Cue: Balloons, confetti, big parade (all playing on horns of Gondor, of course!)

Hope all has gone well! Don't know the exact sequence of events you have to do (*defend before or after turning in? at what stage?), but I do have one piece of advice: after it's gone in for the final time, stick your copy away and don't even look at it for a while. (Weeks, months, years, etc.). Odds are, you'll think it's simply dreadful (I've had the experience myself with several "Big Book Reports" as I like to call them, and I've had to talk ALL my graduate students--meaning, the ones whose theses I've directed--through major depressed moments as they looked at it and thought "is that all there is, then" or something like that).

Take time off, enjoy yourself (oh, say, by reading lots of smut!), and get some distance on it all.

Welcome back!

(And let me say how much I admire you GETTING IT DONE. Lots of people don't or can't, so realize you've done something special here).