First Day Back and Renewed Sense of Urgency

The uni felt like a ghost town as I cycled in today, and our building was no different. Some empty buildings grow larger when empty while ours seems smaller (it also seems smaller on the inside than it looks from the outside, so I guess that's says something about the architect). I had budgeted for not being able to work in the first half as I got acclimatized,but it still felt weird sitting in what felt like an empty building. The weirdness dissipated as some people from my office came in. Our officious grad school head conveyed the social-distancing instructions to us with great fanfare, taking 20 minutes to show us our seat allocations, which is 16 minutes longer than she should have required. She then treated us to coffee at the starbucks in the main building, and to pay for it we had to listen to her prattle on about some really random subjects for close to an hour. I remember being annoyed but also conscious that I needed to get used to being around people again. In other words, to get used to getting irritated.

I dropped by my supervisor's room and we had a short chat in which she told me that there might be some job openings soon. That news zapped away any lingering weirdness and animated with a new sense of urgency to finish my PhD. I have been animated by a deadline once since the pandemic began but I struggled to meet it and ultimately gave up. Its not even that I finished after the deadline, I didn't finish and just submitted what I had. I didn't get into trouble but the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. I have set myself another deadline, and hopefully I will be able to meet it. Again, the world won't end if I don't meet it, but I am getting impatient now. yes, I want to enjoy my PhD, but I feel like I will enjoy it if I move faster.