As I was scrolling down the list of old posts, I found A Little Summary of my life that I had written about 18 months ago.
I want to do another 'little summary' now.
I am almost a year into my PhD. When the last 'little summary' was written, I had just completed the Honours year.
Honours was really hard, even on hindsight. I don't have much memory of it, probably because I was traumatised. Instead of spending one year/2 semesters (8-9 months actually), I took a break after the first semester. If you have been following my blog, you would know why. It was the darkest period of my life.
I had just gotten my permanent residency at that time. I was beginning to make up my mind to remain and settle down here.
I had also just broken up. Like finally, officially, effectively broken up. I had finally convinced myself that enough is enough. It was my very first relationship. I was very heart broken.
I told myself that I wanted to be happy, to get rid of the blues. I wanted to be 'cool', to 'embrace' my sexuality. I went to the sauna one afternoon, and the unfortunate happened.
I had anxiety issues, and was depressed. I thought I was going to get infected with HIV. Eventually, I decided that I needed a break.
Fast forward six months later, it was really God's grace that I had the courage and determination to continue and complete the Honours program. It was hard. I felt as if I was 'empty' inside. I had to soldier on. I went to the library almost every day at the beginning of the year to plough through annual reports. I also had Grindr, and Jack'D installed on my phone and I would check them every 15 mins or so, hoping that someone gorgeous would talk to me, and ideally someone who's not superficial and really like the not so gorgeous me.
I didn't know what I was looking for. I don't think it was sex. I simply needed attention i guess? I had also almost given up on hoping that I would ever have a second relationship. I think I did try to go to the gym very frequently, and I was stocking on canned tunas, protein drinks, etc.
I wasn't sure how things worked, but simply decided to believe that as long as I had a good body, people would notice me, people would love me, and then I would be a happy person again. Actually, I still don't know how things work to be honest, but let's not get there for now.
Then Jay appeared. He texted me on Jack'D. A few days later, we met up. Dinner, followed by cake and coffee. We shook hands, then we said bye to each other. And we met up again, and again, and suddenly one night, on a bench in a random park, I was sleeping on his lap.
Jay had been the source of my motivation, the fuel. We would talk on the phone almost every night. And I would complain of stress every night, to him. He would say all the encouraging words he could possibly think of.
Fast forward a few months later, I made it!!! I finally was at the end of the tunnel. The sky was so blue.
We were both very happy. We waited and waited and waited. I was finally done.
The stress-free me is the most gorgeous me. There won't be pus-filled almost exploding pimples. There were jokes, ideas, positivity in me and around me.
I met some of his friends. We went out. We even made macarons.
But the happy days didn't last long. Not long after I submitted my thesis, I was already thinking about my next steps. What should I do? How am I going to feed myself? What is my passion?
We started having disagreements. We had different views. To me, the 'right' path was already laid in front of me. The University. The Academia. Somehow, I forgot I was just risen up from hell. The lure of getting two alphabets before my name. Being an academic was something to be proud of, and it pays good, so why not I thought.
I spent a semester teaching. The job was good. The money was good. My stress level should be down too right? But no. I was co-authoring a paper with my supervisor, though not as stressful as Honours.
I started complaining about my stress again. Writing is a daunting task. Not writing a blog post like this. English aside, no one can claim that he knows my life better than I do. But academic writing is different, very different. There are so many experts for everything. To earn more money, I put my hands up for extra marking. And suddenly, I was a busy person again. I had to read and write on weekends, or do marking.
He works standard business hours. And he's not a student nor an academic. He is totally free at night, or at least his mind is free from work-related matters and stress. I, on the other hand, had to work almost every night. Simply because I had so much to do, and I preferred to work at night. I am more a night person.
After spending a semester getting a stint as a teacher and a 'researcher', I decided to sign up for the PhD. Advice I gathered was that PhD should be 'breezier' simply because one has 4 years to write 80,000 words as opposed to 9 months for 20,000 words. And, after honours, one already should have a better idea of what research is.
But that was very far from the truth. In the last 12 months, I had to churn out countless written works, in the form of proposals, assignments, presentations, article reviews, notes to my supervisors, etc. I had to learn the language. Things people just threw at you assuming that you would know: social constructionism, epistemology, ontology, positivist, blah blah blah. And the hardest thing is, no one can tell you ONE book that is capable of explaining everything correctly and easily. You have to read so much, and most of the time spent on reading not-so-relevant stuff, before you finally get to the fountain of truth.
