Last Friday, I handed in my final draft of the dissertation to my second supervisor. My first supervisor has already read through the whole thing. Based upon his comments, I have made a lot of changes and even have an editor for the English editing. My second supervisor is not an expert for the field which I am doing research on. So hopefully he won't have too many comments. So I thought it was an end to my PhD.  What a relief!

 

But that is two days ago. Great news came this morning. My supervisor told me that a famous professor of art history in Oxford University agrees to be the external reader of my dissertation. He is such a big name in the field. According to my supervisor, the professor's agreement is a compliment to my work.  I  am really thrilled. However, it also means that I will still have a lot of work--rewriting to do. This professor is definitely going to be really critical and can deconstruct everything I said in the thesis. So it is now a new beginning. Although it is going to be extremely tough, I am looking forward to it. Bring it on! I am prepared.

 

----Chinese below 中文以下-----

 

上周五，我终于把博士论文定稿打印出来，正文近八万字，全部近九万五千字，260来页，提交给我的第二导师，作中国古代史的教授。论文初稿我于三月底交给我我的第一导师。他花了四个月的时间看过全文，提出了诸多修改意见。我用了最近一个半月进行大修，还找了个英文编辑修改英文。终于在上周调整好格式，完成定稿。因为第二导师作的研究和我的不是特别相关，所以希望他不会有太多建议和意见。我感觉终于到了一个终点，黎明的曙光已经出现。交了论文，没太多兴奋之感，反而有些茫然，还有很多事情要做，可是不知道从何开始。看来我真有工作狂的潜质，讨厌无所事事的样子。

 

不过这是两天前，今天（周一）上午，收到导师来信，他联系好了一位在英国牛津的艺术史教授，大人物，加入我的论文评审委员会，作为我的外校评判。此教授是西方中国艺术史界的大牛，在我导师看来，他同意在百忙之中花时间读我论文做出评价，是对我研究的肯定。当然，这意味着教授会提出很多批判性甚至颠覆我论文的看法, 意味着繁重的修改任务。不过，无所谓了，在经过第一导师的“狂轰滥炸”之后，我已经习惯了，何况我需要建设性的意见，不仅做出好的论文而且找对今后的发展之路。所以一切还没有结束，等待暴风雨的来临，继续前行。

 

（最后关于答辩仪式的时间，据我导师估计，我博士答辩时间应该是明年一月，我希望是今年十二月，不过看来可能性不大。）