Last week I past my Viva voce examination. It went surprisingly well. On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is a desperate grilling where you want to hide under a chair and 10 is a collegiate, enthusiastic conversation about your work that makes you feel valued and the last x years of toil validated, then it rocked a good 9/10. I am not sure how it could have gone better. I am thankful to my examiners whom I chose and whom, luckily for me, agreed. As an internal candidate to the institution I was attached, doctorally (a staff member) I had to have two external examiners (normally candidates have 1 external and 1 internal). Dr Josie Barnard (De Montford) and Dr Lucy Christopher (Bath Spa) seemingly both understood and appreciated the concepts and practices shaping my novel - the multimodal writing methods and effects I explored, and seemed genuinely interested to learn more about how I had arrived at the decisions I had. They were full of thoughtful, searching questions that made me reflect deeper on my practice and were generous with practical advice on how to develop the work going forwards. I am indebted to them for making the experience so pleasant and far exceeding my expectations. I am and will always be indebted to my wonderful first supervisor Prof Eugene Giddens who sat in quietly and somehow, in his silence, made it feel more like a jolly supervision than an exam. Thank you, all of you.
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