Going Round In Circles

 Today, didn't start well and didn't get better till the evening. My gloating over my new pair of cheap shoes was premature. it turns out the shoes don't fit me that well, a fact that I had glossed over in my glee over its price. I spent the first hour at work wracking my brain how to remedy the situation instead of working on my PhD. I decided to walk down to ASDA to buy insoles for the shoes, since I didn't find the idea of returning them very appealing. Cheap buys are always a gamble and if you lose you should be sporting about it and not to reverse it. So, now my £16 shoes have insoles worth £10 in them, and they still don't fit me well. 

I didn't make much headway in my PhD either, and I felt for the first time that I have been going around in circles for the past three months. Ideas that I had discarded in the first month started seeming appealing to me. I spent most of the the day watching myself spin around in circles. It wasonly after I got home from work did I get some new ideas. I am too wise to call them breakthroughs, they are more like slivers of light. I know that ideas that seem great in the head turn messy when its time to put them on paper. I am still a long way from home, but at least when I go in to uni tomorrow, I won't be starting at a blank slate. And, that is the only way to keep moving, grabbing on to slier of light, watch it melt between your fingers, and then grabbing on to the next one. But, at least, I am in beast mode when it comes to work. I didn't even bother with Pomodero today, because I knew I would blow through my 4-hour or even 5-hour target. the only thing to do is to keep at it. 

Back to Uni

 It's back to uni  tomorrow after the Bank Holiday Weekend. A friend asked me what my week was looking like,  and I told her it was just more of banging my head against the wall a.k.a as trying to get my theoretical framework in shape. To clear space for banging my head, I wrapped up another job application today. I am determined to make headway tomorrow. But, I have been determined before, and don't have much to show for it. What makes this time different? The truth is I don't know if  this time will be different. All I can do is to show up. Whether it turns out to be me banging my head against the wall or me knocking down the wall is  anybody's guess. Ai said a few days ago, I will get there, whether  it is running, walking, crawling or writhing. The important thing is to keep my chin up, which I have been doing so far.

1000th Post, And Cheap New Shoes

This is my 1000th post. The fact that I have reached this milestone in about three and a half years since I resumed blogging means I have been extremely regular. Not only that, after turning out 247 posts in 2018 and 244 posts in 2019, I was extremely prolific in the annus horribilis I of 2020, churning out 292 posts. I reckon I will end up with a similar number this year, which has been comparably horrible to last year. I am a sucker for milestones but the 1000th post milestone is the biggest one I have celebrated so far. The next 1000 milestone is at least 3 years away, assuming I keep blogging regularly. Who know what life will be like three years from now or if I will even be alive. And, in any case, 2000th post doesn't have the same ring to it as 1000th post. For a comparable ring, I will have to wait for my 10000th post, by which time I will be well into my twilight years and global atmospheric temperatures may be at least 3-4C higher, and all the carnage that comes with that. 

And today, I finally said goodbye to the guly brown shoes that I have been wearing for almost seven years exactly Those are not the only pair of shoes I have but I have worn them the most because no other shoes have lasted so long. If you wanted to design the most forgetable, featureless pair of shoes, you couldn't do better than this pair, They weren't ugly, because to be seen as ugly they would need to make an impression on the sense. These shoes just existed, and sometimes existed on my feet. I bought them before I moved to Holland to start my Master's degree. They were not particularly comfortable or uncomfortable, they were not particularly elegant or ugly, they were not particularly anything. I just hung on to them because and I am too cheap to throw away shoes that don't have holes in them. But, today, I found shoes for £16, narrowing the possibilities for buyer's remorse. I believe shoes grow to fit your feet anyway, and with expensive shoes at least I am perpetually worried about whether they fit right, or whether they look good.  With cheap ones, the standards are lower. 

Setting Boundaries With My Housemate

 The issue off one of my housemates using had been gnawing at my mind, despite my best efforts to shrug it off. This morning, I noticed that a jar of coffee I had bought a few weeks ago. I don't even remember if I opened it, or whether it was my housemate. The next thing I knew I had decided to tell him not to use my stuff. I would of course put it in milder terms--something like "Do you min if we don't use each other's stuff?". But, there is only so much you can do to take the edge of "Keep your paws away from my stuff". When I heard him in the kitchen, I went downstairs to chat with him. He had already made his coffee, so I didn't know if he had used my powder or his own. I simply told him if he minded putting his stuff in other cupboard. I mumbled something about how it would help avoid confusion about what stuff was whose, but I think he barely head me. I started taking stuff out of my cupboard and asking if it was his. Sensing some tension in the air, I immediately tried to make some small talk. 

