My viva date has been organised and I'm having my internal evaluation next month. This is really it then. It looks like it's really going to happen now. I have 2 more chapters to write, quite a few chapters to re-write and I have about 2 and half months to do it in. I'm extremely nervous, really stressed and, in an almost sick way, I don't really want it to end. As much as a hate it, it's been a constant in my life for the past 3 years. No matter what else has happened, it's always just been something that's been there and that I've just tried to get on with. How weird will it be if/when I pass my viva and it's gone?
What am I going to do with myself? What am I going to think about? How will those endless hours of reading and trying to write be filled? Maybe - shock, horror - I'll have to think about resuming a 'normal' life? Haha. I'll have to start venturing outdoors once again and interacting with other people, if I can remember how to do it... Still, I can put off all the worrying about things like that until next year.

Good luck Wally. I didn't have a date for my viva until after I submitted, but we knew when I had to submit by (university 6-year part-time deadline), so it sort of boiled down to the same thing. I had to submit by the end of March 2010 or I would need an official extension.

As for what to do after the PhD, I can't work due to MS-like illness, but I drew up a list of things I wanted to try to get on with, once the PhD was out of the way. I drew that list up before finishing. It was full of fun things I wanted to do. And I've been working slowly through them. Which is fun. And, of course, I'm turning my thesis into more journal papers as well (two out for review now).

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Congratulations and good luck!! I completed mine 2 months ago and it still feels weird to haver done it. Life will never feel normal again but I am so so glad to not be working in the thesis again.

I find work better than the thesis because the job is task based as opposed to endless work on one thing. I am busy writing a paper and a book proposal for the thesis. There are things to do. Since finishing I have regained the many lbs I lost in the trauma of the 3rd and 4th years - so I am thesis free and look and fell better than I have in ages.

Good luck writing up - let us know how it goes!

congrats Wal, my supervisor is threatening similar, I know how you feel, especially as some of my friends have spent nearly a decade finishing their PhDs, its very tempting to let it carry on.

Maybe if we let it continue for another 4 years, we won't age?

hmm, anyway, it would be nice in many ways to finish this 'chapter' :-)