.
Sorry about being so circumspect, Tristan, but I work in a narrow specialty with a small and incestuous community of researchers, and it would be very easy to determine my Real Identity[sup]TM[/sup] if I gave much detail. I’ve had some uncomfortable experiences with people on the internet tracking me down based on what I thought was non-identifying information, and it’s made me a bit shy. Anyway, my thesis isn’t on exoplanets, just some stuff in our own Solar System. And I can assure you that it’s soul-crushingly dull. 
So that’s the next question I have for you…
How much math do you actually use?
Um . . . Astronomy is math. Period. All the pretty pictures you see? They take lots of math to produce. And the reason that they exist is so that you can measure things in them. Using math. And then analyze the measurements. Using math.
All the damn time. Nothing. But. Math.
They were mean to me and made me do calculus in my head at my thesis defense.
I just checked for ya… my thesis has more than 150 equations in it and about 35 plots and graphs, and it’s not an unusually “mathy” thesis.
Mazel tov, Doctor!
Poddy, you’ve spent the last few years as a grad student in astro-physics. The chances are you’re poor as a church mouse and twice as hungry! Why would anyone WANT to hunt you down, other than the possibility of bragging rights 2000 miles away (“Hey, you’ve heard of Dr. Ursula K. Asimov? Well, I KNOW her! Nyah, nyah!”)
Oh, wait a minute. You’re young and female and probably pretty. :smack: Yeah, but this is the DOPE. Any guy who’s brave enough to so much as talk to a girl IRL is already taken. Or gay. Or both. Besides, all you’d have to do is tell us and the Mods, and they’d ban the asshole. That would show 'em!
BTW, congratulations. I’d NEVER have the discipline to go through the process, and I’m impressed when I meet someone who does. Also, despite going through high school and early college as a reputed ‘math brain,’ I completely fell apart at high level algebra. The words “set theory” still make me tremble, and that was 30 years ago!
Well, seeing as I flunked Algebra last semester (though it was a high F, and I hadn’t touched a piece of math in 12 years, I’m not feeling to badly about it) I think I’ll just have to stay interested, but out of Astro. Dang it.
Again, congratulations on your achievment!
Are you kidding? If she weren’t already married, I’d be on the arxiv right now trying to figure out the thesis, and buying my plane tickets this afternoon.
Congratulations, Poddy! Does this mean I need to finish mine now, too?
Congratu8lations, Podkayne! Women who don’t subscribe to that stupid predjudice against Teh Smart and do things like math and engineering are both hot and cool. Which must be some kind of thermal paradox. So I gotta congratulate Angua in advance too. :):
(Podkayne of Mars was one of my favourite heroines when I was a kid, BTW; I always wished I’d meet someone like her, but everytime I went out the door, it was just boring old small-town Ontario, with no spaceships or geniuses to be seen)
Deepest congratulations, Dr Podkayne!
I remember (graduated last summer) being totally elated and high and walking on air for about 30 minutes and then horribly depressed-- like a mother with empty nest syndrome or something. I suddenly went from mysterious grad student to just another schlub with a crummy-paying job at the bottom of that particular totem pole, and realized OMG I’M NO LONGER A STUDENT! AND I NEVER WILL BE AGAIN! Identity crisis. So don’t be surprised if you have some odd emotions for the next couple of weeks. There’s no wrong way to celebrate/ grieve.
I got over it but I still stop at moments and think, Holy Shit, I have a PhD! How the hell did I pull that one over on them? I’ve finally stopped thinking that my committee made a mistake and they’ll revoke it when they figure things out. I’ve stopped feeling like a fraud putting “Dr.” on forms, although it still makes me uncomfortably poncey or like I’m playing dress-up a bit. I’m slowly starting to get over feeling like a very precocious grad student and more like my colleagues’ colleague.
Sheesh, I’m spouting. So is the job tenture-track academia? If it is already I’m going to barf from squinty-eyed jealousy while I congratulate you.
Good grief, am I the only one here who isn’t a Doctor? I feel like such an ignoramus.
I hope mine’s the same, and if I have your positive vibes, it should be
Congrats again!
I’m afraid it is.
Though you can take some consolation from the fact that, uh, the mumbledymumble in the OP stands for ten years. And the reason that I was able to slide into a tenure-track job is that I have three years of teaching experience as an adjunct and a nearby small college. So it has been kind of a fluid transition for me from student to faculty. No big crises of identity yet! Hell, I have to start teaching in two weeks. I don’t have time to freak out.
I won’t tell you that you have to write your dissertation, Chronos. When the time is right, you’ll know. It’s kinda like losing your virginity, except it takes longer, and there’s more crying.