I passed my oral comprehensive exams

That's another hoop you have to jump through in the marathon on the way to the PhD (oops, mixed my metaphors). I went last that day, and my examiners said it was a "perfect way to end the day"; in fact, that it was "a model of how oral exams should be done" and that I had even "restored their faith in this institution's academics." I then went and got drunk for 9.5 hours. Wine is to the philosopher as soap is to the working man.