An unsettling 'need'

Received an email from MainSupervisor yesterday:
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Subject: Hello!
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Hi Shane,

How are you? Need to have a chat, do you have a landline I can call you on?

MainSupervisor
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'Gulp!' thought I. Immediately, 'Need to have a chat' struck me as ominous. So I called supervisor - no answer or voicemail facility. Arse! Quickly, to email. No response to that within 5 minutes. Thus, I texted MainSupervisor. In the couple of hours that passed before MainSupervisor eventually called, I had had time to come up with the following list of possible reasons for needing to have a chat:-

- A glitch had been spotted re my supervision fees, a-hem, and supervisor was being hassled re this
- University admin were giving supervisor grief re the time taken for me to complete the PhD
- Other supervisor was not well, or worse
- SpecificFormerColleagueChum was not well, or worse
- A job had come up in the department and I was to be sounded-out re that, or worse
- Where was my next piece of writing?
- Main supervisor had found another job and would soon be leaving the university

The call came. 'Is this going to be an ominous chat?' I asked.
'I'll get straight to the point' came the response.
'Oh fuck, it is' thought I. Brace brace brace!!!

Looking ahead to the viva (examination by word of mouth) that will follow the thesis completion, I was told that the internal examiner who had been suggested would not be available for she would soon be off to sunnier academic climes. 'Is that all?' thought I. Seems that MainSupervisor had had a bit of a wobble re this.

'Have you had any thoughts re a possible replacement?' I asked.
'Well, I don't know how you'd feel about this but we were wondering how you might feel about VaguelyKnownBloke, you don't need to tell me now - just have a think about it-'
'Sounds fine, let's go with that' I interjected.
'Oh! Is there anything that you don't feel sure about in relation to VaguelyKnownBloke?'
'No. He's always struck me as an utterly reasonable person - has never struck me as having a point to prove'.
'Yeah, I think you're right, and I think he'd work well with MootedExternalExaminer'
'Well that sounds good'

The wave of relief that surged through me was quite spectacular. The chat was useful in reminding me of my main priority - getting the bloody thesis finished - a notion that guided the birth of this blog. And on that point, should the blog be continued post-PhDing, a new blog identity has been determined for that time.