Last Night at 61, Freemantle Road

Tomorrow morning, I will be moving out of the house I have been staying in for about two years. This is the house I stayed in for a week when I first moved to Bristol as I looked for long-term accommodation, and the house I came running back to after spending a few weeks with a landlord from hell. I owe deep debts of gratitude to my current landlord and he owes me smaller debts too. Unfortunately, all that is in the past, and we are parting on less than cordial terms. For many months,  I have been feeling unwelcome in his house, so this move has been a long time coming. Maybe difficult circumstances changed him, maybe I outgrew this place myself, it doesn't matter.
Even before our relationship soured, I always saw this house as a long-term temporary abode. My friends were puzzled how I could tolerate a steady stream of people passing through the house, since the other tenants were short-term. Given that I am not the most social of people, it would puzzle me too. I would explain it by saying I couldn't be bothered to move, or that if some of the housemates were annoying, I could be rest assured that they would eventually move out. Also, it was convenient for my long trips to India for my fieldwork.
I had some interesting conversations with those who passed through. Some of them who are still in Bristol have become close friends. But, learning that one can live in a house with strangers without coldness or warmth has been a revealation. One need not be friends with one's housemates but life can be hell if you are enemies.
Tomorrow, I move into a new house with people I have never met. My only comfort is they are all tenants, so on the same footing as me. There is no live-in landlord to throw his weight around, or take out his frustrations with his circumstances on those around him. I don't see the new place as more than another longish-term but temporary abode. It ticks most of my boxes for a house to live in, but not a home. If I stay on in Bristol after my PhD, I will definitely look for something more homely.
Living in houseshares, one learns to occupy as little space as possible, not just physically but figuratively. To trim away habits that may be annoying to others, to leave as light a footprint and soundprint as possible. But after all the trimming is done, to occupy  what is left  fully and assertively. 

Pomodero Success

I am someone who is deeply suspicious of productivity hacks, because I have never seen one that surprised me. Most of  the tips seem blindingly obvious and seem to skirt  the 'M' word--motivation. How does one be productive at a dull soulless task or a task  that one has no interest in? I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that one can be unproductive even if the task at hand is sufficiently interesting and one is not burned out. Rituals and tricking the mind can work. The rational mind is not all-powerful and even if  it can see through all the subterfuges, they may work.
I tried the Pomodero technique today, and it worked like a charm. I expected my momentum to flag after the first few sessions, but I managed to keep it up. Four hours is a good amount of time to set for oneself as one is beginning. One feels like one  has accomplished something without feeling completely drained out. Of course, it would be optimistic of me to expect to hit my Pomodero targets everyday. But, I do feel a sense of accomplishment today.  

Pomodero

I have decided to drastically cut my work to see if it will make me more productive. As things stand, I spend about nine hours in the office but am productive for not more than two-three. The nature of writing is that it happens in spurts so I am not overly concerned by that ratio but I would like to improve it significantly, by increasing the numerator and reducing the denominator. So I am going to try a technique we used for our group study sessions last year. It involves working in bursts of 30 minutes interspersed with generous breaks. So I have decided to work for not more than four hours a day from tomorrow and see how it goes. It is just an experiment, so let's see how it goes. One of my  colleagues is in the office for far fewer hours than me but is quite focussed when she is in. She is married and has an extremely active social life so she has far more claims on her time than I do. If this experiment works and frees up a lot of time for me, the question arises how I will spend the extra free time. As I have written many times before, I don't have many hobbies so I end up spending ages on Twitter. In any case, I have the rest of my life to worry about my ftuture. For now, let's see how the experiment goes. 

