Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. ~ (Natalie Goldberg)
In the last day of March, I got news that my research proposal to the Directorate General of Higher Education was approved and I was to be awarded with a grant. This was a surprise, because of several reasons. One, I don’t think I succeeded with the presentation last November. I wrote a post about it, which basically consists of nothing but curses. Two, I didn’t put the prof’s name in the proposal, for some complicated reasons. Hence I had been secretly hoping the proposal wouldn’t get through, so as to save me from further complications.
I couldn’t decide whether this was a pleasant or unpleasant surprise. I have e-mailed the research center of the campus where I am employed telling them that I couldn’t accept this grant because I already accepted another grant just this February, which was also from the DG of HE. Of course, they pleaded and pleaded that I took it, saying this was a rare occasion. They even went as far as asking whether they could put another person’s name in the proposal instead of mine, if the DG of HE prohibited me from taking two grants at the same time. Nice bunch of people they are, hm?
All in the same time, I am under a lot of pressures I create for myself, heh. I am dying to take an exam this April, and hopefully another in July. All of these, plus of course the hundreds of exam papers I have to mark, free of charge, being a servant of my co-supervisor. Let’s just hope that I can back out from one of the grants anyway, so that I can manage my work without too much extra stomach acid flowing inside me.
I have learnt so far that one thing worse than having too much to do is not to know whether there will be an end of it. Since October last year I had been pushing hard to take an exam in December at the latest, but since the prof was reluctant, I backed out. Now it’s already April and I still haven’t taken the exam. It’s really getting so booooorinnggggg doing my research without a deadline.
But but: taking an exam requires thorough preparation. As it is, I am already too bored to revise. Heh heh. Duh let’s just hope they’ll let me pass this one exam please…I want to get this one done and over with.
Meanwhile I think my stomach acid has build up again. Hmmm. Time for another cup of coffee, yes? Let’s put more acid into that acid. Gulp gulp.
