Monday, 31 December 2012
The Year The World Did Not End
EDIT 15/01: So, I have attempted to revise my new year resolultions list for 2013 as after going through a few other people’s lists, I felt that mine lacked specificity. I realised that in order for them to actually materialise, I would not only have to try to remember I made this list but also I have to be able to cross them off as set goals, which arguably a lot of the items on my list aren’t. They are more of long term life goals hence the need to repeat them year after year. So with that in mind, here’s my new revised list (I don’t think I have changed any of the original motives of the items, rather just made them more tangible to be able to account for the accomplishment, or lack thereof).
You know when I know it’s time to write again, regardless of what other responsibilities/commitments I have? If you have followed me for a while, I’m sure that there’s no surprise in the answer. It’s when my heads gets so filled with writing ideas (and now my phone/cyber brain as well) and motivation that it is just impossible to have extended concentration on any other matters. Especially when other matters have primarily to do with my short and long term future, as well as current employment, which is going dismally otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?
So, it’s the end of the year again. And with that, everyone will surely be on their way with the end-of-year rituals, be it drinking, celebrating, list-making, contemplating what the year that passed has amounted to or just plain nothing. As for me, I have a list to review and a new one to make. And as per tradition, it seems, I have once again forgotten about the list I had exactly a year ago so let’s start…
MonkeyJ’s 2012 New Year Resolutions
MonkeyJ’s 2013 New Year Resolutions
So, that’s my list for 2013 and I hope that it would be a better year than this one was (honestly, it still doesn’t feel like a whole year has passed already considering the very few things that I have done in the past 366 days). Whether you are out celebrating, toasting the year that passed with your close ones or sitting in front of your computer by yourself like I am, tomorrow is a new day, a new year and a new chance to start…
You know when I know it’s time to write again, regardless of what other responsibilities/commitments I have? If you have followed me for a while, I’m sure that there’s no surprise in the answer. It’s when my heads gets so filled with writing ideas (and now my phone/cyber brain as well) and motivation that it is just impossible to have extended concentration on any other matters. Especially when other matters have primarily to do with my short and long term future, as well as current employment, which is going dismally otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?
So, it’s the end of the year again. And with that, everyone will surely be on their way with the end-of-year rituals, be it drinking, celebrating, list-making, contemplating what the year that passed has amounted to or just plain nothing. As for me, I have a list to review and a new one to make. And as per tradition, it seems, I have once again forgotten about the list I had exactly a year ago so let’s start…
MonkeyJ’s 2012 New Year Resolutions
- Find and maintain motivation for my studies and work, especially studies! (Considering my next year will be the hell of all the student academia years [according to various PhD grads], getting motivated for my studies is a top priority!) – Motivation was hard to get and maintain for a whole year especially considering the stress of the Honours year but the year is winding down and I was still pretty interested. Note the tense, since I’m hear writing instead of writing about my work. But hopefully I will be able to muster enough motivation (or fear and dread) to last the next two weeks and finish off my work so I can enjoy my month long “vacation”. [10%]
- Maintain my grades, hence my scholarship (Can’t slip up here, bar is set pretty darn high due to all the strings I had to pull to get the scholarship so hopefully this motivates me more) - Well, this was the main goal, and I survived! So I guess this is a success. Finished with first class Honours so that’s that. [10%]
- Plan for my doctorate future (Will needs to get my ducks all lined up for my PhD, and there is still quite a bit left to do, especially if the rumours of a certain person’s retirement comes true) – Took a while to get my ducks lined up, or gathered actually, and the trigger was finally only pulled a few weeks ago. Timing is rather poor considering I will have to get most of the application process done back home instead but hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad (or take up too much time when I’m supposed to be on break). [8%]
- Try to keep some contact with my friends, close and far (I will be frank, I know I won’t have much [if any] time next year for myself and judging from my past performances when I had a sliver of additional time, the emphasis is on the word try) – Looks like I was right to emphasis the word try as I think I was more off the grid than ever. Good thing I don’t have a cabin in the woods, I suppose. Actually, I kind of wished I did. Oh, how I wish I had a fortress of solitude… [0%]
- Live a relatively healthy life (for a Honours student anyways) ,i.e. don’t die of malnutrition. – considering I’m still typing at the moment and I think I have gained weight, I would say that this is a success, sort of. Now on the way to obesity! [6%]
- Network, network, network (Is sort of related to 3, but I’m running out of things to put on my list) – Well, this was a sort of a fluff item so wasn’t too hard to guess how it turned out, especially since I didn’t have an award ceremony to attend this year (because it was not held due to administrative issues and not because I sucked... I hope they give me that two or three awards already. My CV looks pretty barren with that year gap.) However, I did manage to meet a few people that I had no idea who they were before so there was some success there I suppose. Granted some of them I have no intention or chance to meet up again but still I met them. The list include a French statistician, biomarine specialist, German and American exchange students, and friends of new friends. So actually, this wasn’t that big a failure…[7%]
