Drinks With Friends

Yesterday, I went out for drinks with a friend and a few of his friends, and surprise, surprise wanted to stay there longer than him. Introverted me usually leaps at the chance to make an early exit. But, I was enjoying myself, and it was a nice evening in the midst of a gruelling few weeks. Since my weekly teaching is frontloaded, I don't have much time to socialize over the weekends. And, my priority is to finish the bulk of my PHD before Christmas so that I can visit India without having it hanging over my head. I tried working on my PhD today, and barely manged to budge it. I feel like I am going around in circles because I keep running into the same roadblocks again and again. I haven't had an interrupted run at finishing my PhD since July, and the problem with this stop-start game is it takes days to come back to where you had left it off. Moving ahead from Square 1 is difficult enough, made doubly frustrating by the fact that you have to make some effort to get to to Square 1. Maybe I am just making excuses. Maybe I would still be in the same place even if I had no job applications to distract me. It really does feel like I am writing this PhD with my blood. I have given up hopes of hitting that sweet soft from which point onwards everything just falls into place. Now, its about showing up and trying to budge your PhD forward by a few inches.