For the past few weeks we have slowly been trying to build a proper interaction design hardware lab-space. At the same time there has been an interesting test run of the formal procedure of applying for having a Ph.D defense. It involves things like suddenly collecting all course-work, writing a proper Ph.D plan (final one, second one in total) and submitting loads of physical copies of documents as well as carefully filled in new documents. By email and in brown institutional envelopes. Sometimes this process feel quite arbitrary and sometimes it is surprisingly rigorous. For weeks now I have been waiting for some sort of confirmation. The process is not a transparent box, its rather the black box version. Not only is it the first and only time I will do this, it is the first time for most people involved. Hopefully there will be time for drawing some lessons learned from it.
Hopefully this was the quirk to it and that everything from now on runs smoothly. It would be a shame to waste all energy on such matters rather than on more creative things, like doing actual research. And write some. And work on energy harvesting, sports and tinkering stuff!