In the vlog I am watching at the minute, Casey turns to the camera and says that his days are super consistent – which caused concerns for him about the sustainability of his daily vlogging endeavour. Yet he pulled it off. My days are very inconsistent. They throw up surprises. Although I spend some time writing e-mails, e-mail writing takes place during a chunk of my day, with meetings & active research taking place throughout the rest. Hopefully that means the blogging isn’t unsustainable. I have broader concerns about the blog as a medium. As my own attention span declines and I become more of an auditory learner who enjoys listening to podcasts/videos as I write/work, I find that I read blogs a lot lesser – and frequently not at one go. Since the newsletter will incorporate all the visuals and audio, I’m hoping the blog can continue as a text-only space. I will continue to keep at this because I find joy in daily storytelling.
This morning was an uninterrupted work-session. The afternoon brought a few meetings, including with a faculty member I enjoy checking-in with once a Term. My biggest takeaway from today’s meeting is that I need to avoid running before walking. I love multitasking and being a multitasker, but this past year I have overstretched myself far too much. It is not just taking on too many projects and being unable to deliver high-quality work on all of them (one or two have suffered). It’s also the continuous feeling of looking to the next thing at all times rather than being able to enjoy the present task without worry/fear of what was to come. I do not think I will stop multitasking (insofar as I will have videos on while writing for example), but I do think I will live/work a little closer to the moment. All of this emerged in a specific context. I said I needed to think about the post-doc while doing my PhD research, which is when I received this advise. I do need to do a good PhD for anything to happen after that. I need to remind myself of that continuously. With all projects. It is only if I execute one project to a high-level of diligence that the next-project will come. It always comes. I can’t let standards drop now.
I was able to video-call my family from the centre of Cambridge, near the market, and speak with them with King’s Parade in the background. When the sun’s shining, it’s idyllic. From there, I went with Kannadiga friends for a dinner filled with dosa and good conversation about Karnataka politics and cinema. These are two subjects I know very little about, but I have become more interested in since I moved to the UK. Alongside my efforts to learn Kannada, which I am documenting under the “Projects” section of this website, I am really hoping to learn a lot more about the history of the State and its current circumstances. This crowd really helps with that.
A sweet chai (quite literally) later, I was back home to respond to messages, watch Friends, and crash.
Tejas Rao 