they don't tell you about them at school... but we go through a bunch of them all the time. so i stumble upon yet another one of the many ones i might still find myself encountering during my life journey... whooooop whoooop! i think i am beginning to get used to their occurrences... maybe.
so here are the current challenges:
-- finishing up the 'minor' corrections to my magnum opus so i may eventually get THE official diagnosis of Poly-traumatic Hypertension Disorder... (i really am cynical about it yes you can tell! i probably wouldn't have done it if i had been given a second chance to choose... yes i regret it quite a bit... but that's that. it's an acknowledgment. people often tell me i shouldn't talk about regrets. i say we need feelings like regret to learn not to make similar choices; if we never reflect on life and paths taken, it is unlikely we will learn from our experiences.) ... and also to rework the chapters into articles... as you know: publish OR perish!
-- learning to work with others in new projects even though i am not really enjoying the dynamics at the moment and having to get used to the people who are involved... more specifically, learning to work with some people who aren't really practical about things... a test of my patience & tolerance!
-- figuring out if i'd like to stay in research and to try to get into academia (btw in case you think it's the case: no you aren't guaranteed a position with a PhD, no... hardly!) or whether medical school is another option or something completely different...
-- trying to figure out why other people seem to have gotten everything sorted out and how they do that... i am envious!
a friend who died in war-torn Dafur while trying to make a difference in the troubled land of Sudan once told me that we go through life figuring out what it is that we don't enjoy doing or don't tolerate too well... in hope that we might find something that is agreeable... some people definitely strike it lucky in their first few attempts; they end up doing what they love. others, myself included, seem to take longer... i sometimes wish i didn't have so many different interests and were only able to a few things whether i do them well or not... that way, i won't have so many different paths that i could explore. oh well. i really don't know which is better...
i am somewhat regretting not buying a last-minute ticket home for a week last Friday after my oral exam so i could spend Lunar New Year with my parents and family... it's been more than 10 years since i last spent it at home. i had to wait a week for the exam report to reach me... but had started with some corrections nonetheless... still, it would have been nice to catch up with friends over the festivity even if i might only be home for merely a few days... the warmer weather... the oooh so yummy kuey lapis cake my mummy bakes every new year for visitors to enjoy. sigh... i am kicking myself hard. =( maybe my parents and my brothers and their family might visit me instead... =)
sigh... wouldn't it be nice if one could just beam oneself anywhere! =)
on the more happier note... i got my oral exam report; it's mostly positive (more so than i give my work credit; something which i am still struggling to acknowledge) except for the list of so-called 'minor' corrections etc. and i got to prance about in a pair of new Clarks (which i got for 1/2 price) last friday with my date during the med-school winter ball... i wish they were more into Ceilidhs or Scottish country dancing here... seriously, that's a lot more fun and ahem, "civilized" than bouncing to rock n roll... you get to dance and mingle and be silly among strangers with your date or company of friends all in one single activity... isn't it what 'social' events are for?! =)
i also went downhill skiing last sunday with my colleague and some of his Brazilian friends and am happy to say i didn't fall and survived the blue trails of the midwest (which are more like the scary green ones in Snowbird -- i never quite finished my anecdote!) and actually enjoyed curving down the slopes. skiing is such a fun sport once you get the hang of the 'basics'! maybe some of the friends i met during the ski-trip might send me the pictures we took that day... maybe they'd forget! oh well.
i am generally more homesick and nostalgic during this time of the year... and any asian-like cuisine here is better than none but is still not as good as what i know i'd get when i do return home to visit again... ahhh the sacrifices of a nomadic existence... sob.
in any case... we have a lot of snow and freezing wind to celebrate the lunar new year of the RAT... squeak!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU CELEBRATING!!!
新年快乐，步步高升！龙马精神！万事如意！
i defended my thesis last friday via web-cam and phone-conferencing between Scotland and the USofA... it was strangely interesting, and the whole grilling experience was surprisingly shorter than the 3 hours i had psyched myself up to bear... suffice to say i survived it and am more relieved than anything because the whole journey has not been enjoyable, to say the least. the challenging part isn't so much the 'Science' itself, rather, it's the people involved... bureaucracies, politics, constraints, life... etc.
oftentimes people think that research is not 'real' 'work'... because it's often based at a university and so it's more like 'school'... i can totally understand if people don't get why researchers are paid so little to work such long non-conventional hours... because i think it's totally insane... but i find it hard to tolerate the comparisons they make between the working hours of the corporate world and the research lab; the finance people get paid a tonne more for the inhumane hours while it is reasoned that 'scientists' choose to work overtime in search of 'truths' or insights which in itself is rewarding enough to compensate for the less desirable income... i think the whole earnings and career-prestige is totally skewed. sigh.
in any case... i await the official report from Scotland... and am looking forward to the final close of this endeavour and moving on... fossicking... but ultimately, still being who i am, regardless of the extra title.