Random thoughts

Okay, this blog is called "Thinking Through Writing," and I am going to do a bit of thinking now. Don't mind me, please.

I was reading a bit of my old blog posts. I did have positive experiences doing the PhD too. Someone on Quora said I would find my voice through graduate studies. I don't know if the PhD experience really did that for me.

However, working as a research assistant/associate, under my supervisor and boss, Jasmine, did do something like that for me. She helped me discover that I really like writing. She encouraged me to do more of it. She thought I was pretty good at it. It's not a big deal really, except, I have never been really good at anything.

I am good at putting a thread through a needle hole, I always tell people. I think I am good with my hands, but I haven't done a lot with it. Except now, maybe to type and to write.

So for a poor girl who thought so poorly of herself, I guess working in an academic environment that places such a high premium on being able to publish, did boost my confidence and make me feel good about myself.

Did I tell you also that I am a very loyal person? If my boss needed me, I will be there.

Okay but what was wrong was that I actually don't really like my topic. I know this sounds terrible to you. Why am I studying a topic I do not like? Simply because I could do it.

I am sighing as I type all these.

Don't you wish you had a career counselor to guide you in your life from the moment you were born. I feel like I've been stumbling around. So I have this thought at the back of my head that I want to be in healthcare.

I actually really like helping people. I was banking on helping people to write when I graduate from the PhD. I have no interest to teach anything else, besides writing, I have little interest in my topic as I have said, in research methodologies...

I think we potentially could have many careers in our lifetime. I am of that thinking, we have many talents and skills, and we don't have to stick to that one job.

I don't really know how to explain myself.

But within me there it was brewing - this desire to quit the PhD - and whenever I think about quitting it and pursuing something else, a joy and excitement comes to my heart that lifts me out of the depression that has been plaguing me.

Then I would wonder, why am I always depressed.

So this is my story and my jumbled up thoughts.

My boss told me that my youth will be gone soon and I'm only young once. 10 years later, it's going to be hard for me to change my career and job.

You may think it's too good to be true. How is it possible we suddenly stumble upon a new career and it is the right one for us for that season of our lives? I think my research one has been the right one for me for the past 10 years of my life. And perhaps, it is just time to move on. Maybe for you, you don't think depression is a sign of that.

But I am wondering if it's a sign for me. I am someone who bubbles with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and excitement to tackle what's before me. Something is not right when I'm dragging my feet out of my bed every day. Maybe you say it's normal to have low periods. Maybe I say, it's time for a change.

Quitting the PhD

I haven't told you yet, the most important group of people - those who read and care about my academic journey - that I have been thinking about quitting the PhD.

This is a common thought that goes through the minds of people doing the PhD, but for me, this time, I feel I am serious.

The past year - especially the past few months - I have been rather depressed. This again, sounds very normal for a PhD student, but this depression didn't jar well with me.

I get depressed whenever my life is misaligned with my values. I know you might say, "This is just life. Deal with it. You make some wrong decisions, you stick with them."

I have so many thoughts about this. How did I lend myself up doing this PhD? Can I tolerate another few years of this? Should I hold on? If I give up, what would I do?

Maybe some of you can tolerate depression. Or maybe your life circumstances force you to do so. Maybe you really need the degree, maybe you are on a scholarship, maybe you really want to be an academic.

But for me, I think I am at a stage of my life, that I wish to do something good and true and meaningful for myself. If depression can be cured by making one decision, I would make it.

I don't want to spend everyday crying and pondering about the meaning of life. I want to seek that meaning for myself. And if it cannot be found in my current life state and situation and through my current career, then I want to seek another path for myself.

I did not have the courage to do this for myself last year, even though I already knew I did not want this PhD. Will I have enough courage to do it for myself this year?

Gambling

Ethnographic work can sometimes be a lot like a gamble, you control some things, you let some things go. Sometimes it works out to your benefit, sometimes it doesn't, but whatever form of data you collect, you try to make the best out of it.

Gratitude

I am grateful that I have a team of intelligent and kind researchers that work on my project with me. They say all PhD students go through slumps and downtime and perhaps many get into a rut because there was no one there to help them out or lift them up. But during my downest moments, where I was stretched paper thin, I had a team who continued to collect data, very good data... The project did not stall because of one student's failure to keep up, but it continued on because others helped out as they could.

