I passed my PhD Thesis Defense.

 

 

 

PC: Yumi Henmi

Its finally here. Its finally happened. A long, often times difficult, often times meaningful, journey is rounding the corner. 
Last week I presented my doctoral thesis defense for review. I gave a 30 min presentation on my research over the course of my PhD. I then took questions from some incredibly smart professors for the next 3 mins. To finish it up, there was a 30 min interview with my close review committee, who had previously read and reviewed my full 170 page doctoral thesis. 
I'm pleased to announce that I passed. I was quite nervous and definitely slipped at a few points during the presentation since I preferred to go from improvisation rather than memorizing a script. Luckily I was able to practice this presentation a couple of times with my entire lab, with many people giving really constructive criticism. This really helped me relax and actually feel confident in the data I was able to present. It has also given me great perspectives to include and discuss within the actual dissertation I intend to publish publicly through Kyoto University. I've had many doubts about my research here and there, but going through this process has helped me get the perspectives that I need to find the value in what I have researched. I've always known my research into artificial reefs was valuable. I'm just happy to finally have my own evidence and data to back it up. 

 I want to thank everyone that helped me get to where I am at this place. My doctoral dissertation has a more detailed Acknowledgements where I thank everyone individually, but as always, I need to thank Reiji for his guidance as my advisor throughout this process. He helped bring me back down to earth a few times during the early drafts and helped me mold the thesis into something ready for peer review. Thank you for all the diving over the years and now thank you for moving me past the goalposts. 

 Now I'm onto publishing these three projects into peer reviewed literature. I ahve already publish my Kutsuwahaze (goby) behavior research, and have had the nesting paper in review since February (damn the review process can drag on). Just recently I was given the green light to submit the abalone research and will soon be starting to draft my snow crab artificial reef research. Luckily it will be easy since the chapter is already written, I just need to put it in the format for a certain journal submission. The grind doesn't stop, but at this point, I've definitely earned a bit of a rest. I'm going to go watch the annual summer fireworks Maizuru puts on every year (I think its called Minato Maizuru Chatta Matsuri みなと舞鶴ちゃったまつり). Its always a fun time drinking in the park and seeing the huge show that the city puts on. Some of the largest fireworks I've ever seen as well. 

Looking forward to having some more time to post some more adventures here in the near future.