Hugo Jonker

As most of you who read this are probably aware, I recently defended my thesis. To keep a record, I’ll try to write down some of the impressions of the fateful day and the days leading up to it.

The week before (Guildford, UK)
The week before I was about to defend, I was still working for the University of Surrey in the UK. It was my final week, and I was trying to set my affairs and work in order. As I’d be going to the Netherlands by train, I got myself some light reading (The Tamuli by David Eddings — not his finest hour) on Tuesday. Other than that, I got my sports injury treated (that helped a lot), and tried as best as I could to focus on work and not notice too many mistakes in the thesis. Some organisational issues for the pre-defense seminar popped up (hotels for speakers and such), as did some things for VoteID. All in all, enough to occupy my time. Without noticing it, it suddenly was Thursday and we were enjoying a pub-lunch — my farewell lunch, if you will. It was grand to be working with Zhe Xia, James Heather and Steve Schneider, and I hope to work with them again in the future. With all these events going on, I had the nagging feeling that I was somewhat underprepared for the defense. Then again, still some time to finish, and I did have a practice run of my presentation. I wasn’t too happy about it though… food for thought.

Friday, London (St. Pancras)
On Friday afternoon, I travelled to London, to a hostel near St. Pancras (where my train would be departing early Saturday morning). I spent the afternoon in Hampstead Heath park, which was quite nice, and leafed through my light reading book a bit. Though I had a plan to go out in the evening and discover Friday Night in London, I was too tired to make it work. So I turned in early and was ready for an early start.

Pre-defense weekend (Eindhoven)
After 7 hours or so of travelling, I arrived at my brother’s place in Eindhoven. That evening, we had dinner with my parents and my uncle and aunt, which was really nice. The following day I just had to take the day off — I was too worn out and really needed to relax. Monday (which I generously include in the weekend) I picked up my preparations and started to feel moderately queesy about its insufficiency. Several last-minute crises needed to be addressed — always a fun thing. In the end, things more or less worked out, we picked up our penguin-suits in the evening and had dinner with my parents again. Things were okay, but I wasn’t feeling prepared somehow. Not too worried about that either, just not that well prepared, it felt.

Tuesday (D-Day)
The day started off with lunch. First mild problems occurring: not every committee member was there on time, nor were all speakers. I somehow felt a bit detached, and not too much worried about it. The committee members all showed up on time, and we found the missing speaker already in the lecture room. The seminar, hosted by Jos Baeten, was a success. The talks were aimed well at the audience, and there were more people attending than I had anticipated (roughly 60, according to someone who had apparently counted).

Then: rush out to change for the defense. Met my brother on the way, followed by heaps of family. Lovely to see them all, no time to talk, getting anxious here!!
Change, go down again, slight anxiety remaining. Chitchat here and there, say hi to various people who came all this way just for me (awesome, really very awesome). Then: go down into the hall, check that everything works, chitchat more, oooops, the doors open!!

Race to the front, stand up straight. In march the opponents, in a stately pace. Ooph. This is for real, I guess. Where are my nerves? Where is the expected rush that goes with this, the feeling of owshitowshitowshitowshit? Not happening… that’s slightly worrisome actually. Anyway, be directed towards my spot. Get question #1, explain thesis in 10 min to a lay audience. Idly wonder what would happen if I declined that question :) Answer it nevertheless… not optimal, it feels, but best I could do under the given circumstances. Then again, apparently I set high standards for myself sometimes. This is definitely one of those times.

Peter then asks questions. He is friendly, and his questions provide me with an opportunity to showcase part of my knowledge. Interesting. We briefly discuss one of the theorems I included with the thesis. We agree on the principles, and that it’s confusing (I guess). Then Bart is up. I completely misunderstand him. I keep doing that till he runs out of time. Pity. I feel bad about that. Lousy answers. Should’ve done better. Next up is Sandro. He asks very good and high-level questions. Again there is laughter from the audience at some of the questions — and also (I seem to recall) at some of my more bald answers. Sandro’s final question boiled down to “after ruining voting and drm, what are you gunning for next?” :D
Awesome question!

Next up is Jun, who is my copromotor. As the others, he says some nice words. He doesn’t speak about the thesis though, but about the fact that I am general chair of VoteID, and that that is quite an accomplishment for such a young researcher. I feel that I am blushing, and the room feels as if it is about to burst into applause. I feel great. As a thank-you, I manage to completely mess up his question :s.

Next, Jos asks his question. He starts by remarking on an error that I had pointed out to him in my thesis. I guess, in retrospect, his way of saying “don’t worry, I’ve got criticism but don’t take it as an attack”. Well, I didn’t. We had a nice conversation, but I was a bit too short in replying to Jos gave the floor back to Sjouke, who started a question when the pedel walked in to announce “Hora Est!”. Already?

Then came the (non-public) deliberations by the committee. As there were forms to be filled in, and two (count ’em) universities to be appeased by the outcome of this process, we expected this to take a while. Nevertheless, after 30 minutes (which is quite a bit longer than usual) the committee returned. With a diploma-container :) Admittedly, I did check for that.

Sjouke then spoke a very nice laudatio, and I think he did quite some justice to the past 4 years. I missed Maren at the beginning of his words. Can’t be helped. Afterwards, we went into the elevator. That was my second time in one (previously was with Micha, as a paranymph), and again, the committee had disappeared :) No biggie though, we quickly made a nice photo and then off to the reception!

That was a blast: instead of queueing up (a big worry of mine), the people just mingled and enjoyed, and occasionally someone came up to me to congratulate me. I was shaking hands the entire time, but there was never a big queue, and there was no pressure to rush talks. Very pleasant. Plus (more importantly, if you ask me): most (if not all) people were having a good time :) So much so that I was actually notified that we had drank up the ordered part of the reception (:D). But there was more to be had, and we did :)

The party continued at Academisch Genootschap, and that was perfect for the crowd. Food was good, there was inside and outside locations, and the atmosphere was splendid. I greatly enjoyed myself, and enjoyed being the center of attention :)

There’s much more to say on this, and I hope I’ll soon add links to the photo’s (the few I have at least), my diploma, and other things and events. But I wanted to put up the post now, it has been long enough.