Today was such a heavy day. I went to the office with partial motivation which is also slowly decreasing as per the uncertainty in my PhD thesis. In the department, there was not many people from the research group as the boss did not come. After I reached there, I was mostly messing around with my work computer: opening and closing tabs in the browsers, checking emails, opening the terminal, and running simulations.

I was also checking the latest news from Trump–my recent fascination–which makes me laugh because he has such good humor. It’s amazing to see such a funny character as a ruler of a allegedly powerful country.

After an hour of passing time, I had a thought about my thesis that panicked me a little. Following this thought, more troubling ideas about my failure appeared. However, as I am relatively strong with my mind, I did not let it slide into a full panic attack. Yet this negative thinking affected my mood, further downgrading my motivation to work and call it a day. The result was me leaving the office earlier in the afternoon, and it is not normal. Later, I attended an obligatory online meeting which lasted almost two hours, draining the rest of my energy.

I have mentioned previously in other posts that it is a bit depressing time where I often ruminate about how much further I can handle the pressure of finishing my PhD. Even though I fulfilled all the required criteria in advance including writing a thesis and publishing articles, I could not submit my thesis without the permission of my supervisor. The thesis is still under review–may be at the nth iteration as I do not remember now–for almost a year with no certainty of finishing. It makes me angry as I can not do anything but wait, and have a hope that this will end soon.

There was a time when I used to dream of being a Physicist. I pushed hard to fulfill that dream but now it is turning into a nightmare. In one way, I have built my own hell.