Thanks for all the support!
Short version :
it went great!
Long version : it began well when my advisor let me know that another member of the jury was "impressed" by the thesis. Especially considering that my advisor had never seen any of it before I handed it in, I did most of my writing when he was on a (well deserved) holiday.
Naturally I had laptop problems. My advisor had been kind enough te lend my his beamer. I have two laptops at home, and naturally neither of them wanted to work with it. So I quickly called up a friend to give me the Student government laptop for the day. I got the beamer to work 10 minutes before the defense.
The defense itself went great. I can safely say that I'm a decent public speaker, and I always seem to go into a sort of "trance" when speaking to an audience. My mouth connects to my brain without my higher brain functions interfering. After the 20min presentation, each member of the five man jury got to ask questions. Then something wonderful happenend. EACH ONE of them started the questioning with congratulating my on writing a great thesis. Some of the questions were tough, dealing with stuff I had not even had the time to look at that were only sideways related to the topic. It was really humbling to stand before people that have such a grasp of these things. I did my best and it went ok.
Another thing that really touched me was a small speech by my advisor saying how he was really impressed with the work done, considering that most of my time is spent on university administration. To give you an idea, I'm a student representative in the physics department council, the science faculty council, the science faculty executive committee, the university board, the university research counsil and the university executive council. Besides that I'm also vice-president of the Student Government. I know I've let my advisor down a few times this year, with me not being able to spent enough time on research, but he was always very understanding.
Best of all, I think there's a very good chance of finding funding for a PhD next year, and my advisor was very enthousiastic about it. I'll let you know how it turns out
Today, life is good.
