Done... and not done...

I successfully defended the oral part of my dissertation yesterday (albeit a little bit rough again). My committee members signed their names down on the form to verify their approval (although they never checked the box for "pass"...) And then this question from a committee member/advisor came up:

"So what is your timeline for the papers after your thesis?"

It never ends. The dissertation accounts for a large part for completing a PhD, although ultimately only a small part in the academic community. Needless to say, even after defending, I have a lot of work to be done in transforming my chapters to papers now.

The other amusing question, from colleagues, was, "How do you feel?"

To which my response is, "the same."

After completing such a large milestone, I don't feel any different amusingly. In fact the post-doc who asked me this question said this seemed to be the same response always. Your friend's start calling you, "Doctor" for fun (or sometimes "Philosopher"). However, there is research that still needs to be done. There are still questions that I cannot answer. There are always papers to be written.

Maybe in a few more days I'll feel different, but for now, back to fun questions =)