Hey, there!
A few weeks ago, I had an idea for a new entry, but I never really started writing it. I procrastinated and convinced myself that I had no time to write. At the time, it was partially true. I mean, I had to finish up the corrections to my proposal, I had to make sure I was prepared for my trip to Germany, and I was really, really busy with hyping myself up for Captain America: Civil War.
So, yeah. But today I had just successfully spent more than 13 waking hours of doing absolutely nothing ... and it pains me. And that's why I told myself that if I wanted to go to sleep tonight not feeling like a total waste of space, I had better produce something - anything.
And that is why we are here.
Now, for this entry, I will have to start you guys off with a formal definition of a term many people use very loosely. This term will be essential to the topic today and I urge you to familiarize yourself with it before you proceed with the entry.
Yes, today I will be talking about some pretty ironic things in my life that has brought me to the single room dorm I am currently living in throughout my stay in Germany.
The story doesn't go too far back. Back in 2009, I found myself in sort of a creative spurt. I had been writing a lot, drawing a lot and begun to take an interest in music, but my affinity was mainly towards writing. I loved literature and linguistics was something I aspired to pursue for my higher education. But of course coming from a typical Asian family, dabbling in something other than the sciences was not an option. So I chose the path of least resistance and took on Mathematics. It was the thing I knew how to do the most and seeing as my mom was a Math lecturer, I guess it wouldn't be too bad. Plus, Math was easy.
Fast forward to present day and I still constantly find myself in an existential crisis. On one hand, I've been doing excellent. Over the past few years I've been doing a lot of writing: about music, photography, travel and recently dipping my toes into fashion editorials. It's been a great ride and I'm happy that I've been able to somehow turn my initially indifferent decision into something that I can really say I'm thankful for.
But on the other hand, having to do things like spend hours and hours of reading about things I don't really care about for my research and having to push myself week in and week out to meet deadlines has been quite stressful. A lot of the times I just have absolutely no idea on how to progress and feel like all this might just amount to nothing (spiritually and emotionally). Sometimes, I just have to find really materialistic and physical reasons to keep on doing what I do, even though it makes me miserable.
And the ironic thing is: I am currently doing what my 17 year-old self thought he wanted to do: linguistics.
My Master's degree research is about formal languages. Of course, not the "linguistics" I had in mind, but it is also the study of languages. There's grammars and constructs and all kinds of things that I still really don't have a grasp on. And because it's theoretical, there is SO MUCH WRITING! Definitions and theorems are so easy to learn but creating them and making sure they work are so tough!
I get mad at myself for not being able to catch things as quickly as I used to. Maybe it's because it's all so new and everyone I meet is so good at it. Like, I presented some fundamental work I did to the professors here in Germany and two days later, we have a draft for a new paper that they want to publish next month. /WHAT THE HELL?/ I never thought I had this problem but I might have a little inferiority complex and it has, at times, caused me to just not want to try at all.
But, as awful as this may sound, it's also odd how 2016 has been the total opposite of what I envisioned. When I started my Master's, I thought to myself:
Don't get me wrong, I am so goddamn busy, but because of my Master's degree, I get to travel to so many places.
So, yeah. I'm at a point of constant dilemmas and long nights of self-contemplation. It is so hard to know what exactly it is that I want from my life and whenever I corner myself into a situation where I can't figure a way out, I just tell myself to just do what I have to do right now and let life run its course.
In short, the irony in all this is that I now feel like I don't want to do what I thought I wanted to do, but by doing what I think I don't want to do, I get to do the things I thought I didn't get to do.
Well, who would've thought it figures?
A few weeks ago, I had an idea for a new entry, but I never really started writing it. I procrastinated and convinced myself that I had no time to write. At the time, it was partially true. I mean, I had to finish up the corrections to my proposal, I had to make sure I was prepared for my trip to Germany, and I was really, really busy with hyping myself up for Captain America: Civil War.
#TeamCap till the end of the line.
Yes, that is The Falcon taking a selfie with a whole bunch of fans, including me.
