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?
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?
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