Thank you, Pink Numbers and Eska. In today's episode of 216 Hours, Walminski receives a devastating shock. In other news, the paint continues to dry...

I called up the printing place at my uni to make a few enquires - namely, what's the cost? 10p per page black and white and 50p a page in colour...!

By my calculations, that's roughly 320 pages @ 10p = £32. Which, at 3 copies = £96! That's the most money I've ever paid for a rough grilling. I could just break the law and then get the same level of interrogation for free, plus a brew and a free lawyer to help me with the tough bits.

can you not do the black and white printing in your office at uni or get a colleague to do it for you? That's what I'm planning to do to save some money because I just can't afford that much cost!

Could you put a nike or adidas logo in the footer of every page and get them to sponsor the thesis? and therefore pay for the printing??

My uni is stingy whe it comes to printing. You have to ask for permission to use the office printers and I'm not sure how to delicately phrase 'please can I print off 1017 pages please?' My home printer is a cheap-as-chips £50 special and I doubt it will take the strain, so I have only one option. I'd quite gladly have 'Just Do It!' emblazoned across the footer section of every page of my thesis if it meant that Nike would pay for it. Alas, since I'm not a footballer, golfer or tennis expert, I doubt they'd be interested....
Ah, but wait...I do use Gillet razors. Problem solved. I can see the title of my thesis now: A Complex Scientific Investigation by Walminksipeasucker - for the closest shave.

Hi Wal,

You could probably get it done cheaper at a commercial printers eg prontaprint, or just do it in a uni computer cluster, I seem to recall that was about 4-5p per black and white sheet in my days, if you have the time to spare farting around with all that.

not with that beard Wal!

Thanks Cakeman, I'll look into that. I haven't thought about 3rd parties in the rush to get it handed in. There's a printing place and a big Staples not too far away from me that I can check out.

Sneaks, thanks for the quick witted point about the avatar beard - although I'd love a wispy white beard in real life (there are 15 year olds with more facial hair than me). I'll have to think of another sponsor. Got it! This should go with my old man avatar image: Axa Life Insurance. A Complex Scientific Investigation by Walminskipeasucker - have you thought about how to provide for your loved ones when you're gone?

Good luck with all that--a commercial printer should be able to help you and hopefully at something less than £96.

You bring back terrible memories I had of trying to print and turn in the right number of soft bound copies.....my printer froze up after about 25 pages of printing...paper went wonky, sheets jammed.....it was awful. It took all night to print ONE decent version of the thesis. So I sent to a commercial copier to get it copied. No way could I print out more copies...When I got the copies back, they were all wrong. Pages missing, things out of order, etc...nightmare.

I went back to the commercial copier and they had a strop, and charged me more money to do the copies right!!!

At this point I was feeling so defeated I did not even argue with them, I just wanted to get the darn thing bound and submitted. So I paid ( vowing to never use their services again).

Second time they got it right, and was able to then get soft bound copies turned in.....but I think the final part of the thesis with the printing and the copying was the most stressful, horrible nightmarish part of the whole PhD experience.

I still get an unpleasant flutter of adrenaline and queasy stomach when I look at my softbound thesis...it was truly an awful experience. Hence, I try not to ever look at it. Nor do I have any real desire to touch the thesis again......not even to mine for publications.....my research interests have "moved on".

I hope yours goes more smoothly.

Good luck!

*tredding carefully* How's it going Walminski?

Thanks Olivia and Pinknumbers. It'll be submitted by 4pm today and is currently being printed and soft bound.

I have to say; it feels really weird. I'm not elated and over-the-moon like I thought I would be. I actually feel a sense of loss and quite sad - must be my hormones or the lack of sleep. Right now, I actually feel that I miss it - and it's only 700 yards away in the print shop. It's a massive phase of my life, my thesis, just gone. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself now. God, I'm such a weirdo at times. This human condition thing is hard to fathom. :-(

Well, I have a paper to redraft and a presentation to do for Wednesday, so I can get started on that.

Congrats on getting it done and ready to submit!!! Well done!!!!

I think your mixed feelings of being a bit sad and feeling lost without it are very understandable. As you said, this defined your life for so long--and in a sense you are saying good bye to it. Your research has "grown up" and taken wing! ( as it were :p) I remember waiting to feel happy, or relieved, or something....and feeling sad and tired and numbed! None of what I expected to feel....it does leave this gaping hole all at once when you submit. I think its like going from 120 mph to 0 all at once--you have been working, working, working on overdrive and then........its gone.

But the main thing is YOU DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well done!!!!!!!! This movie should get an Oscar!!!!!!!

wooo! yay!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! I'm sooo happy for you that you handed it all in!!!

As Olivia said, I think what you are feeling is so perfectly natural. You've probably thought about, worked on, and dedicated you life more to your PhD than anything else you've ever done. So it's understandable that you feel empty when it is submitted.

I think you should have a good rest. Me personally, I am going to book myself a day at the spa when mine is handed in :)

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have inspired me to dust off mine at the end of the week and get going with it.

Thanks Pink_numbers and Sneaks. Have finally caught up with some sleep and am feel really positive about having handed in. Going to take a few days away from it, work on a paper and present some of my work at a training day for clinicians tomorrow.

Wow Wall., That's amazing. Well done and thanks for inspiring us all in the process (up8-)(up)