So, yeah. But today I had just successfully spent more than 13 waking hours of doing absolutely nothing ... and it pains me. And that's why I told myself that if I wanted to go to sleep tonight not feeling like a total waste of space, I had better produce something - anything.
And that is why we are here.
Now, for this entry, I will have to start you guys off with a formal definition of a term many people use very loosely. This term will be essential to the topic today and I urge you to familiarize yourself with it before you proceed with the entry.
irony
noun | iro·ny | \ˈī-rə-nē also ˈī(-ə)r-nē\
: a situation that is strange or funny because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what you expected
Source: Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary
Yes, today I will be talking about some pretty ironic things in my life that has brought me to the single room dorm I am currently living in throughout my stay in Germany.
The story doesn't go too far back. Back in 2009, I found myself in sort of a creative spurt. I had been writing a lot, drawing a lot and begun to take an interest in music, but my affinity was mainly towards writing. I loved literature and linguistics was something I aspired to pursue for my higher education. But of course coming from a typical Asian family, dabbling in something other than the sciences was not an option. So I chose the path of least resistance and took on Mathematics. It was the thing I knew how to do the most and seeing as my mom was a Math lecturer, I guess it wouldn't be too bad. Plus, Math was easy.
Fast forward to present day and I still constantly find myself in an existential crisis. On one hand, I've been doing excellent. Over the past few years I've been doing a lot of writing: about music, photography, travel and recently dipping my toes into fashion editorials. It's been a great ride and I'm happy that I've been able to somehow turn my initially indifferent decision into something that I can really say I'm thankful for.
But on the other hand, having to do things like spend hours and hours of reading about things I don't really care about for my research and having to push myself week in and week out to meet deadlines has been quite stressful. A lot of the times I just have absolutely no idea on how to progress and feel like all this might just amount to nothing (spiritually and emotionally). Sometimes, I just have to find really materialistic and physical reasons to keep on doing what I do, even though it makes me miserable.
And the ironic thing is: I am currently doing what my 17 year-old self thought he wanted to do: linguistics.
My Master's degree research is about formal languages. Of course, not the "linguistics" I had in mind, but it is also the study of languages. There's grammars and constructs and all kinds of things that I still really don't have a grasp on. And because it's theoretical, there is SO MUCH WRITING! Definitions and theorems are so easy to learn but creating them and making sure they work are so tough!
I get mad at myself for not being able to catch things as quickly as I used to. Maybe it's because it's all so new and everyone I meet is so good at it. Like, I presented some fundamental work I did to the professors here in Germany and two days later, we have a draft for a new paper that they want to publish next month. /WHAT THE HELL?/ I never thought I had this problem but I might have a little inferiority complex and it has, at times, caused me to just not want to try at all.
But, as awful as this may sound, it's also odd how 2016 has been the total opposite of what I envisioned. When I started my Master's, I thought to myself:
"Just get this done this year and you can have all the fun you want later."In my mind, I thought that 2016 would be the year I would just stay at home, do my work, finish my thesis and not travel anywhere because I would be so goddamn busy.
Don't get me wrong, I am so goddamn busy, but because of my Master's degree, I get to travel to so many places.
- In January, I got to stay in KL for two weeks for my research attachment at IIUM.
- Last month, I got to take a vacation to Jogjakarta using my scholarship savings and see #TeamCap in Singapore.
- Right now I'm in Germany doing another research attachment.
- At the end of the month I'll be going to Belgium and France on my way back to Malaysia.
- In July I'll be presenting a poster at a conference in Bali.
- And then in September, I might be attending a conference in Terengganu!
So, yeah. I'm at a point of constant dilemmas and long nights of self-contemplation. It is so hard to know what exactly it is that I want from my life and whenever I corner myself into a situation where I can't figure a way out, I just tell myself to just do what I have to do right now and let life run its course.
In short, the irony in all this is that I now feel like I don't want to do what I thought I wanted to do, but by doing what I think I don't want to do, I get to do the things I thought I didn't get to do.
Well, who would've thought it figures?
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