So finally, several years after it should have happened, I did my thesis proposal and am now ABD (All But Dissertation). It's hard for me to judge how it went--in any project, including ones that I've done a good job on, I really tend to focus on the things I don't like--but I think it went pretty well. No major surprises in the questions, and I think I had good answers. There was far, far too much material in the proposal to even do a good overview in the 30-45 minutes that we're supposed to talk, so it felt a bit rushed and somewhat disjointed to me. (and now this, and that, and I really need to talk about this, and that, and you also need this bit of information and ...)

I think my viewpoint is colored by having taught a couple of classes; I would really have preferred to have a more interactive format and at least twice that amount of time; I would have liked to have more of an opportunity to get people involved and on board with the underlying concepts instead of just glossing over them at a high rate of speed.

Randy Pausch, in his time management talk, references something along the lines of "challenges tend to be pass-fail". This one I passed. And now I feel like I can breathe again.