More or less twenty years ago today (I can't remember the exact date) I finished writing, and submitted my D.Phil. dissertation. I was a graduate student at the University of Oxford though I was working on a project co-supervised at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, and I spent most of the last year of my studies out there. I had to be back in Oxford to submit the right kind of hard-bound copies in the right place at the right time, which I duly did.
It was a busy month-long trip back to the UK: After submitting my D.Phil. I had the viva exam, then I got married, went on honeymoon, and then went back to the US to start a postdoctoral position at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It seems like such a long time ago. I suppose it is a long time ago. This week is freshers' week on campus here at the University of Surrey. Most of the arriving students were born after the events described above. My youngest son is a toddler; no longer a baby, and increasing competent with language and reasoning. He was born after the referendum on leaving the EU, and knows nothing of the halcyon time before the vote. I wonder how old he will be by the time the situation is resolved.
Last night I came across an old photo of me from when I was a PhD student, and I attach it here. This is probably about mid-way through, so more like 1997 than 1999, and shows me dressed in a Tennessee T-shirt in proper school colours.
Fun fact: The vocal group The Oak Ridge Boys are named after the nuclear facility. Really.
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