When I think about it, I shouldn't have felt uneasy  laying down some boundaries. We are not friends, just housemates, he is untidy and I have never offered him use of my stuff. He assumed that because he didn't mind others using his stuff, others wouldn't mind either. He simply decided to start storing his stuff in my cupboard. Yes, I should have told him at that point, but doesn't everyone try to be more easy-going than they actually are? And, I didn't know at the point that him storing stuff in my cupboard would also mean him treating my stuff as his own. But, I am glad I didn't tell him not to use my stuff, because it could well have turned into "I didn't use your stuff! Yes, you did". Too much unpleasantness for my liking. So, I hope he gets the message that since we have different cupboards, he really doesn't have reason to go pawing in mine. 

August Bank Holiday

 During the previous bank holiday at the end of May,  I had written that by the time the next bank holiday rolls around I would be close to submitting my PhD, and it would be smooth sailing. How wrong I was!! I have spent three months in a conceptual fog that has only grown thicker with time, and I feel like I am no closer to submitting my PhD then I was three months ago, and much less optimistic. The end feels just around the corner but the corner is actually a pillar which I keep going around and arriving at exactly the same space. If there was one way to describe my progress, or at least how I view it, it would be spinning around in circle. Having got that lament out of the way, it is time to come to the actual story. The story isn't  how wrong I was about my prediction three months ago. The story is how okay I am despite having the most frustrating three months of my life. I come to this bank holiday with no great plans for the long weekend, and the looming move of a close friend to another city. And, yet, I feel cheerful, determined to have a good break. I plan to work on my job application and not think about my PhD unless my mind drifts there. And, only if my mind drifts there, not out of a sense of panic. Yes, my  life is far from perfect, and bigger troubles may lie ahead, but I am doing the best I can and approaching life with as much positivity and good cheer that I can muster. Surely, there are worse ways to be?

Being Clear About My PhD Problems

 I was messaging with an old friend, and she naturally asked about the progress of my PhD. After updating her, I told her that I will get there one day, but don;t know know if I will be running or crawling past the finish line. On reflection, I would give anything to be crawling right now, simply because I feel like I am writhing. Walking and running seem like unrealistic ambitions at the moment. At the same time, I must be honest about my current situation. Yes, my motivation levels are not particularly high, but my main problem is I am wrestling with a conceptual riddle. I am not whiling away my time watching Netflix in bed. I show up at the office every morning, and stay there till evening. Most of my working happens in my mind and doesn't make its way to paper because of the nature of the problem. Consequently, it may seem like I am not doing much but that is not true, The wheels in my mind are turning. Maybe not as fast as I want them too, maybe they are squeaking too much but they are turning. It is important to remember this whenever I feel like a lazy slacker. 

Private Property

 I have never seen myself as being overly attached to my possessions but one of my housemates makes me feel possessive. Maybe we should have explained to him that we all have our individual cupboards. He just took a fancy to mine and started storing some of his stuff there. I wouldn't have minded but turns out he has been using some of my stuff too. Yesterday, he remarked that there was a giant box of tea bags on one of my shelves as he popped into one. He possibly thought it had been abandoned, and I wasn't too pleased at all. Just the previous day I had indicated that I didn't want him to use my boxes for food storage but had hedged my words so much that he possibly thought I was fine with him using my stuff. To be fair to him, he is always offering me the use of his stuff, but I would just rather we stick to our own stuff, although I do enjoy pinching his milk as a way of getting back at him for his annoying habits. So the question is what is to be done. It is unbelievable how my housemates find new ways to annoy me on an almost daily basis, and it is also unbelievable that I haven't exploded with rage at any of them yet. at least, with the Irish guy he doesn't realise he annoys me in contrast to Betty, who doesn't care or knowingly annoys me (although to be fair to her, she has been very quiet for the past few months. The calm before the storm?). So, I have decided not to say anything unless I am inconvenienced. My sense of private property can be damned. telling him not use my stuff would make me feel petty and possessive, and even if I am those things to some extent, I don't like being made to feel that I am. 

