Candidacy: Passed!

Today was not the day to have set my alarm for p.m. instead of a.m. My candidacy exam was at 2 p.m., but I had planned to attend the Film Studies lecture at noon. Unfortunately, I woke up at 12:53 in the afternoon, giving me just over an hour to shower, eat and get to school. I did manage to grab a coffee as well, and got to the oral exam just in time.

The oral itself was "very good", the phrase that my committee members kept using. It was two rounds of questions. I was nervous for the first 30 minutes, but then I settled down and got stronger as the exam progressed. Most of the questions were reasonable and thought-provoking, though sometimes a little rambling (trying to extract the question from the rambling was a bit of a challenge). I'm not entirely satisfied with all my answers (struggled with concept of historicity, a question that was asked about four times by four people), but they were definitely good enough to pass. I finished in 1 hour 45 minutes, and then after a few minutes of debate and consultation when I was out of the room, I was welcomed back with a "congratulations!"

Went for beer afterwards with my committee at Sugarbowl, where I ran into Laura and Theo. After the committee members left I joined them and we called some others and had more beer. Not sure what I'm going to do tonight at home. It is a little evil to watch Team America: World Police on the fifth-year anniversary of Sept. 11?