They shook my hand and called me Doctor.

Did not mean to sign off with four days to go and write nothing else. Oh well.

The defense went really well. The committee was generally convinced of the worthiness of the argument, so they did not spend a lot of time questioning me about that. Rather, they were more interested in getting the manuscript ready for publication and in getting at the trajectory of my argument. Where do I want to go from here? That approach made for a kind of celebratory atmosphere.

I'll write more after I recover a bit more and get back into the swing of things here at work.