After a fairly nice meeting in which nobody questioned whether or not I faked my data, my thesis committee gave me “permission to write,” which means that they think that I’ve done enough for a PhD and deserve to graduate.  You can’t schedule your defense here until your committee has given you permission to write.  I think this is one of the reasons that so few people have problems at their defense here.  Your committee has to formally agree that you’re ready before you can even think about scheduling your defense.

So, that is now out of the way and I will put in a call to my second cousin Luigi and let him know that I won’t need help moving that centrifuge after all.

w00t!!