No, this isn’t some PhD-students-anonymous mantra I have to repeat in public. I am actually a PhD student now. What was I before? Well, for the past 2 ears I’ve been working towards a PhD but I was registered as a MPhil student (this is the standard procedure). If you pass a transfer viva after 18 months, you can be transferred to the PhD course — it’s all administrative nonsense really.

Anyway, on Friday I passed my transfer viva. In some ways, the 1.5 hour viva wasn’t harse enough for my tastes but I guess I’m in the best position to critise my own work. On the other hand, we had some good discussions about running a trial, what the aims would be, how it would be structured, etc. There’s quite a bit of work ahead for the next 10 months.

Anyway, I’m now a PhD student. <sarcasm>Yay!</sarcasm> I didn’t have much time to celebrate on Friday as I had to submit a workshop paper that evening (which I’d only started writing on Thursday!).