Fortitude Lessons From Sports Psychologists

 I read a piece in The Guardian yesterday which asked sports psychologists for tips on emotional resilience for people who are not elite athletes or sportspeople. Some of the lesson were fairly well-known--break-up big goals into smaller ones, positive self-talk, visualization. But, a less obvious one is thinking through all the possible outcomes of a nerves-inducing event. “I like to go through each consequence and put them to bed, so they’re not going over them in their minds when they need to focus. I’m always surprised that people don’t do this in real life – they just react to what is thrown at them.” I think that makes a lot of sense for overthinkers like myself who struggle if told not to think about something. When I am nervous about something, it often helps me to anticipate all possible outcomes and what I will do in each case. Instead of fixating on what might happen going one step further and thinking about what I will do if that happens. To think of possible solutions to possible problems. It often turns out the worst possible scenario is not that bad after all. And one can always change one's course of action. But, having a tentative plan helps me feel more prepared and in control. To be sure, I am talking of concrete problems and situations, else the list of possible things that could go wrong is endless. And, if one gets stuck in the loop of thinking about possible tragedies that are far-removed from one's current situation, one has to talk oneself back to rationality. I am proud to say that I have become much better at self-talk since the start of the pandemic. Reminding myself to breathe, talking to myself like a close friend would. 

Submitting My PhD And Visiting Home

 As I was lying in bed this morning, I suddenly realised how badly I want to visit home.  The only thing I want more badly is to finish my PhD.  So, that is going to be my priority for the rest of the year--to submit  my PhD and make a trip to India. I had been struggling with the uncertainties in my life--when will I finish my conceptual section, will my supervisor read it in time, will I find a job, should I ask for hourly paid teaching, and if so, when?. It suddenly struck me that the 'worst' possible outcome--no job and no hourly paid teaching wouldn't actually be that bad. I would be able to visit home as soon as I submitted my PhD. In fact, I realised it wasn't the 'worst' outcome, it was just a different outcome with different trade-offs. So, I have decided not to ask for hourly-paid teaching. If it is offered to me, I will think about it. Allow the universe to unfold as it will. I won't be gutted if I don't get a job or hourly teaching next semester and I won't be thrilled if I do. There are so many things that can go wrong that I don't even want to think about it, let alone write about it here. All I can do is focus on what is in my hands, and leave the rest to fate. Give fate a fighting chance, as Allison Krauss implores us to do. 

Housemates

 I never imagined a day would come when bonking Betty would not be my most annoying housemates. That honour now goes to the Irish guy. Earlier this evening, I experienced for the first time a fire alarm going off in England because he was frying burgers to a cinder. Earlier in the day, I was racking my brains to find a way to tell him not to use my food containers. He has plonked some rice into my biggest food container and popped it into the fridge, where I am guessing it will stay until its starts turning brown. He is not ig on private property and keeps telling me I should feel free to use his stuff, so it feels churlish to make him empty the container. But, he is just annoying, my new housemate is weird. Two days ago, he pulled me aside to ask me if he could get into trouble with the law because the Irish guy smokes weed. and, his second question was if he could get into trouble if the Irish guy hid drugs in his room. and, of course, Betty has been quiet as a mouse, like she usually is between explosions. A friend tells me I could write a book with all my housemates stories. At least, I can still find humour in my housing situation most of the time. Annoying housemates are any day preferable to adversarial housemates, who are any day preferable to adversarial live-in landlords. 

Screenless Evenings

This week, I was forced to spend an evening without my laptop. The evening ended with me dozing on and off from 8:30 pm onwards until I eventually went to bed at 9:30 pm. In ordinary times, I would have simply picked up my kindle. But, this week was not an ordinary week, and was feeling too mentally exhausted to read anything I didn't have to.  I had blogged from work, so I didn't feel the need to blog on paper either. I have never understood the romance of writing by hand. Typing on a screen allows you to erase and rewrite without scratching out words. I much prefer it t writing on paper. The only exception is when I make notes from academic books and articles I read. Taking notes on the computer has always felt weird to me. I think its more of a hand-eye coordination thing. Reading on the comuter and taking notes by hand seems like the most natural thing in the world, while doing it the other way around feels very unnatural. Coming back to the point, screenless evenings sound good on paper but are not that good in reality, especially if you are single and when your brain is fried.