There is a constant feeling that I am simply not up to it. I later learned that this feeling is termed the imposter syndrome and that many PhD students are suffering from it. And it's normal.
Put simply, I got out from a tunnel, and now I am simply at the beginning of another one, a much longer tunnel. And I also don't know what to expect at the end of It.
ALL THESE, could have been much more manageable, if I am not a fucking weakling!
I have chronic sleep onset insomnia. For more than 10 years already, I could never sleep like you, like normal people. I cannot fall asleep for at least an hour after I get onto my bed. And most likely, it's not just the quantity of sleep, but the quality of sleep too (I recently had a sleep study done, but more on that in the future).
Let me tell you how my typical day looked like in the past.
- Wake up, yawn.
- Coffee
- Go to work, or study, yawning all the way
- After lunch, nap
- Sometimes can nap sometimes cannot nap (depends on stress level)
- Wake up after nap feeling refreshed, quickly do work, study
- Work until late night, watch Youtube, Skype, Facebook, then try to do all sorts of things to help me sleep
- cycle continues.
The only thing that is different now is that I don't take naps anymore, and starting this year, I try to not do any work at night.
When I get to go out with Jay, normally on weekends, the moment I see him, I will tell him
- I failed to sleep last night
- I am feeling tired, *repeated throughout the day I am with him
- I don't feel like doing this or that
- I don't feel like sex
- Can you massage me please?
Sometimes I really do feel that it is unfair for him. Who would have expected all these stress/sleep/tired issues from someone my age?
The thing is, when I say I am stressed, I don't mean it like
- school kids having 2 essays to write for the weekend
- or 3 spelling tests to do tomorrow
- or for adults, not being able to contact your customers, or for a shift worker, having to wake up at 2am to work.
I feel like no one truly understands what I mean and how I feel when I say I am stressed. And I feel like the further I proceed, the more 'lost' I am.
I don't know what I can do, despite the fact that I know I am not happy. Right now, I am really not happy with my life!
I also don't know what I can expect from Jay. And I don't know what being in a relationship is supposed to mean. But before that, I need to know whether I am in a relationship or not.
I want to do another 'little summary' now.
I am almost a year into my PhD. When the last 'little summary' was written, I had just completed the Honours year.
Honours was really hard, even on hindsight. I don't have much memory of it, probably because I was traumatised. Instead of spending one year/2 semesters (8-9 months actually), I took a break after the first semester. If you have been following my blog, you would know why. It was the darkest period of my life.
I had just gotten my permanent residency at that time. I was beginning to make up my mind to remain and settle down here.
I had also just broken up. Like finally, officially, effectively broken up. I had finally convinced myself that enough is enough. It was my very first relationship. I was very heart broken.
I told myself that I wanted to be happy, to get rid of the blues. I wanted to be 'cool', to 'embrace' my sexuality. I went to the sauna one afternoon, and the unfortunate happened.
I had anxiety issues, and was depressed. I thought I was going to get infected with HIV. Eventually, I decided that I needed a break.
Fast forward six months later, it was really God's grace that I had the courage and determination to continue and complete the Honours program. It was hard. I felt as if I was 'empty' inside. I had to soldier on. I went to the library almost every day at the beginning of the year to plough through annual reports. I also had Grindr, and Jack'D installed on my phone and I would check them every 15 mins or so, hoping that someone gorgeous would talk to me, and ideally someone who's not superficial and really like the not so gorgeous me.
I didn't know what I was looking for. I don't think it was sex. I simply needed attention i guess? I had also almost given up on hoping that I would ever have a second relationship. I think I did try to go to the gym very frequently, and I was stocking on canned tunas, protein drinks, etc.
I wasn't sure how things worked, but simply decided to believe that as long as I had a good body, people would notice me, people would love me, and then I would be a happy person again. Actually, I still don't know how things work to be honest, but let's not get there for now.
Then Jay appeared. He texted me on Jack'D. A few days later, we met up. Dinner, followed by cake and coffee. We shook hands, then we said bye to each other. And we met up again, and again, and suddenly one night, on a bench in a random park, I was sleeping on his lap.
Jay had been the source of my motivation, the fuel. We would talk on the phone almost every night. And I would complain of stress every night, to him. He would say all the encouraging words he could possibly think of.
