God, yesterday I clicked "Publish Post" instead of "Save Now", so a
semi-edited post appeared in readers all over the globe! *gasp* Well, it's okay because (1) I know how many subscribers I have and I'm sure half of them are from my previous testing of various RSS readers, while the other half are bots, (2) I doubt anything is offensive, maybe except the length and grammar/punctuation errors. Anyway, FYI, I have several posts stored in "draft" that I don't intend to "publish" and this was going to be one of those. But, since it went out, it might as well stay out in case some poor soul out there is panicking about whether or not I "un"-published it for other reasons. And also, what the hell, who gives a shit? Maybe someone out there wants to read about ME. Bafflement.
*** resolutions ***
June, 2010 and the resolution I am excelling at is practising playing the guitar on a regular basis. The learning is straight-forward, as it is just memorising where your fingers go, a rhythm and practising it so that you don't have to think about it consciously any more. As that begins to happen, you can start singing along, which is enjoyable. Over time, the fingers in your left hand increase in strength and form callouses at the tips, while your right hand/arm relaxes during strumming and your ear becomes better tuned. For some reason, my sitting position renders my left leg numb after an hour of practising.
Wrt sleeping, I am almost always in bed by 11:30 p.m. (improvement from last year), but sleep has not been easy. I definitely do not get up at 6 a.m. In fact, I find it difficult to get up. I think this pattern was worst after Beijing/Kyoto* (I am not sure why I found so many things during that trip upsetting), but the past 3 nights or so have been quite good, as in, I feel warm and comfy and wake up about 20 mins before my alarm. I am still playing catch-up and I still wake-up in the middle of the night, but the warm, rested feeling is there, which is good. :)
I am completing the Run Auckland Series, but I am not exercising twice a week and likely, less than once a week, when you take into account the weekends I spent finishing a poster, entertaining family, overseas (though I ran in Beijing) or bashing my head against the lab wall/bench (not many as last year, I must admit).
I am no longer driving on a regular basis.
I stopped biting my nails for months, but have started again.
iPod-listening is back to baseline. But next week, I'll try to stop again.
I have stopped Twittering since May 5 (with the exception of one post promoting my sister). Apparently, I still feel the need to express myself on the evil Facebook, though I might have at least halved my activity. The goal is still to stop the nonsense completely (except for at home, although technically, that is wasting time, too). One strategy I have is keeping a paper and my lit. review open, so I have something to do when I forget I am not idle (i.e. procrastinate). I am not sure why I Fb, since 90% of the stuff is completely useless to me, but I guess sometimes I will write something and wait for people to comment. I guess if I make more of an effort in my real social life, I won't feel the need to be social online. well, apparently talking and hugs will boost my oxytocin. Why don't they make that in a pill or a morning omelette? Honestly.
*** blogging ***
Well, you may have noticed (or not) that I hadn't blogged in 3 months. Well, I avoided it, because I was:
- embarrassed about my stupid/repetitive thoughts
- worried it contributed to my "over-thinking" by giving me a medium to dwell and a reason to analyse
- worried that it would divert time from the Ph.D. and/or sleep
- worried it was removing any motivation to talk to real people
- too angry/sad/tired about most things and didn't know how to express it
- actually keeping busy with guitar/painting/reading/writing/etc./etc.
But you know what? It's one of my outlets and it sort of works (minus the oxytocin thing).
*** anger/sadness ***
The problem: I am often angry/irritable and sad/easily-upset.
The approach:
- Find out what is causing these feelings: (a) external stimulus, (b) internal reaction; and/or
- Find practical strategies to avoid these feelings: e.g. (a) assertive response, (b) compassion
I guess (1) is "why" (and a psychological black hole), while (2) is "how". I tend to think (2) is more important and harder (refer Resolutions above), while (1) is sort of easy in that you can invoke almost anything and rationalise it and you can go on forever down that psychological spiral of "causation" and not derive anything useful (see below). But you can use (1) to guide (2), I suppose.
(1) No cause, no problem: Is this even a problem? Maybe this is normal (part of life). Maybe I create the anger and sadness as excuses not to try harder.
(2) PhD/Science: I should know that it would be hard: experiments are tough, thought even tougher and scientists the toughest. I should know, but maybe I didn't know and getting to know is disrupting the framework in my brain.
Experiments - I find it frustrating that I've had recurring problems, some of which I still cannot fix by myself. Sometimes I feel it is beyond my control, but I believe that it. is. my. fault. Responsibility causes me to strive and stress, but I feel that at some point, I will conclude I have no aptitude and to stop wasting everybody's time. However, I also believe that if you can motivate yourself to keep trying, you will get it.
Knowledge - I find it frustrating I don't know a lot of things about materials, or electronic circuitry or chemistry kinetics or physics of diffusion or differential calculus or why if men have such good spatial skills they still pee over the toilet seat. I mean, some of that stuff I have tried to understand on numerous occasions, but I don't know why it doesn't stick. It used to because I can see the forms of these things and they are reminiscent of things I have understood before - but why not now? Or have I never understood?
Problem-solving - sometimes I think I am problem-solving in clever ways, other times I don't. Usually the latter are in the lab.
Motivation/mood management - I've always been described as a self-motivated person, but I am finding this a bit difficult. I am not sure why, as I have crashed before. But I am in a different place, with different people and I am different, too.
