"The one with how it went down.."

My viva can be summed up in this following pictogram;

I kid you not - being held in another room waiting; while your examiners having their discussion pertaining to your thesis is excruciatingly nerve-wrecking. Especially before you present your case and you have no idea what to expect. As you dwell on your freaked-out exterior, basking in the sweat you'd probably been producing the past few hours - it's easy to understand why most of us get tongue-tied during the ACTUAL viva presentation.

However, as you make your way into the room filled with people twice (or probably more) your wisdom and experience awaiting to prance like a tiger onto its prey - it'll contradictingly fast hit you that you're just being too exorbitant about the whole do-or-die situation. Take it from me; your viva might probably be no different than a usual seminar presentation, taking into consideration that your write-up was well written. What would actually kill you is the whole waiting game. 

Waiting to be called into the room to present your viva. 

Waiting for the presumable outcome of their examination. 

And waiting, to get out of that room as they've passed judgement.

I was relieved that their questions were meant to be stemmed out of curiousity, than the usual kill kill die die myths told by foreviva-ers. I believe that I was prepared; mentally acquainted with the A-Zs of all concepts, visuals, cores and fundamentals that is my 120-page thesis. So, although I was sweating buckets of bodily fluids pertaining to my viva - nothing beats the feeling of finally sharing your observations with people who're interested in them. I was lucky that my examination committee was exubirantly intuitive about what I actually did.

Alhamdulillah, suffice to say that my viva went very well indeed. Nothing too shabby, but nothing too devastating either. Everything goes by so fast, word by word and slide by slide - passing by like drops of water draining from a leaky faucet. By the time you got hold of your conscience, you're done and what conspires as a tense moment quickly transcends into an atmosphere of calm. Then before you know it - you're sipping tea with your examiners and supervisors, laughing and talking about stuff unrelated to the exhilirating 45-minutes that was your viva. Continuous praise and handshakes from both parties; you with your committees reminding you that your journey has come to a fairytale halt, and that your efforts have been duly paid. In that brief moment, your mind tends to flicker all those sleepless nights conducting your experiments like Igor Frankenstein in the lab.

By God as witness, I was happy. I was proud. I was fullfilled.

My only advice to those in line after me - do not worry that much, you know your work better than anyone else. Just, try and get your viva to be as early as possible. In the day, that is. Mine was conducted at 2.30pm on a Friday - so anticipation leading to it was a decree that induced further freaking-out episodes prior. The earlier, the better. Kalau boleh, lepas Subuh pun ok je.

-JeP