Fast forward a few months later, I made it!!! I finally was at the end of the tunnel. The sky was so blue.
We were both very happy. We waited and waited and waited. I was finally done.
The stress-free me is the most gorgeous me. There won't be pus-filled almost exploding pimples. There were jokes, ideas, positivity in me and around me.
I met some of his friends. We went out. We even made macarons.
But the happy days didn't last long. Not long after I submitted my thesis, I was already thinking about my next steps. What should I do? How am I going to feed myself? What is my passion?
We started having disagreements. We had different views. To me, the 'right' path was already laid in front of me. The University. The Academia. Somehow, I forgot I was just risen up from hell. The lure of getting two alphabets before my name. Being an academic was something to be proud of, and it pays good, so why not I thought.
I spent a semester teaching. The job was good. The money was good. My stress level should be down too right? But no. I was co-authoring a paper with my supervisor, though not as stressful as Honours.
I started complaining about my stress again. Writing is a daunting task. Not writing a blog post like this. English aside, no one can claim that he knows my life better than I do. But academic writing is different, very different. There are so many experts for everything. To earn more money, I put my hands up for extra marking. And suddenly, I was a busy person again. I had to read and write on weekends, or do marking.
He works standard business hours. And he's not a student nor an academic. He is totally free at night, or at least his mind is free from work-related matters and stress. I, on the other hand, had to work almost every night. Simply because I had so much to do, and I preferred to work at night. I am more a night person.
After spending a semester getting a stint as a teacher and a 'researcher', I decided to sign up for the PhD. Advice I gathered was that PhD should be 'breezier' simply because one has 4 years to write 80,000 words as opposed to 9 months for 20,000 words. And, after honours, one already should have a better idea of what research is.
But that was very far from the truth. In the last 12 months, I had to churn out countless written works, in the form of proposals, assignments, presentations, article reviews, notes to my supervisors, etc. I had to learn the language. Things people just threw at you assuming that you would know: social constructionism, epistemology, ontology, positivist, blah blah blah. And the hardest thing is, no one can tell you ONE book that is capable of explaining everything correctly and easily. You have to read so much, and most of the time spent on reading not-so-relevant stuff, before you finally get to the fountain of truth.
There is a constant feeling that I am simply not up to it. I later learned that this feeling is termed the imposter syndrome and that many PhD students are suffering from it. And it's normal.
Put simply, I got out from a tunnel, and now I am simply at the beginning of another one, a much longer tunnel. And I also don't know what to expect at the end of It.
ALL THESE, could have been much more manageable, if I am not a fucking weakling!
I have chronic sleep onset insomnia. For more than 10 years already, I could never sleep like you, like normal people. I cannot fall asleep for at least an hour after I get onto my bed. And most likely, it's not just the quantity of sleep, but the quality of sleep too (I recently had a sleep study done, but more on that in the future).
Let me tell you how my typical day looked like in the past.
- Wake up, yawn.
- Coffee
- Go to work, or study, yawning all the way
- After lunch, nap
- Sometimes can nap sometimes cannot nap (depends on stress level)
- Wake up after nap feeling refreshed, quickly do work, study
- Work until late night, watch Youtube, Skype, Facebook, then try to do all sorts of things to help me sleep
- cycle continues.
The only thing that is different now is that I don't take naps anymore, and starting this year, I try to not do any work at night.
When I get to go out with Jay, normally on weekends, the moment I see him, I will tell him
- I failed to sleep last night
- I am feeling tired, *repeated throughout the day I am with him
- I don't feel like doing this or that
- I don't feel like sex
- Can you massage me please?
Sometimes I really do feel that it is unfair for him. Who would have expected all these stress/sleep/tired issues from someone my age?
The thing is, when I say I am stressed, I don't mean it like
- school kids having 2 essays to write for the weekend
- or 3 spelling tests to do tomorrow
- or for adults, not being able to contact your customers, or for a shift worker, having to wake up at 2am to work.
I feel like no one truly understands what I mean and how I feel when I say I am stressed. And I feel like the further I proceed, the more 'lost' I am.
I don't know what I can do, despite the fact that I know I am not happy. Right now, I am really not happy with my life!
I also don't know what I can expect from Jay. And I don't know what being in a relationship is supposed to mean. But before that, I need to know whether I am in a relationship or not.
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