Proud of Myself

I am proud of myself if I may say so myself. I barely slept Saturday night because the chicken that I was afraid would cause problems, did cause problems. Proof that just because you have anticipated something, doesn't mean it won't happen so anticipation as a tool to ward off unwanted events doesn't work always. I was feeling so ragged as I was tossing and turning in bed in the wee hours of Sunday morning that I had all but decided to postpone my trip to London to see an old friend visiting from India.. It would screw up our plans and also my work schedule for the rest of the week, but so be it. Then, a few hours of later, I changed my mind and decided to go ahead with the trip as planned. One contributing factor in my decision was that I didn't want to be in the house the next day as my landlord has turned toxic. I just made sure not to eat anything before I left, as I didn't want to use the smelly coach loo and neither did I want my stomach gurgling while I was sitting next to someone.
But the trip went off like a peach. I spent a lot of yesterday morning feeling tired and queasy, especially on the 3-hour long walking tour. I was wondering how I would get through the rest of the day, but a late lunch transformed me. My stomach was fine following the meal, and the trip was quite memorable after that.
I am proud of myself for not letting my health anxiety get in the way of my life.  I chose to have faith in my body and mind, and was rewarded for it. There were times on the trip when I felt horrible but I hung in there. And I feel like a champ

Food Anxiety

Prior to the watershed year, I was reasonably daring with food. Not in terms of experimenting, which I still am, but risking eating food that may have gone bad. I even used to eat raw eggs, even though that has the risk of salmonella poisoning. I prided myself on having a cast-iron stomach.

All that has changed. Anyone who suffers from anxiety knows that there is a high correlation between stress and stomach troubles. I know that if my stomach doesn't feel right, but there are no tangible symptoms such as loose stools or vomiting, it is my anxiety rearing its head in my tummy. 

So, its understandable that I am no longer as daring with my food. Chicken is what gives me the most anxiety. A few months ago, my landlord remarked that my chicken didn't look cooked, which sent me into a paroxysm of salmonella anxiety. Cue goodling how can you tell if chicken is cooked, long does it take for the onset of salmonella, what are the symmptoms, etc. etc. I ducked the salmonella attack.

Today, I left my chicken outside to marinate and when I reached uni  realised  should I have put it in the fridge. Cue another paroxysm. Fortunately, my anxiety about the chicken going bad was tempered by anger at my landlord, which story is worth a few posts itself, but another day. 

I cam home anc cooked the chicken with great trepidation. I asked my friend to taste it but she declined to be a co-sufferer in case the chicken had gone off. I ate the chicken, knowing fully well that I would spend the next few hours in a paroxysm of health anxiety. And here I am.

The problem is taking a 'risk' with your food makes you feel anxious, while not taking a risk makes you feel like a loser. It is a difficult choiice. 

Wobbles

I had a wobble this evening because of a stressful situation involving my tuition fees. My family can afford them, thank god, but we are being asked to pay significantly more than is due. My biggest concern is that the dispute would drag on and on distracting me from the important business of writing up my PhD. But, here is the thing with stress--it ebbs and flows. The mind is designed to be distracted because focusing on one thing constantly without thinking of anything else would drive us crazy. I realize that it is far too easy to forget this in the midst of feeling stressed and worse, if the anxiety wakes you up in the middle of the night. But, it is worth trying to remember during a bout of anxiety that our mind has a life of its own and a lot, and its activities are not necessarily a response to objective changes in external circumstances. 

Change from Routine

Creatures of habit, occasionally, feel very uncomfortable with their routines and force themselves to break it for the sake of breaking it. When the break is neither joyful or liberating they go back to their old habits, until the next round of restlessness.
Today, I chose not to go to the yoga class I am addicted and attend a talk instead. It was a talk on writing about race and it seemed fitting that I was attending it instead of doig yoga in a room full of white women whose aloofness bordered on hostility. The talk was good, but as someone steeped in a PhD life it takes a lot to get me excited about anything that doesn't have to do with my research. Now, looking back I feel like change finds you whether you are looking for it or not. Sometimes you need  change, and that's fair enough. But, change for the sake of it is pointless.

Leadership Debate

Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson today and from the little I watched, Johnson didn't implode as I was hoping he would. The debate itself seemed quite pointless since the moderator was quick to jump in to interrupt whenever one of the debaters got into the  flow. Maybe this is what all leadership debates are like. It just seemed so pointless, like a relic from a bygone era. Before the debate, the press was full of articles about how the debates could be a turning point, but I doubt it. Debating feels like a relic from a time when liberalism was its peak. Fascism and socialism, which are the only two choices now, have no time for such theatrics. Yes, a major debate screw-up could do a lot of damage. But, debates can only be lost, not won. 