Laptop Back In Action

 As I write this, MS Office is installing on my laptop. When the technician said yesterday that he might have to reinstall windows, I was worried that I would have to pay for a new MS office. But, I was able to reinstall both MS Office and my antivirus and remember my passwords for Netflix, Twitter, Amazon, Facebook and Google. After 48 hours, I am back to where I was when my laptop ran out of power and shut down. 48 extremely stressful hours, I might add, as my hemorrhoids flared up too and my stomach felt like it was being churned. That familiar anxiety symptom where your stomach does not fine but you can't point to concrete symptoms either. The number of times I felt like I was falling to pieces, I cannot count. But, just as I was leaving uni to pick up my laptop, the pain subsided as if by magic. And, I also managed to make some progress on my PhD. I know anxiety doesn't disappear like magic. I will continue to feel the aftereffects for a few days at least. Right now, I feel a weariness that no amount of sleep seems capable of alleviating. I sat down to open the tap of tears today, and a few did emerge but it wasn't the most satisfying cry I ever had. I often think about the year when the demons were dancing in my head and in my bod, when I would break into tears as easily as a pig grunts. Maybe I exhausted my tear wells during that year. 

Salvation in Work

This morning, I felt like I was falling to pieces. My laptop conked out last evening, and I was up past midnight trying to get it to work. One of the options, was disconnecting and reconnecting the battery, which entailed taking the whole laptop apart. It took me a good two hours and when I tried to switch it on again, it wouldn't even get to the stage where it was stuck at, which told me that I had screwed up. I spent an agonizing 30 minutes trying to figure out what was wrong, and getting from square minus one back to square one. Naturally, I didn't sleep well last night. A laptop conking out is not an earth-shattering thing, but coming on top of all the other past and present problems and trauma, none of which are earth-shattering on their own, it was too much for me. In the morning, I managed to find a technician who would look at it, but my nerves still felt jangled. Towards noon, I had started to wonder how long I could carry on like this and began to contemplate options stretching from going to India for a visit to tagging along to Cornwall with a friend this weekend. Then, I decided to tried a third option--work. I managed to spend a good few hours immersed in my work. Although my progress was not monumental, I felt much better. I often say to people how glad I am to have had a PhD to keep me occupied through the pandemic. However, over the past few months, I feel like I have stalled, making my PhD more a source of distress than respite from the problems in this world. Today, I felt that the only way to make myself feel better is to work. I don't feel like going to Cornwall, and I don't feel like going to India, not until I finish my PhD.  After two fieldwork trips to India, I had vowed that the next time I visit, it would be without the shadow of an unfinished PhD looming over me. The last time I ran back to India, it was in a different time and I was a different person, even accounting for changes to one's personhood with time. The spectre of that retreat will always haunt me in times of stress even though I have made peace with that event and ceased to be embarrassed by it. I know the pandemic has made everyone' s mental states very volatile, and I might feel very differently a few days or even hours from now. But, for now, the plan is salvation through work. 

Falling Men

News media and social media are awash with pictures and footage of Afghans running alongside and some even clinging tot he sides of departing U.S. military aircraft. The most macabre footage is of two black dots falling from the a plane in mid-air--bodies of men who were presumably clinging to the sides of the plane when it took off. Yes, not hiding in the wheel bays like stowaways but clinging to the sides of a plane as though it were a bus. How desperate (and clueless) does one have to be to take such as a drastic step, with a 100% chance of death? Or did they get caught up in a mass hysteria? The news got me reading about plane stowaways, 3 out of 4 of whom die on the journey. It was pretty gruesome reading. There are many ways to die as a stowaway--being crushed by the retracting wheels of the plane, hypothermia and hypoxia. But, apparently, the most common way is death by falling to the ground close to your destination. People who are not killed by hypothermia or hypoxia lose consciousness. As the plane starts descending to land, temperature and air pressure rises, reversing the hibernation state. But, if that doesn't happen quickly enough, stowaways are still unconscious when the plane lowers its wheels for landing and tumble  to their deaths. 

The Fall of Kabul

Almost 20 years after the US invasion o Afghanistan, Kabul has fallen to a Taliban that is much stronger than it was 20 years ago. The flotsam from other tragedies closer to home will mean this one will be forgotten quite soon. At least, until the first waves of refugees land up at the gates of Europe. One of my housemates from j-school was from Afghanistan and is currently based there. He was one of the most extroverted people I know, and  having been a journalist, I know quite a few. He spoke of a country completely dependent on Western support and unlikely to function otherwise. That was in 2007, and looks like things didn't change much since. Afghanistan was awash with funds from Western governments and he intend to go back and partake of their largesse. But 2007 was the twilight year of the Great Moderation. In a few months, the Global Financial Crisis would erupt and the world has been lurching from one disaster to another ever since. 

