To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. ~ Gustave Flaubert (1821 - 1880)
It is actually too early to complain about my stupidity and tiredness. It’s only after 1 PM Sunday afternoon now, and I haven’t worked since yesterday. In my left, my agenda lies open; in it I’ve listed some things needed to be done. Good trick to make me feel guilty at the end of the day.
Actually I am trying to look at the sources of my tiredness and boredom. The root of it all is the lack of a very strict deadline, I guess. I cannot stay motivated working towards a deadline which goes “Do it this way, but when you’ve done it maybe I’ll make you do it another way, oh the deadline is 5 days from now, but maybe tomorrow I’ll make you do another project (my own personal project) but I hope it won’t distract you!”
That’s the kind of deadline my co-promoter is always giving me. I’d work so hard to do A, then he’ll have it changed to B (this usually requires a huge amount of re-programming) and meanwhile he’ll distract me by making me do his work. I’ve been asked to teach his classes, write a book for him (224 pages and counting, took me a year to write), grade the exams in his classes, even do translations for his presentations.
Another source of this is that I’m beginning to feel like what I’m doing is not worth my time at all. I began to think that my work screams utter stupidity, and though I know many students get to this point sooner or later during the long years of research, I cannot help thinking that maybe I am the stupidest human being ever attempted this path.
Yet another is a fear that I’ve done something wrong in my research all along. Plus a mega-dose of insecurity that I will be able to pull through. My consolations nowadays is telling myself that it is okay to be both stupid and alive; I don’t have to drop dead just because somebody can shoot so many holes in my research and thus prove me a sub-human species. And that it is okay to be stupid and be a student at the same time. And that it is okay to make a stupid research because genius researches are always too few.
I even go as far as memorizing that The Theory of Relativity wasn’t the subject of Einstein’s dissertation, nor was Das Kapital the subject of Karl Marx’s. I am not so crazy as to compare myself to those giants; I just desperately need a consolation.
Hey, this is another consolation: Seno Gumira’s dissertation topic was about Panji Tengkorak comic strip. Is it not a consolation? Or would you think that topic still worth more than mine?
Anyways. I’ll try to forgive myself for being so stupid. In the mean time I’ll cross my fingers hoping to pass R2 exam. If I did pass, I’D buy you lunch. Oh yes. You’ll just need to tell me how I can contact you, and I’ll send you lunch money or even food. In case we’ve known each other, I’d take you to lunch myself. That is how desperate I am for this exam.
The exam will be anytime between next week to January 6th, 2010, anyway. Here’s hoping you’ll wish me luck, here’s hoping I’ll buy you lunch sometime very soon.
