Cruel elements of fate...

There are some elements which seem to have conspired to make me work and not get distracted for the next couple of months. These were those elements which provided infinite entertainment for me before, either through derision or regular, fond affinity.

TV sitcoms: Yes, I absolutely love F.R.I.E.N.D.S, but when they repeat the same single season (or is it two?...does not matter) for a year and a half, only the most demented fan can keep on watching. By now, every small thing, every tic, every cliche from every episode of that season is familiar to me, and most of the times, I simply get distracted when I am watching it. That cuts off one regular source of entertainment for me that used to be a daily dose of refreshment at 8.00 p.m. The next source, Sex and the City, was until now, an occasion to roll on the floor laughing till I dropped dead. A marvelously ticklish exercise in documenting and mocking pseudofeminism, the show now has sunk to such novel levels of depravity, that my conscience simply cannot stoop to those levels, even by way of mockery, and I cannot bear to be even the most vehement critic of the feminist debacle that is S.A.T.S.

Books: Without any false modesty, I can honestly say that I have read every major book about J. Robert Oppenheimer and nuclear history that has been published until now, an interest that began five years ago. I was hoping that researching him would be an alternative conduit to a rapid PhD., just in case my regular PhD's vagaries defeat me, but life is more cruel than that, and I now have to finish what I started roughly three years ago. In any case, that leaves a pretty large void in my bookspace, since one large source of information has now been exhausted. The man's been dead for thirty nine years, and every minor and trivial event about his life, including (almost) every possible revelation from declassified documents has now been unearthed. I don't believe that another groundbreaking book about him that recounts much new knowledge will now be published, especially after the presto to the symphony; the thoroughly researched and exhaustively documented American Prometheus. Hard to find anything new about him now. That leaves me in search of a new subject to fill my depressing evening hours. Philosophy perhaps? Too eye-glazing for now. I am tempted to explore the new science of evolutionary psychology by way of this book. Time will tell how much I am drawn to it.

Starbucks' Caramel Macchiato coffee: The ravishing fountain of delight that would pep up the most drab of days, no longer seems that alluring. Having tried it twice after coming back, I found that it simply doesn't pack the punch that used to zombie me towards the Starbucks across the street. A big buck-saver nonetheless, this seems like a good omen for my finances and time.

All in all, this seems to be a good augury for me. The academic bell tolls, and while it may be nice to find a few new sources of entertainment to pass the long hours, I don't want to make it too entertaining for my PhD. committee to watch me getting bamboozled during my defense and proposal presentations. So for now, let me largely get distracted by my work...fiendishly hard, isn't it?...