Screen Addiction

If there is one thing I could change about my body, it would be better eyesight. From ever since I remember till age 28 I wore specs. In my childhood, I broke specs with such a frequency that my parents had me keep a spare pair. At age 28, I had laser surgery because I wanted to know what it was like to wake up in the morning and not reach for my specs. But, laser surgery was not the answer to my visual troubles that I hoped it would be. My eyesight wasn't corrected fully and my vision in the dark was noticeably worse following the surgery. It has been five years since the surgery and my vision has worsened over time but I steadfastly refuse to wear specs, unless I am driving at night or watching a movie in a theatre.
It doesn't help that I spend so much time in front of a computer screen. At the uni, I am in front of a screen about 90% of the time, and when I come home and am done cooking or doing yoga, it seems like the mos natural thing in the world to get on Twitter and get enraged about the state of the world while also steadily ruining my eyes. A lose-lose situation if ever there was one. I realize I need more non-screen based hobbies, and more hobbies, per se, but cultivating new hobbies takes more effort than I am willing to surmount in the last year of my PhD.
I realize the irony of  typing all this on a computer screen, but at least I am not staring at it goggle-eyed.

The Winter of 2019

This will be my first full winter in England in three years. My first full winter here ended with me running back to India just as spring was setting in. I don't really mind the winters here as they are mild by European standards. We barely get any snow, and the temperature seldom dips below 0C. Cycling becomes a little unpleasant but never impossible.
This winter will be different from past winters in another respect: it is when I will be writing the meatiest chapters of my PhD. By the time spring rolls around, I hope to be about halfway through my PhD writing. It is a very ambitious but  achievable target. I realize I will have to pull out all the stops to get there on time. Maybe I am glorifying a PhD too much. Few PhD thesis change the world, and I am pretty sure mine won't. But, I want it to change me in ways I can't anticipate. I want to be a surreal, almost out-of-body, experience that leaves a permanent mark on me. I want it to challenge my mind and force it to unfathomable depths. It will be a slog, but so much more than just that. An exercise routine I took up seven years ago following four sickly years without exercise transformed me physically, while the past few years have transformed me spiritually. Maybe this PhD will transform me intellectually? 

The Frame of Nostalgia

I wonder how I will look back at this time in my life. I am doing what I love, but it is difficult. I am living in a country I feel the most at home in, but my housing situation is a continuous source of stress. I am full of hope for my own career but the world around me is burning. How will I remember this time say 10 year from now?
Time takes the edge off memories and we play them back in our minds as cartoon films. There are no rough edges, no incongruities, the sun doesn't burn, the wind doesn't whip. The places and characters loom large. and the inconsequential bits melt away. What is stored in our memory may be different from what we perceived at the time, and we are mostly better for it.
I am sucker for nostalgia just as I am prone to flights of fancy. Memories are like an emotional anchor and our perceptions of the past shape our present. This is a good point for a quote from my favourite author Ruskin Bond--'What is nostalgia but an attempt to recreate what was good in the past. The past has been good to us. Let is honour it in this way'. 

A Truce Is No Peace

A truce is, by nature, uneasy, and buys time for the weaker party to either escape or fight back. It has to be at the initiative of the weaker, or at least less aggressive party, and it is seldom in the interest of the stronger party. Both parties might want to stanch their losses but its a battle for survival for just one of them. If you are wondering why I am spouting conflict strategy, it is because I am in an uneasy truce at the moment in which I am both the weaker and less aggressive party. Sometimes I feel a raging anger at the state of affairs, but I have been able to keep a lid on it so far. However, I entertain no delusions that this is a sustainable state of affairs. If it continues, my rage will boil over, and those who don't rage often, rage badly. I am pretty clear that this truce buys me time to extricate myself from the situation on as amicable terms as is possible, given what has transpired. 

