Ok, it’s more than time for me to tell you more about the day I became a doctor (sounds a bit like a movie title). First I want to thank a lot Laurent, Quentin, Stephanie, Youval and David for all their help the day before. It was a very intensive and stressful day for me and your support was most welcome! I may come back to some of the many bumps on the road to my defense but, today, I’ll stick to the 18th of September… the day was eventful enough!

9.30: One hour before the defense itself, I am in front of the academic building of Utrecht University. I am meeting with my paranymphs David and Youval who will help me organize things through the day and stand by my side during the ceremony itself. The building never seemed more impressive than today. The people I met there can tell how stressed I stressed I was…

10.30: After dressing up and rehearsing a couple of time “hooggeleerde opponent”, it’s time for me to enter the arena. Somehow, the room never looked more impressive to me before. My jury takes place wearing academic robes and I’m up for 45 minutes of questions (which, I know, is far less than some of you had to face to get your own Ph-D… well, just pick your university more wisely next time!).

  

Since everyone got my book at the last minute, I (mainly) avoided very detailed questions focused on one single line of my 242 pages book. I’m actually glad about that. General questions allowed me to speak more freely and get a bit more confident (I actually got the comment that I was speaking too much… not the first time of my life and probably not the last either I guess). Anyway, things went fine and I was getting really emotional during the speech of my supervisor and when I got the diploma. It’s strange mix of many feelings and definitely the end of an important chapter of my life so I was in weird state for a little while.

11.30: After a short pictures session in the nearby cathedral square, the next step of the day was a celebration in the tower of the cathedral itself.

  

From this point on, I was overwhelmed with gifts and surprises. That was really cool. I won’t pretend I wasn’t expecting anything but certainly not that much! I guess a video is the best way to give you an idea. When I entered (last because of the pictures), a few people were inside the tower blocking the stairs and saying they rented the place. Those people, dressed in medieval gears were of course some friends from the noorderwinds. In such a setting, it was looking awesome! I had to fight with their champion for the right to have the place.

I found it really cool and I think my friends and family will remember that for a while! Of course the video isn’t great and I swear it looked even (way) better live. As I said I got many cool presents including the traditional hat featuring most of my hobbies. Youval did (with great mastery) a card trick in front of everyone. I might post another entry about everything that happened because I don’t even really know where to start.

13.00: Even the weather was with us and the day was beautiful. My family and several friends who came from France helped me carry everything to my place where I could rest for a little while. However, I heard that people who didn’t know Utrecht had a nice day visiting the city. I had prepared a small gave with places to find but it looked like no one really needed that to entertain themselves. If you have time to spare, you can still try to find the following 18 locations within the center of Utrecht. Some are easy but some are more tricky. ^^

18.30: The day was still far from over as I joined the members of my jury for a dinner in restaurant which was nice but incredibly slow as well. In fact, at first, they forgot our order. The problem being that the party I planed in the evening finally had to start without me… Note than I already showed up late at my own birthday several times so I guess people start to get used to it.

21.00: The party was help in a bar just on the side of the canal and were a stage allows concerts to take place. When I though I could not get any more presents, I was offered (amongst other things) a shield. Seriously it took me a couple of days to process everything that happened that day!

  

 Finally, the Deccapods played a gig a bit latter in the evening and invited to join them for a cover of an old song from Black Sabbath.

I could had much more but I thing this message is probably long enough as it. I just want to thank everyone who came and all the people who helped me. That day was absolutely brilliant! I collected a few pictures from my family and a few friends but I think there must be much more out there. So, if you don’t mind me doing so, send me your pictures and I’ll add them on the following gallery: http://www.volguen.com/PHD/