My gut feel always wins.
When Priti had to visit India for her thesis submission and defense in January, she was certain that everything would be over by end of April. The logic went like this – thesis submission deadline in January end, and in best cases the report comes back in 2 months, add one extra week for defense and 3 weeks to visit family and she would be free. But come on, a PhD in India which takes around 7 slow-motion years, we can’t expect deadlines and best cases to work back to back, can we ?
So in the back of my mind I thought if I had booked the ticket from January to September, it would be MUCH easier to prepone when she would be packed up to fly immediately. Rather we hoped everything would be over by April end, maybe a little later which could be adjusted once free of penalties. But postponing is always an uncertain thing to do than preponing, as our luck turned out. Thanks to her irresponsible advisor who decided to take a summer trip out of country in May, being fully aware of our plight and timing hell. The defense can’t happen without her, she comes back in August, and the validity of the already postponed ticket is till July first week.
Lesson learnt: For a trip out of country with uncertain return dates, book longer than you will possibly need with provision of one free adjustment.
The fault is mine to not follow my instincts.
#1 by Parasmani on May 11, 2009 - 9:44 am
I feel sorry about what happened but thanks for the reminder, the”heads up”.