Break from Blogging

I am going to be blogging intermittently for the next few weeks and do more therapeutic writing. I am going through a stressful period and don't find myself in the ruminative mood that is conducive for blogging. So, instead of forcing myself to blog out of habit, I am only going to blog when I feel like it. The proximate causes of stress are my house hunt and my PhD. I am trying to use one to distract myself from the other, but I wish it were that easy. It doesn't help that I am currently trying to write the meatiest part of my PhD. I wish I were better at compartmentalizing my life, but so does everyone. Sometimes you learn best when your back is against the wall.
It is only a matter of time before I find a house, and I have decided to wait until I find a nice house instead of moving in a rush and finding myself on the market again a few months down the line. The house hunt will takes its own time and meanwhile I am going to keep working on my PhD. There will never be a perfect time for writing my thesis and one must solider on irrespective of external circumstances excepting catastrophes. 

Bad Haircuts As A Metaphor

Many of the problems one encounters in life are like a bad haircut. One's hair grows out, leaving one free to get another bad haircut, and problems disappear over time only to be replaced by new ones. At times, it can feel like one's plate is more than full with problems. I am going through a slightly stressful time at the moment, and everyone around me seems as, or even more, stressed. And, as it happens, I got a bad haircut a few weeks ago that exacerbates my receding hairline. My hair will grow out and problems will go away.

And, problems come and go, wax and wane. Currently, the biggest problem for me is finding a place to stay. Till this evening, I had nothing, and in the space of minutes, I saw a place I really like and a landlord got in touch with me. 

Bad Start To Week

This week hasn't been great so far, and yesterday, for a few hours it seemed like nothing could go right. I spent tow hours trying to replace the brake pads on my bike without success, cooked a dish in a hurry and made a complete mess of it, I received confirmation that my landlord has it in for me and also an email from my university that will trigger a chain of lengthy and dispiriting back and forths Today, when I sheepishly took my bike to the mechanic he said it wasn't safe to ride. But, I managed to finish my paper and send it to my supervisor.
I have realized that motion is the best antidote to the blues. Keeping busy keeps one distracted from brewing troubles gives you some sense of achievement. Yes, most of my ducks are not upright but at least some are, thanks to my effort.

Giving Feedback

Yesterday, someone I barely know asked me if I would give him feedback on an academic paper. I agreed, and as I do, I started to overthink it. How frank could I be without coming across as a cad to this person I don't know? But if I was too kind what was the purpose of the feedback? I don't where this instinctive recourse to patronizing behaviour comes from? Is it from a people-pleasing desire?

Perspiration

The famous Edison saying about success being 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration couldn't be more true. I'm realizing that completing a PhD and having a successful academic career is all about being bloodyminded and doggedly determined. Academic research feels like a bottomless pit which sucks in everything you offer and keeps asking for more. Never have I worked my mind so hard and still felt like I wasn't doing enough. Of course, the work is interesting and I don't really have a life outside academia. But, I feel silly for thinking that a PhD could be a smooth ride and all those PhD horror memes were exaggerating the trials and tribulations of a PhD out of an heightened sense of self-importance. Of course, I still do feel they are exaggerating a little, especially since some of the people circulating them were not in their final year. I am beginning to appreciate how much of a training a PhD is for a career in research. Research capability is not innate, as I used to believe. It has to be developed.

Elite Networks

Its no secret that Britain's elite is particularly incestuous, but it is always interesting to get a glimpse of the elite in their natural habitat. Someone I follow on Twitter shared this photo collection from a party thrown by a right-wing rag with pretensions of refinement. The great and the good of the Tory party, from the  then prime minister downwards were present there along with the who's who of journalism. All smiles and laughs, looking supremely at ease in each other's presence. There was just a single Labour MP in the photos. When the people you report on are the people you socialize with, what impartiality are we talking about? No wonder the current Labour party leadership scares them. Not only are they socialists, they are also strangers who don't socialize in the same circles as top journalists. They are from another world, and deserve all the class contempt one can muster without making your animosity towards them obvious.