I push aside my books and pull my new scarf across my arm, feeling the thin but slightly rough cloth drawing strings of bead in its wake. Lisbeth is coming from Copenhagen, and Jesper, and Espen, my beloved supervisor, and Torill‘s coming from Volda and Patricia who’s known me since I was a baby is coming from Oslo and James and Julie and Andrew said that maybe they’d be able to come, though it’s a long way from Oslo, they’d like to, and my friends from Bergen are enthusiastic and gorgeous and, actually, you know, it’s going to be a brilliant party! The defence? Oh, that’ll be OK. The audience will be on my side! And now I have a scarf to pull around my shoulders if I’m chilly. Or just shy.