Irony of Life: Family?

One interesting statement: Family is supposed to be the closest to oneself even when one feels like stabbing them all the time.

It is supposed to. But is this statement valid for everyone? Maybe. Maybe not.

An early birthday gift is the knowledge that no one in my so-called family bothers to keep contact with me to the extent that they don't even have my contact number here in the UK because my only brother reformatted his mobile phone. Good for him.

Should I bother to give them my number again? I wanted to know if I mean anything to them, so I stopped calling home since end of July. Guess what? After three months, they are finally trying to find out what the heck is my mobile number. Apparently, I exist perhaps only once in a blue moon. No wonder from the age of 23, I was told crudely that they assumed I got married in a faraway land just because I chose to stay in a place I was most comfortable and loved. No wonder I was described as a stranger whom my mother no longer knows as daughter. I can give my mobile number a thousand times, but if I am the only one trying to work things out, there's no point. Does anybody even care I am alive or dead?

I am dealing with many things at the moment. Unnecessary accusation that I abandon the family, etc. just because I didn't call home is going to bring me down to the pit.

You can choose to judge me as an ungrateful brat. Honestly, I am too exhausted to want to talk about it anymore. God knows my heart best.

Proposal Amendment

I took a dip two days ago, and finally came up with the first draft. My college graduate tutor, Dr. David Coomes, went through the first draft and suggested I should include references. I knew the draft was written shabbily so I've decided to rewrite the whole draft. A full page with references on the second. Thought it was sort of better.. Sorry but this is a possible PhD proposal, so I minimised it on purpose.

Second draft outline

Only to receive a joyous return of a bunch of firecrackers. To be honest, for the past nine months of being so insignificant, I was glad to receive something to be amended. I am humbled to know that I still have room for improvement. It comes as an affirmation that I do have a voice that can be heard, though right now, only my tutor hears it. Soon, the day will come. I don't know how but I can only trust in God that I will not be left in darkness forever.

Suggestions for amendment of my second draft

I guess I'm no longer hiding under the stone that I am in deep trouble with my current PhD and need a huge and possibly arduous change. There's no way it would work out if I try the same thing over and over again expecting different results. That's insanity. So said Albert Einstein.

I don't want to be a stupid fish my whole life.

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ49-YGZ-bJt1nIElQKwIeejBoN4S-tXDrSOZ9slhmjJ0WHBBOHgOf1y3gWikWApWPoeoXtePSUX7dHQ9mom2eFNSo_u5RKUYdkle5c1YGrLzHGYHgaMP8Kuxh2YvCnt0XSLDewlDAeJUM/s1600/AlbertEinsteinQuotes+pics5+genius+judge.jpg

Life as a Struggling PhD Student

My home workstation today, for the first time after nine months of struggles

Being at Cambridge is definitely a blessing in disguise for I know anywhere else, I would probably be asked to push through a subject which I couldn't grasp after the long nine months of struggle. Today is the mark of the start of my 10th month here. An embarrassment that half the time I was too depressed to work on anything, a quarter of the time I spent worrying how to cope with the strangely foreign subject of human evolutionary genetics. I thought I love genetics enough to do anything, even if it means working on bioinformatics of a highly foreign subject of evolution. It was humbling to know that I had overestimated my ability to cope with research interest which is not of mine.

I spent a month struggling to make sense if I should just give up on doing a PhD. At the moment, I don't even know if I could make a swap despite being assured by my supervisor and college graduate tutors that it is totally understandable if I really couldn't cope. If I am accepted by Cambridge, it means I do have the qualifications, so I am not stupid. Indeed, I am sick of feeling stupid all the time.

For the past one week, since a proper chat with a new friend about his research group and what they are doing, I became more hopeful that maybe I am not so stupid after all, and that I do possess something which makes me someone worthy of Cambridge education. It is a second chance to research on something which was so close to my heart since university days. After a week of thinking through and reading up, it is time to wet my feet and start swimming.

I learned something about myself today when it comes to research. If I am bad at it, I can eventually be good enough, but I will not excel in it. If I fell in love with it because I have come to know it and am good at it, then there is a possibility to excel in it. Good enough is not enough. I may not be the creme of the top, but I don't want to be the bottom of the food chain forever. PhD research is a marathon, and the journey is long and winding, yet limited by time. If I do something which doesn't make my heart stirs right from the start, I will just probably be so-so (bottom of the food chain) and eventually drop it after a while. If it were to be the delight of my heart, no matter how hard life gets, the love will keep me going.

Source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1414

I guess it is similar to marriage and relationship. I may not have experience enough to describe how it is like, but it's probably like a PhD.