Yesterday I presented my “Summary of Research Project” to the School in which I am enrolled. This is part of the process of obtaining confirmed candidature, which basically means you are given the go ahead to do some actual research. Up until then, you have provisional candidature and basically spend six months trying to prove to everyone you know what you are talking about and your research has some significance. I suppose this isn’t entirely true, though. It is probably more like 5 months convincing yourself you are doing the right thing, 1 month getting your supervisors to sign off on it and giving a presentation to the School to sell it to them. My content is very technical, and the audience was going to be, um, not technical.

Victory Baby from Meme Generator

I had originally thought I was scheduled in to do my presentation at the beginning of November, but that session was full and they had to convene an “emergency” panel for me. It was tacked onto the end of a seminar by an invited speaker; a lot of people left after the seminar and I thought I was going to be speaking to an empty room, but they ended up rounding up a few more people, just for me. How nice. Some of them really didn’t look like they wanted to be there. No pressure, then.

Anyway, the presentation seemed to go well, the significance was scored very highly, and they have approved my candidacy with the condition that a few minor changes are made. Adrian is a happy man! Now all I have to do is wait for them to send me the amendments required, actually make the changes, and then submit the modified proposal with a budget, proof of Research Integrity training, the candidacy application and a data management plan. All by tomorrow afternoon because of the Christmas break. How hard could it be?