PhD Extension

 Today, I had a chat with my PhD supervisor where we decided that I would seek a 3-month extension to my submission deadline. When my supervisor floated the idea yesterday, I felt gutted. June 30 was the day I would be finally free of my PhD. I have told everyone who asks that is my submission date. The PhD kept me afloat through Covid. If I didn't have my PhD, I would have quit the UK and gone back to India, I have no doubt. I chuckle mirthlessly when I think of my original plan, which was to finish by the end of the year and go home to India for the Christmas break. I am not counting on being able to go home this Christmas either. And, most of compatriots are done with their PhDs, announcing their news on Twitter. Compatriots that I thought I was smarter than. Now, I have to swallow my pride and go cap in hand to the grad school to ask for an extension. Plead my case by pimping the Covid situation in India. I feel lonely, tired, miserable today and my PhD feels like a mountain that will always refuse to yield to me. I can't help but feel sorry for myself. I had a good cry today but I still feel like there are some tears left in me. But there are two silver linings. My conceit has been crushed so comprehensively that it will take years for it to recover. Newsflash: I am smart and capable, but not as smart and capable as I thought. I may never be a star academic and I will consider myself lucky if I am just able to stay on in academia. Humility is powerful, humility is clarifying. So, there is nothing to do but have a good mope over the weekend, and pick myself up, dust myself off next week.