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Wednesday, January 01, 2014 @ 3:25 PM
Goodbye 2013 Hello 2014 2013 had been an amazing year full of ups and downs which eventually ended on a high note. :) The not-so-goods are mostly work-related in the first half of the year, where I find myself banging my head continuously for months. It did feel as though Murphy's law was at work - whatever that can go wrong will go wrong. I looked at the amount of hard work put in for practically almost-nil meaningful results and that was really demoralising. There were times when I doubted myself and wondered if I could press down this path. Honestly, my time mangement went haywire and I could hardly balance between coursework and research, not to mention personal/family/social life. Sure, my end point results weren't too bad - grades were fine and I always had something to present for my weekly group meetings. But look beyond that glamorous front, and that's me working excessively hard, not smart. At the halfway mark, I started to break out of the vicious cycle and decided to re-align my thoughts and re-calibrate my life. My work took on a modified direction, and started to pick up from there. As I looked back, one sentence from an old post striked me, "Do not live with reservations, hesitations nor too much expectations." And I guess the root of all these unhappiness stems from my high expectations (from myself and others) and setting of impossible goals. This, coupled with a lack of faith due to doubt and hesistations, led to half-hearted work. Then I made the decision to attempt to take my qualifying exam by end of year. The truth is, it was kinda one forced by circumstances as my supervisor is going away on 10 months leave by end of year and I didn't fancy having a Skype presentation. It was one good decision as it forced myself to plan within tight timeline and available resources. Once a well-defined plan was in place, it then boiled down to putting in the hard work (but no longer those types of mindless hard work) to make things happen. And almost magically, things started to fall into place and I was actually making good progress. But I have to say that the truth is this ain't no magic but simply the works of a good feasible plan and consistent hard work. As the clinche saying goes, you plan to fail if you fail to plan. And yes, I completed my qualifying exam though the official results ain't out yet. That's the start of the happy events to come. I picked up the joys of teaching again by tutoring a module. Helped out as bridesmaid for a fellow PhD mate/B.Eng coursemate and am really glad that she has found her other half. Spent quality time with different groups of people who mattered. Replenished my much-needed rest. Won $50 voucher at a scratch-and-win at Bugis Street for $100 spending. And guess what, my work is just a part of my joy, albeit a fairly big share. It's really important to be able to take a break once in a while to re-energize and re-vitalize. If work is the only center of my life, the obsession level gets high and I end up running in circles while losing myself. I had a good end-of-year break, and now it's time to plan ahead while being open to opportunities that may come along the way. One can never be too ready for anything, but we sure can be prepared to recieve pleasant surprises. Moving forth, 2014 should be an interestingly challenging year. Counting my blessings and being thankful for little things in life as I welcome the new year :) |