It was nerve-racking for the last few days. I was sleeping a little less due to the apprehension. And I wasn't able to focus on completing a new paper even though I love this piece of work. I dressed up in my favorite suit, because I figured, no one can fail a man in a suit. And then the day came. So many unexpected faces. Old group members who had graduated, people from my college days in India, friends of my wife, a person from my early childhood in Moscow. Some unexpected absentees; oh well. There were lots of questions during the defense which is the best thing anyone can ask for as a scientist. The deliberation took surprisingly long. I'm not sure what it was all about! And then I was done, and surprisingly, I was left with a sense of emptiness.
In recent times, I've felt an extremely strong desire to solve more and more problems in physics. I have finally begun checking the ArXiv every day; I didn't do so before. I was encumbered with questions of, "but why do we care about physics". Today that question seems irrelevant. The answer is that it is enjoyable and I just want to solve all the problems out there. Do everything. Be the best. Sounds a bit amateurish. Like first love or some such shit. Anyhow. In the light of these thoughts, the emptiness was, perhaps natural. Because there's always more to be done. Many more questions and riddles to be solved and a PhD is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
But then Bert came by and asked me to come see him in his office for a bit. He sat me down and first told me that my thesis was an impressive achievement in terms of the quality and the breadth of topics I had contributed to. And that he would like me to give him a bound copy of my thesis. I looked up to his shelf of theses, and it had the names, "Sachdev, Kivelson, ..." We talked about our latest piece of work together for the next hour or so. It felt symmetrical---an idea exchange session---a back and forth of "how do we do one better on the results we already have." It made the day worth its weight in gold for me.