A part of me feels ashamed that I did not collect all the data myself, but as B has told me, when good things happen to me, rather than feel guilt, why not feel gratitude? I am grateful that even as a small PhD student, I have a taste of working with an experienced and very qualified team to collect the best data we can. Now, it is time for me to process this data, and I shall do so with gratitude.

I will process it the best we can, make the best use of the data we can collected together, such that we can reveal the best truth and story from these data and write a report that may spark insights into the education system in Singapore and the meanings teacher make of citizenship education.

But more than that, I wish everybody will have fun, doing what we do, learning and studying together, figuring and pondering together.

"the existential loneliness of the long-distance writer"

I've ran two marathons in my life. Because of my perfectionistic tendencies and tendency for overachievement, when people ask me about my marathons, I sheepingly tell them I've ran two, but not very well. The first one I took 4 hours 20 minutes, the second one, I took 5 hours.

People often make it seem like a big feat but to me marathon running was much "easier" than other types of shorter runs where you had to run much faster. To me, marathon running was a lot of long slow distance, which suited my character that liked to take things easier. I preferred slow to fast, long to short etc.

We did a lot of training before hand to try to make the actual marathon more enjoyable. But, during the actual marathon itself, you will see the same effects of starting strong and persevering and finishing well with your depleted energy stores. You pay for misusing your energy stores as well, which I did for marathon 2. I was too eager to perform well that I ran the first half too fast, leading to a very slow second half.

Why am I talking about marathons? Today, I read this:

The more I give myself up to my run, let myself merge into and participate with the paths of Central Park, the more effortlessly I flow and finish. Each time I begin to brood about The Finish, my pace is broken, the run becomes a burden. And so it seems to be with writing a dissertation: the more the candidate is immersed in his files, flowing with his fieldwork, humming along on his office typewriter, deep, deep in the very stuff of the dissertation and conversely, less preoccupied with the magical/mystical Finish date, the faster the thesis is going to move ahead to completion. Obviously, this running/writing illustration is not designed to devalue the booklong insistence on organization and planning as fundamental to dissertation success. The point to be made - which many dissertation finishers and professional writers would affirm - is that, perhaps paradoxically, when one has planned and outlined, and planned again, what has to follow is, as Philip Roth might put it, a "letting-go," a self-absorbed merging with one's dissertation materials. (Sternberg, 1981, p. 175) 

Shuyi, it is time to focus on each element and work on them and let go and make the best of each situation. It is time to lose yourself in this work, not thinking of the end in mind. Like freediving, focusing on moment by moment, rather than the end goal. Process over outcome. Moment over finish.

Give it a try, I know it's hard. Hang in there and practice self-care too.

Why I feel like giving up...

I started this journey with such enthusiasm, maybe I felt I kinda got it. I found something that enables me to learn new things, challenges my mind, gives me an opportunity to work on my people skill and possibly also contribute to knowledge building in society.

But today, I am plagued with self-doubt and a perpetual mental fog. Some of my friends tell me that maybe I should give it up, some other of my friends tell me to hang in there.

I was just going through some of the revisions I've made and I realised that I didn't do too bad a job in revising them. But things have just gotten to such a state that I have very little passion or motivation to do much work. I can still do it but it has required me to drag my feet instead of come to it with much joy.

I didn't see this coming... And I don't really know what to do...

What I learned about writing

What I learned about writing is that writing happens even before you write it. It happens at the back of your head. The moment you engage with a problem, an issue, a feedback received, your mind starts working subconsciously thinking about how to solve it and deal with it.

I learned that your first thoughts and instincts may not be the best ones. By all means you can draw them out or write them down, but don't take your first drafts as final. Give yourself time to look at them again. Again, give your mind time to work on it. Expect that it is not the best and it will change and improve as you read more, think more, and sit upon it.

I learned that writing takes time and commitment. But what happens after you engage with an issue or problem is straightforward, you begin to try to solve it. Your solution may not be the best at each moment you come to the problem but if you keep working on it, it will be a better and better fit. So give it time and don't give up so easily. And don't procrastinate. Begin the process as soon as you can.

I also learn not to be afraid of feedback. Receive it graciously and consider it carefully and based on the time and resources you have, make the best of it.

And always take ownership of your work. If writing something is going to make you detach yourself from that piece of work because it no longer sounds like what you think inside, then maybe consider sticking with what you truly believe. Take ownership of your work. Except of course you have been engaged to write somebody else's work and then in that situation what matters is that person's voice.