An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves. ~ Bill Vaughan
Why I am so happy this year has finally come to an end:
Early this year I tried to shape up a report for R1 exam. I came to an ugly deadlock as DA 1 wanted to go one way and DA 2 wanted to go another. I went as far as walking back and forth from DA 1’s office to DA 2’s office most of the days, trying to reach a compromise. At the same time I also tried to come up with a research proposal for DGHE (again). And, also, I tried to shape up a report for an international journal. My brain who does not know how to multi-task (save for listening to music while surfing the internet) clearly suffered.
In the first quarter of the year though, I got a rejection letter from the international journal. Needless to say it was one of the biggest annoyances of the year.
In the middle of the year my friend died, my best friend’s dad died, and R’s dad died. That was on top of some painful personal problems. The whole midyear was so bleak.
Nearing the end of the year, again I got a MAJOR problem at school. This time-round I was even reduced to tears, so bad the problem was. It took me weeks to gather my pieces.
Of course, some good things also happened this year. I passed R1 exam. My paper was accepted for publication in an international conference. I got a grant from DGHE. I submitted another report to a national journal (still haven’t got the verdict on this one, but the submission is an accomplishment in itself). I submitted a report for R2 exam (and still waiting for the exam date).
But all in all I am so glad to get rid of this year. Shoo, shoo 2009! I won't miss you! Blechhh!!
Errr. Ahem. Here’s looking forward to a sunny 2010, wishing us all a good ride ahead.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
SUNDAY AFTERNOON RANTS
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.
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.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
ON WRITING FICTIONS
The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any. ~ Russell Baker (1925 - )
I have been misled so many times in life. Oh no you wouldn’t want to know what things I had once believed so dearly, the things I needed years to find out to be horribly wrong.
I have now come to suspect that the deep-rooted belief I’ve had since childhood, that I could actually write fiction, is also a misleading one.
It all started rather innocently. I started reading when I was five, and finished my first Enid Blyton book in the first grade. (Before that, it was the full version of all-text no-graphics Bambi, which was more than 100 pages, and Helen Keller’s biography. Yes, from my choice of books at 5 years old, you could safely assume that I’d grow up to be a very boring woman). I first read Agatha Christie’s books when I was in fifth grade. I have a soft spot for mystery books until now, but since 1992 I’ve grown very fond of the stories told by Amy Tan, Wally Lamb, Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible!), Jeffrey Eugenides (The Middlesex!).…you know, the books which will most probably sit in the “Literature” sections in Kinokuniya.
Much that I realize I cannot make mystery plots, I long to be able to write stories with more subtle plots, like…*gulp*…those books sitting in the Literature section. Make that not quite “longing to be able”, but “believe to be able”. I have been writing on and off since first grade, but so far can only finish a handful of short stories. In 2005 I participated in “National Novel Writing Month” and found out what I believed was true: I am never meant to write novels. At least, not yet. In my logic, to be able to write a novel one must be able to write a short story first. A friend who majored in English literature said this wasn’t true. “It is more about finding your forte”, he said. “A poet doesn’t write prose, a novelist doesn’t write short stories.”
But, but: how could one write two pages before writing one? How could you muster up 10 characters before coming up with 1 or 2? Therefore, I think short-stories are the foundations of novels. And the strangest thing is, until 2005 I thought I could write short-stories. Until Marianne mentioned that articles and essays were so much easier to write. Until I figured that all these years when I wrote only half-finished stories, I actually finished lot of essays. I have blissfully ignored this fact almost all my life. Am misled to total blindness.
The funny thing is, I just won’t let this belief go away. This year I got a short story published, and although the editor did so many changes in it I couldn’t recognise the story as my own, the fact remains that I could get a short story published.
Something in me still laments every now and then, about the stories I needed to tell. Every time I take a shower I tell myself stories I believe can make it to the paper someday. The strong characters and lucid plots I don’t have, but somehow the belief just won’t budge.
Maybe it’s ignorance, blind enthusiasm, or sheer stupidity. But this one belief is what keeps me afloat most days, and I know by 8 PM tonight, in the shower I shall tell myself yet another short story.
I have been misled so many times in life. Oh no you wouldn’t want to know what things I had once believed so dearly, the things I needed years to find out to be horribly wrong.
I have now come to suspect that the deep-rooted belief I’ve had since childhood, that I could actually write fiction, is also a misleading one.
It all started rather innocently. I started reading when I was five, and finished my first Enid Blyton book in the first grade. (Before that, it was the full version of all-text no-graphics Bambi, which was more than 100 pages, and Helen Keller’s biography. Yes, from my choice of books at 5 years old, you could safely assume that I’d grow up to be a very boring woman). I first read Agatha Christie’s books when I was in fifth grade. I have a soft spot for mystery books until now, but since 1992 I’ve grown very fond of the stories told by Amy Tan, Wally Lamb, Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible!), Jeffrey Eugenides (The Middlesex!).…you know, the books which will most probably sit in the “Literature” sections in Kinokuniya.
Much that I realize I cannot make mystery plots, I long to be able to write stories with more subtle plots, like…*gulp*…those books sitting in the Literature section. Make that not quite “longing to be able”, but “believe to be able”. I have been writing on and off since first grade, but so far can only finish a handful of short stories. In 2005 I participated in “National Novel Writing Month” and found out what I believed was true: I am never meant to write novels. At least, not yet. In my logic, to be able to write a novel one must be able to write a short story first. A friend who majored in English literature said this wasn’t true. “It is more about finding your forte”, he said. “A poet doesn’t write prose, a novelist doesn’t write short stories.”
But, but: how could one write two pages before writing one? How could you muster up 10 characters before coming up with 1 or 2? Therefore, I think short-stories are the foundations of novels. And the strangest thing is, until 2005 I thought I could write short-stories. Until Marianne mentioned that articles and essays were so much easier to write. Until I figured that all these years when I wrote only half-finished stories, I actually finished lot of essays. I have blissfully ignored this fact almost all my life. Am misled to total blindness.
The funny thing is, I just won’t let this belief go away. This year I got a short story published, and although the editor did so many changes in it I couldn’t recognise the story as my own, the fact remains that I could get a short story published.
Something in me still laments every now and then, about the stories I needed to tell. Every time I take a shower I tell myself stories I believe can make it to the paper someday. The strong characters and lucid plots I don’t have, but somehow the belief just won’t budge.
Maybe it’s ignorance, blind enthusiasm, or sheer stupidity. But this one belief is what keeps me afloat most days, and I know by 8 PM tonight, in the shower I shall tell myself yet another short story.
Monday, December 07, 2009
TENACITY
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. ~ Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895)
More than ever now, I need to plow on through all this mess and heartache and anger and remind myself that the finish line is the only way to go.
More than ever now, I need to plow on through all this mess and heartache and anger and remind myself that the finish line is the only way to go.
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