- Control my television addiction (It’s getting pretty bad at the moment) – Well, I managed to show some self-restrain but it might have also be due to the stress of completing my Honours project. Seeing as I have managed to finally catch up on almost all my shows and am currently on a guilty pleasure binge (which of course I won’t be telling you which it is), I would say my addiction hasn’t gotten better but at least it didn’t get worse. Actually, I’m not so sure about that as I might have substituted it with another but that’s for another post to dissect. [5%]
- Minimise procrastination! (Wasted time is a big no-no next year) – Hmm, hard to tell with this one. The stress of weekly meetings with my supervisor made me more focused but also more prone to procrastination afterwards and the early mornings and late nights just made it easier to justify the extra little procrastination here and there. The fact that I got an add-on for my browser to limit my time on certain sites probably shows that I haven’t quite improved in this aspect yet. And I believe I am procrastinating at the very minute as well…[5%]
- Find a new accommodation (Unlikely, but maybe just putting it on the list might help) – Actually, this finally happened. I have moved out of that god forsaken backward company of people I used to call housemates and gotten a new place with someone who’s native language is English so I’m happy about that. Just not too thrilled with her cleanliness levels but still a vast improvement over my previous predicament. I’m going to chalk this one up to a win as I think I’m starting to do really poorly on this year’s score. [10%]
- Get some quality me time (At this moment, just wishful thinking but who knows?) – “Hah! I wished” is probably what you would expect to see my type but actually I did managed to get some me time, in fact, I had to get some in order to just avoid being checked into the local looney bin (which I still have no idea where it is). Granted some of the me time were obtained through rather odd methods (which I fully intend to delve into sometime soon), I still got them so I would give this a win as well.[9%]
MonkeyJ’s 2013 New Year Resolutions
- Gain renewed focus for my PhD programme which starts in February as it will be at least a three year investment of my time, but likely more. This is the main thing I hope to get from my month-long break in January.
- Increase my fitness regime by having at least 5 sessions of light exercise, preferably in the morning, for better energy and focus throughout the day
- Set up (and constantly review) an organisational plan for graduate studies and follow through with it for at least 6 months, incorporating ideas such as top-heavy weeks, daily (3 items) list preferably split into day sections, daily writing sessions of at least 3 hours (see 5), evening daily planning for the next day, and work logs to track progress and time sinks.
- Learning French and/or Spanish (through duolingo) in order to be able to at least write a paragraph (or two) here in a foreign language learnt this year.
- Write a substantial post here at least once every two months as well as maintaining academic writing throughout the year. Hopefully the former would help with my goal of finding myself again as well.
- Go somewhere or do something that I have not done before (and of course report it here). [this is actually more of a cheat because I know that this is an almost certainty]
- Find a new place, preferably just for myself [ditto self-comment for 6]
- Try to keep better contact with friends in some way – Sorry, can’t think of a specific aim to tie this to…
- Get to know at least 5 new people professional this year and write about them
- write about the experience of first entering the PhD jungle and hopefully surviving, unless there is a good séance someone could recommend)
So, that’s my list for 2013 and I hope that it would be a better year than this one was (honestly, it still doesn’t feel like a whole year has passed already considering the very few things that I have done in the past 366 days). Whether you are out celebrating, toasting the year that passed with your close ones or sitting in front of your computer by yourself like I am, tomorrow is a new day, a new year and a new chance to start…
Monkey J
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Saturday, 3 November 2012
Decisions decisions?
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Frankly, it is a little weird doing this. Just typing without academic purpose, feels a little filthy until I remember that was what I was doing long before I started my Honours year (which for the uninitiated is the fast track Masters equivalent here).
For the past however many months, as honestly I have found myself completely foreign to the concept of time and its chronology unless I had a due date looming (which I recently did and I was late for the first time! No, not my period! You should know better…), my day-to-day life has been so routine, chugging away at my Honours thesis at my desk (weekends included) that if they didn’t have a separate public transport schedule for weekends, I really don’t think I would have been able to differentiate between the weekdays and the weekends…
I see that I can still sidetrack with ease, anyways the point I was trying to make above was that over the past months I have been immersed with my Honours program to the detriments of many aspects of my life, this blog included. Any time I had for writing was devoted to the writing of my thesis (which is now finally finished and to be submitted this coming Monday) and frankly I don’t think I ever had any free time unless I carved it out of time that I could have been doing more productive work for my project, like I am doing right now. Surprisingly, even after I have finished the draft (and revisions) for my thesis, there is still plenty of work for me to do which I suppose is both good and bad. The good is that I will be getting paid for a couple more weeks to do it, the bad is that who knows where my sanity will end up at the end of it?