Wheels Turning Again?

Yesterday, I wrote that my PhD is like a beached whale. The despair carried over into this morning, and I woke up in the depths of despondency, compounded by the news received last evening that my closest friend in Bristol would be moving away soon. I spent most of the morning on house-keeping activities, which distracted me from but did not dissipate the despair. I made sporadic attempts to work on my PhD, but to little avail. It was only in the late afternoon, that I lay on my bed and felt the wheels in my head start to turn. No brainwave, no Eureka moment, more like a tremor in a limb that has lain lifeless for weeks. I am by no means out of the woods. But, after being paralysed for weeks, even a flicker of movement gives hope that must be jumped on. Hopefully, this is not a false start and the buzzer won't go off tomorrow. But, I am hoping that wheels might, just might, be squeaking into motion. (As my friend Mandy says, keeping everything crossed). 

SOAS Rejection

SOAS rejected me and didn't even bother to inform me. I only learnt about it when I wrote to HR, who sent me a pissy email when I said I expected to be informed even if I was unsuccessful (in more polite words). I wasn't expecting to get through so it didn't come as a shock to me. Prior to the interview, I was wondering how I would cope with the having nothing to look forward to if I don't get the job. But I've realised that the thing that bothers me most is being stuck on my PhD. In the past two and half months, it feels like it has barely budged. The new deadline is two and half months away. I remarked to a friend today that something has got to give, right? I can't spend the next two and a half months doing nothing. I will go mad. Neither can I expect much help  from my  supervisor, who hasn't fully recovered from Covid. My  PhD feels like a beached whale--unwieldy and unyielding. It feels like my life is on hold because of my  PhD, and my PhD is on hold for some mysterious reason, so everything in my life is on hold. I have accepted that nothing is sacred, I am ready to abandon concepts that I have toiled over for months. But, replace them with what exactly?

One Man's Conspiracy Theorist, Is Another Man's Truth Teller

I set out to write a blog about conspiracy theories after a family friend with an advanced science degree forwarded a decidedly unscientific video which propagated a Covid conspiracy theory. I put up an oblique resistance because I was bored but didn't engage beyond a point. To be fair, a lot of people forward videos without watching them, so he may not have even seen the video. But, I hadn't expected him to be a conspiracy theorist. Many people have pointed out that both left-wingers and right-wingers are susceptible to Covid conspiracy theories. Let-wingers because they look at very incident through their capitalism-is-evil lens and right-wingers because they are bat-shit crazy. Each group is animated by a religion-like faith in their respective ideology, be it communism, fascism, white supremacy, etc. But, this family friend is a hippy who works on farms. I haven't interacted much with him recently, but I wouldn't categorize him as either a left-winger or a right-winger, more like an anarchist. Maybe anarchists are susceptible to it too. Prior to the pandemic, I would have tried to argue it out with this family friend. Now, I just can't be bothered. it was difficult enough to convince my mother to take the vaccine. So, I ma just going to adopt the attitude of "Ja, jee le apni zindagi, japte rehe apni conspiracy theory".--"Lead your life as you please, spout conspiracy theories if you wish'. 

Juddering

 I learnt a new word from my first visit to my latest physio today--juddering. It means to shake like a engine would when it is stalling. For some of the new exercises he taught me, I will know I am in a new position when my shoulder starts juddering. And, I suppose, I will know that my shoulder is improving when the juddering reduces in intensity. Of all the physios I visited, he seemed to be the most competent. he is a shoulder expert and I had considered seeing him before I went to my previous physio. But he had a long waiting list, and at that point of time, I was not in a good place mentally and physically. I decided I couldn't wait to do something about my shoulder so I cancelled my appointment with him. Even at the time, I knew I might regret it later. And, now, it is easy to kick myself for the money and time expended on the previous physio. But, the most pointless thing in the world is 20/20 hindsight coupled with amnesia about your previous mental, physical and emotional states. We hold our past selves to higher standards of  stoicness and rationality than our current selves. January and February were difficult months for me and I did my best to cope. Sure, I made some decisions which turned out to be the wrong ones. So what? This is not the first wrong decision I made and it won't be the last. Its no use crying over split milk especially when the floor has been wiped clean and you have opened a new carton. 

