For the last three or four months, I have just not felt like reading anything. I have not stopped reading…but that which I read has been random stuff. My comprehensive exams are not far away, and I am in no mood to do any sustained work. Infact, I came to the office with the idea of reading and writing a paper; instead, I am writing this blog post.
Part of the problem is that I’ve run out of exciting new books. I dont claim that there are none around – but I have not been able to lay my hands on one. Unfortunately, one does not get to know what’s exciting untill one gets our hands on it. Further, with my exams around the corner, I am trying to avoid books and articles that are not related to my work. After all, one tends to finish all the highly talked off books to begin with. As time goes, I find books progressively boring and repetitive.
I hear that life gets rather difficult for a Ph.D. student towards the end. One would have worked on a narrow topic for so long that it tends to loose all meaning and sense of pleasure. The longer we drag it, the more difficult it starts becoming to finish it.
I am mentally preparing myself to put up with this for another 3 months. Once my comps are done, I should hopefully fly back to India to start my field work. A formar teacher of mine used to remind me constantly, “rest is nothing but change in activity”. Hopefully, the change in activity in form of hectic field work will take my mind away till I am bored with it and I start yearning to read again!
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