Scientists - People who try to be as objective and critical as they can, but are actually human beings. Therefore, they use the same tricks that all other humans use to keep the positive mentality necessary for survival (e.g. maintaining a postive self-image, cognitive dissonance, compassion, etc.). However, these strategies are not objective and not critical of oneself. How do they separate these things in their brains? How does one create a distance to their feelings, but remain compassionate?
The end point - Presently, I cannot see myself completing this Ph.D. without a lot of help, though it will be completed. But I don't want to be a struggling scientist - sure, hard-working - but not struggling simply because I'm not very good and/or I don't have enough confidence. I want to be excited/nervous about a chance to try, not dread that something will go wrong. I think it would be wise to make that call honestly - what your chances are in this profession - that includes your skills/IQ and emotional maturity. I still think being a scientist is the coolest thing - you are able to try to understand/test so many things and even outside the lab, you can understand what people are on about without breaking a sweat!
Science/Academia - A friend once told me that achievement is knowing that you did your best, while success is being acknowledged for it. The latter is nice, but not necessary. That actually isn't true, because you need to be recognised for your work (publication/citation/promotion), otherwise, you will sink. I think you are given a number of chances to prove yourself (Post-docs) and if you don't, you will really struggle to further. I don't know what your options are, then - technician? industry? teaching? To start again elsewhere in your late 30's?
(3) Adulthood: Maybe the oestrogens have crashed my brain (spatial ability/logic, etc.) or maybe it's just promoting
that thing on my priority list (i.e. find man, make babies|a.k.a. fall in love, start a family). I mean,
sometimes I worry that I am behind on that race (as in, maybe I should think about putting on running shoes and maybe making my way to the starting line), but at the end of the day, I do meet new people on a semi-regular basis and they don't run away screaming. So, I figure it's okay to just wait until I meet someone I like and trust. Sure, right now I'm not the most fun person to be around, but then again I've never been more stressed (amplitude and duration), so they can take it or leave it. The part that worries me a little
more is my inability to open up to people, but then XYZ was saying that really you shouldn't say much to anybody except your lover. I guess everybody has their way.
(4) Depression: Maybe the over-active sympathetic drive has crashed my brain. I think adrenalin dampens neurogenesis. Does it? But mild trauma promotes it. Knock-out studies, right? :P For the record, I still don't think I'm depressed. Perhaps lacking in motivation. Not the same.
(5) Events: Continual input, not enough resources to process. Some are:
How do people motivate themselves? XYZ x 2 are always able to bounce back from disappointments. Do they have a(n unrealistic) belief in themselves or are they just that good in self-motivation or do they utilise their support network effectively?
How can people be so hypocritical and narrow-minded? XYZ always asks for XYZ's help, but then complains about it to other people. Where's the gratitude, man? Why is it that some people are always so comfortable with asking for help? People always leave people hanging - is it a power issue or selfishness issue?
How is it that people are so positively-deluded? They say believe they are one thing, but are not. They place judgements on others that they have not placed on themselves. They have analysed one thing in someone else's situation, but cannot see the similarity in their's. Why is it that people listen to their own idea about you, but not you?
Does everyone actually have low self-esteem? Why is it that people don't really tell the truth or open up? It annoys me how some people can say things just to be agreeable, but on the other hand, it's annoying when people don't know the correct time/place to address conflicts. Some people hide behind veils. A good example is specialisation - some people use that to "justify" an ignorance that is perhaps due to laziness.
And I could fit all or some of the above. I don't know. Do I? Do I lie to myself, for example, not admitting that perhaps I like the idea of Science, but not the real thing?
But 99% of XYZs I meet are nice, caring people and generally, my interactions with people are positive (i.e. the characteristics above just are, they don't mean you're not a good person). I hope I'm good and that people don't get annoyed with contradictions or uncertainties over where I stand wrt to loyalty, effort, etc. But I know they do.
*sigh* I don't know. All I know is, every-time something happens, I ask questions in my head, there are no answers and I don't know. Obviously, I cannot go into details here, even if I remove names. But on so many occasions, I want to replay the incident or conversation and ask someone, "what just happened? why? why did they say that? how should I have reacted to that?" because my range of knowledge/understanding is so small, my reactions are lumped into yay! grr. wahh. aww. argh!
But I mean, it's good in that they give me something to re-adjust my "framework". It was getting a bit old and repetitive (dogmatic?), so I'm at least having to think of different shades of the original main ideas to explain the new things I am seeing. I suppose that is quite entertaining. But honestly, thought should go into scientific problems, not these child-like philosophical problems about life and human nature! Those things are boring (subjective)!!!
The conclusion: Just keep going, but keep trying to not-stress and to find ways of expressing myself clearly. You may think that this is a meaningless solution, but I think this exercise helped me arrive at that and not something else that is more pathetic. So, don't judge me!
***Beijing/Kyoto***
So, did you know I went to BEIJING and KYOTO?! I find it slightly weird to talk about because I haven't achieved enough to deserve it. But, met lots of interesting people, saw lots of interesting things and had lots of thought-provoking conversations. ISHR is so different to Biophysics! I won't even try to summarise it, because frankly I haven't resolved all of them in my head (hence, bad sleep I guess) and it would be quite a large chapter. There were quite a few times when I got the hint that I was being a bit too intense and maybe not sensitive enough to other people's feelings. :S :( *stabs stomach* But I got to present a poster, which was uber fun and made me feel better that I was doing more to "earn" the trip.