On a completely different note, this is my 1000th post. The fact that I have reached this milestone in about three and a half years since I resumed blogging means I have been extremely regular. Not only that, after turning out 247 posts in 2018 and 244 posts in 2019, I was extremely prolific in the annus horribilis I of 2020, churning out 292 posts. I reckon I will end up with a similar number this year, which has been comparably horrible to last year. I am a sucker for milestones but the 1000th post milestone is the biggest one I have celebrated so far. The next 1000 milestone is at least 3 years away, assuming I keep blogging regularly. Who know what life will be like three years from now or if I will even be alive. And, in any case, 2000th post doesn't have the same zing to it as 1000th post. For a comparable zing, I will have to wait for my 10000th post, by which time I will be well into my twilight years and global atmospheric temperatures may be at least 3-4C higher, and all the carnage that comes with that. 

Day 1 of the Final Burst

 Day 1 of the final burst started predictably. Try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to focus. I knew returning to my PhD after a gap of a few weeks would not be easy. I would take some time just to bring myself to the position where I was stuck, before I could even attempt to forge ahead. Understanding why I am stuck and thinking of possible solutions that I had discarded previously for one reasons or another, before i could think of new ones. I am sure there is a more systematic way of going about this. But, the upshot was I did nothing until the afternoon, half-hoping that I would get the rejection from SOAS soon so that I could call it a day and stuff my face with chocolate cake. But the rejection didn't come. Instead, I got a message from someone who teaches at Bristol Uni about a job opening for a three-year lectureship in the economics department, where I hadn't even been short-listed for a more junior one-year position a few months back. The message perked me up. I have been dreading not having anything to look forward to if I get rejected by SOAS. But, whenever one door closes, or even before another door closes, another one opens, if you are lucky. I might not get short-listed for the Bristol job, but that's not the point. The point is its a job that I have a reasonable chance of getting, and the act of applying itself will be beneficial to me. I will be able to tell myself that I am doing the best I can to secure my post-PhD future. And one can always dream of getting a job, at least until the time of the application outcome. And, during hard times, dreams are a big source of sustenance. And, so what if they are dashed? They can always be replaced with new dreams. 

The Last Burst

 Over the past month or so, I have occasionally indulged myself in self-pity, telling myself that I am never going to finish my phD, I am never going to be able to fix my shoulder, and I am never going to get %$#^ again. There is no harm in the occasional wallow in self-pity but this is the time to spring into action. From tomorrow, I start working on the first two "I will never .."s. I have had some time away from my PhD now. It wasn't a vacation,  but I will be able to look at my PhD with fresh if not refreshed eyes. This has been a very lonely journey and I have had to be my own counsellor. My confidence is frayed from successive job rejections and my struggle to finish thePhD. I've had to dig deep into myself and find reserves of fortitude that I didn't know existed. And I have discovered that I am more emotionally resilient than I thought I was. Yes, my PhD has been delayed beyond my wildest fears, yes, I am struggling to find even a temporary job, but I am still here, and that is what counts. Showing up during the lean patches, trying to keep one's spirits up while riding out the storm or riding away from the storm. 

Taking Heart From the Olympics

 Today was the last day of athletics at the Olympics and there were some stellar performances. The Dutch athlete of Ethiopian origin who won the 10000m after winning the 5000m and coming third in the 1500m. She collapsed a few seconds after crossing the finish line. The Russian high-jumper who couldn't compete in Rio because of Russia's doping ban and won gold today under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee. To say the Olympics showcases the triumph of the human spirit against impossible odds is a cliche. But, it is true. Watching uniquely talented and supremely driven athletes win, lose, screw up, cry with joy, cry with disappointment is a heart-warming experience.  And, the stories of injuries, of bad luck, of cruel nicknames given to those who come so close but never make it. The stories of teenagers winning medals on one hand, and of athletes in the twilight of their careers winning a medal for the first time. I often wondered why athletes who never place higher than fifth or sixth bother competing at all, especially in events which have freakishly talented athletes who are miles ahead of them and always will be. Because if they didn't, their lives would be less rich and less fulfilling. It is who they are. I also often wonder about the athletes who celebrate personal bests with as much gusto as if they had won a medal. I suppose because you have to define success on your terms, especially if you are not freakishly talented. Measuring success on your terms sustains one through the tough patches, which could last weeks, months or years. 

