using html forms and php scripts

Hi There, Recently i noticed the folowing and was a bit surprised: When i had created a html form outsite the php script and continued with the php script, the script was running further without waiting for the POST from the form. Is this normal? Do i need to create a wait loop to wait until the post or the cancel is made when i work with php and html forms? <? php part of the script ?> html part of the script with the form ?>rest of the php script Thanks for your time Eelco