"Yes, I'm fine. Yes, I'm eating well. No, not sleeping all that much, but it's okay, it's just all the flux. I mean the literary flux, not the magnetic flux that I'm surrounded with all the time at work! But it's all good, it's moving ahead, it's starting to converge, it's starting to make sense, I have leads, I have a direction, and you know what? I have a sense of where I want to take this research even if I don't know where I'll be in a year from now."
All of this is running through my head, skipping along the gyri and sulci of the cortex in my frontal lobe, maybe. The words tripping from my tongue into the microphone of my cellphone, so people on the other side of the world hear it and know I'm alright even if I look "tired", "ill" and "underfed". (For the record: No, I'm neither.)
But maybe my brain has an agenda of its own. Maybe there's a set of thoughts up there that are ever-so-slightly rippling, questioning me and my preparation. I have a dream... , a recurring dream. I am giving my final dissertation defense when suddenly the environment transforms into my college in Bombay. The very committee changes into my old teachers. As I watch, stunned, I am informed that I haven't got my Bachelor's degree yet, so I need to go back and repeat the final year. Again? Yes, again. So I slog and work and give all the exams, and I flunk them. Every single one of them. And I
know that I had
almost made the PhD. But then I lost it ... once more.
The funny thing is, I know I am on sound turf. I feel fairly sure that, barring life-altering situations, the mat won't be pulled from under my feet again. I know I am in a much better position to predict my roadmap now than I have ever been before. We've gone over all this so many times, in so many conversations with Fi, with
My Advisor, lately with a colleague and family too. I know I am backed so well now, emotionally, financially, resource-wise, help-wise. I know it and I feel it too. I think, though, that my brain is flashing back to the last time I was at this stage, feeling settled (finally) when I suddenly felt the tremor of an earthquake and found I was standing ... on thin air. (Oh, that I were a cartoon character!)
"Poor brain, you've got to remember this is 2010, and you're nearly three years ahead of where you were that day. You've got to have more faith - not only in yourself but also in
the others around you. This time they won't let you down!"
