Had my PhD public defense a few days ago on Wednesday 22nd July. It was held in this huge hall with high tech facilities. Booked it many hours before, so I had a good chance to test out the system and tune my slides for this all important keynote that would determine my fate.
The projector is lowered from the ceiling. It reminds me of Airwolf. How many of you are familiar with Airwolf? It was from a time long long ago. ^^. Particularly the compartment on the helicopter’s belly responsible for launching its deadly missiles!
Here’s another shot from the other end of the room where the transporter controls are. “Beam me up Scotty!”
It was a coincidence my defense was scheduled on the same day as the longest solar eclipse this century! I was really looking forward to watching it and gain some extra magic points to use in my keynote. Unfortunately, Tokyo was cloudy that day. Couldn’t see a thing. A few lucky friends saw the eclipse for an instant behind some thin clouds though. What about you?
I however, managed to show my own eclipse in my keynote. ^^.
Wearing one of these mics made me feel like a celebrity. ^^. Convenient, but found the wire a little cumbersome. It sometimes gets in the way of my waving arms.
My juniors who helped me out with registering guests on the day. Where would I be without them. Thanks guys! Two of them have flickr photostreams; Muratama and sunnycamel. They are photo hobbyists and only use funky old-school film cameras!
Had a light lunch an hour before my keynote at the school canteen. There’s barley rice, nikujyaga (肉じゃが) and a small bowl of cucumber and corn pickles. Bought a bottle of lemon tea to quench my thirst too. You can barely see half the bottle right at the top left. ^^.
Decided not to suit up like a penguin. Instead, I went in this. Shirt, tie, pants, belt and shoes. And I’m only naming the visible ones! ^^. I really like this tie. It’s osyare~
It still doesn’t beat what I wore to my Masters graduation ceremony though. ^^. Next one to plan is for my PhD graduation. Fingers crossed!
The defense went pretty well. I talked about multidisciplinary topology optimization. Had quite a number of questions. Some were more difficult than others but I think I managed a decent answer for each question. There were 2 guests from a Japanese engineering firm that writes optimization software. They seemed pretty interested in what I did. Maybe my Professor might use my research to secure some research fund for his lab next year when I’m not around. ^^.
I used the keynote remote on my iPhone and managed to have mobility when presenting. That in itself impressed everyone in the audience. ^^. All that’s left to do is to finalize my dissertation, bind it and submit! After that, I’m all done!