Interview Bombed

 I bombed my interview. I was asked questions I wasn't expecting and I had to faff my way out of it. What was supposed to be a 40-minutes interview ended within 25 minutes, which I suppose is never a good sign. The only lesson I can take away from  it is to have a really solid answer ready to the question "Why do you want this job?". I didn't get to talk about my research for as long as I wanted, which might have been a good or bad thing because I wasn't very happy with my research plan. The more I think about it, the less I think I am ready for this job. Starting a job before I finish my PhD or at least I am in the home straight feels dishonest for some reason. So, my predicament is my PhD is not moving ahead, and nothing else in my life will move--dating, jobs--will move forward until I finish my PhD. Maybe I subconsciously decided to bomb at the interview because I am not ready for this job, or in my hearts of hearts I know its not right for me. Just like I bombed the interview for MICA in my final year engineering. If I learnt that I hadn't made it past the interview stage at MICA, I felt gutted, not because I really wanted to join MICA because the future felt like an infinite void. I had no idea what I wanted to do after engineering and I would have to take the trouble to figure it out, and not simply defer decision by a few years by jumping into a Mater's degree. Maybe something simily is cooking this time around too?

Channeling my Inner Adrienne

My last interview was in July 2016 for my PhD scholarship. I was still reeling from the after-effects of Dengue and the demons had started to dance in my head so I was a nervous wreck before the interview. I remember becoming so frazzled while explaining my research proposal from a word document on my desktop. I had prepared for that eventuality and the interviewers didn't realize what I was doing. One of the advantages of online interviews.

I have come a long way from then. I have given a number of presentations and also delivered lectures. It is quite unlikely I will turn into a ball of nerves tomorrow. But, I still try to channel my inner Adrienne in the interview. I love the way she talks in her interviews. Calm, trustworthy, authoritative, exuding good vibes, reassuring her listeners that all will be well. 

Mock Interview

 I had a mock interview with a friend today in preparation for the  SOAS post-doc interview on Friday. It didn't go badly. I realize that I can't anticipate and memorize the answer to every question, and don't need to. I am not a nervous speaker so I can think and answer during an interview. All I need to do is not get frazzled. What I may think is a bad answer might not come across as a bad answer to the interviewers. They can't read my mind to know that I am bull-shitting. The important thing is not to keep a cool head, and not drop the ball. My friend said I came across as confident and articulate. I have also realized that people appreciate structure in a talk. Breaking up one's talk into points makes it more comprehensible, and ease of comprehension scores a lot of points, even if the arguements are not very promising. I am going to try to structure my answers better.  That said, I am not happy with the substance of some of my answers.  Some of that has to do with my past activities, or lack thereof, and there is nothing I can do to fix that now. But, I also feel I am struggling to convey the value of my research to a non-specialist audience. I  am going to talk to my supervisor and get her views about that. 

Athletes Celebrating

Yesterday, I saw the two medal-wining high jumpers embrace each other with a passion that would make new lovers envious. Today, I saw the Indian women's hockey team give a group bear hug to their Dtuch coach after upsetting Australia in the semi-finals. a gesture that wouldn't raise an eyebrow except that these were Indian girls. The sight of athletes celebrating (o being consoled when they miss qualifying/winning by a whisker) is a sight to behold. The utter lack of self-consciousness, being completely swept up in the moment. When you get or don't get something you've worked so hard for, keeping your emotions is the last thing on your mind. I, being someone who is not given to public displays of emotion, wonder what it feels like.

Upper-Caste Pride

 Just now, I saw that a facebook friend had posted about one of her forefathers who was a very high-profile judge in British India. Apparently, he was knighted and such was his influence that trains he was travelling on would leave on his say-so. It got me thinking about when I shared a picture of my grandfather and his family when he was a young boy on a whatsapp group of friends. My great-grandfather had done extremely well in British Indian too. Obviously I take some pride in my illustrious heritage. The question is whether doing so is a manifestation of upper-caste pride. The question is somewhat important because if this is not categorized as a upper-caste pride, it becomes innocuous. My mother, to her credit, doesn't take pride in her gradfathers' exalted status. Her beef with them (I am reasonably sure) is that they collaborated with the British rule. But, did they collaborate simply for material gain or did the caste system also pay a role there. Certain castes were favoured by the British, and did quite well for themselves under British rule. If one's primary affinity was to one's caste, and if said caste was doing well under British rule, what was the problem with British rule?

It is not my place to judge other people's motives for taking pride in their family history. But, at least, in my own case, I have come around to the opinion that my pride in my family heritage is, in fact, upper caste pride.