The main reason that I am writing this now is the same as I always have. To unload some of the thoughts and ramblings I have swirling in my head which have accumulate for a very long period of time now, and hopefully find some clarity at the end of it all. If that happens to be of interest for any of you to read, then come along for the ride. Otherwise, I’m sure the internet has more than enough material (and then some) to keep you occupied.
So, let’s get started, shall we?
Well, I say/write that but I don’t actually have a plan of action at the moment. I have a few general opinion ideas, some contemplative thoughts to write about (which I should really jot down somewhere before they just get lost in the recesses of my brain) and I can also write what I’ve been up to this past few months but all that require a little more planning than I want to manage at the moment. So, let’s just see what my subconscious has to offer…
I suppose I can try talking about the one main predicament that I am currently still contemplating over and see if writing it out would provide any new insights. So for the past month or so, I have been meeting a few different lecturers to discuss PhD projects (for me) to undertake beginning next year. I was lucky that everyone I’ve talked to was more than happy to accommodate a meeting with me and I had quite a few options to choose from, which is a good thing in general, but not so for me as I have a hard time choosing unless I had a very clear preference. Many a dinner plans have suffer from this indecisiveness (but my friends are somewhat to blame as well as they seem to be just as indecisive).
So it was good that there were some projects that I just knew that I would not be able to sustain an interest in for the whole 3 years (but most likely more) and those were the first few that I (politely) declined. Then there was one which offered a substantial gap between the completion of my Honours and the commencement of that PhD project in a research area that was only so-so on my preference list but had an extremely good supervisor attached as well as being a joint project with a French university which is a good thing I suppose since a lot of people frown upon doing one’s entire tertiary studies in one institute, particularly in the US (but then again, I’m not there am I?).
I did try to widen my search to other universities (particularly after the insistence of the two American PhD graduates in my family) but there were a substantial amount of loopholes to jump through (as I couldn’t just fly to various universities and knock on potential supervisors’ doors for both cost and time constraints, not because it would be weird or anything….) and the added difficulty of being considered as an international applicant (Yes, we get discriminated pretty much everywhere, but life back home has prepared me well to deal with it.). Also, I was left wondering what the hell was the purpose of university websites when there were so little to no information available on them for my purpose (less so for those bilingual ones if that’s even possible). Wait, what was that you said? They didn’t create those to cater for my purposes? Well, that’s just rude, isn’t it?
However, I did managed to get in contact with one or two external lecturers but they were either again not aligned with my research interest (which I didn’t know I had such a thing until I starting writing up my academic CV, and yes, it’s definitely not the same as a regular CV. It’s definitely more smug…) or they were very pessimistic about funding of the project(s) (granted this was in the EU so it was understandable given the current economic predicament over there). So none of them panned out and my options were now limited to those just within my university which was not too big a concern for me as not staying at the same institution just for the sake of it sounded just as ridiculous to me especially when there are some top notch lecturers here as well (or so I would like to believe). But who knows if or how I might pay for that decision in the future?
Here’s where things get a little tricky though. I am now left with two feasible options after the culls aforementioned, which was still one more than I was hoping for. This meant that I now had to choose between them and if I already made up my mind on which, then I wouldn’t be writing this now, would I? So to that end, let’s get a little acquainted with the two options I have (without giving away too much information as I still want to keep some degree of anonymity here).
Option PBFD (which was so named in order to avoid potential biases with assigning an option with 1 or A over the other) was a project related to the statistical analysis (and some mathematical modeling) of regularly collected surveillance data in healthcare institutes with the aim of studying the transmission dynamics of hospital-acquired antibiotic-resistant pathogens and ultimately how to better control the spread of such things, as if you haven’t been able to deduce (seriously?) are bad for both patients and the healthcare institutes. This project will have my current supervisor as my principal supervisor who has been much nicer to me these past few months (It’s more of a him getting comfortable with you and knowing that you can actually do research [back door compliment alert!] rather than his sneaky ploy to get me do continue on with him as he doesn’t seem like that kind of person, but then I’ve only known this man for less than a year… ) as well as a previous supervisor I worked with who I get along with very well (our meetings usually last 2 hours on average so unless we were doing something extracurricular [we were not! I’m innocent and have no idea what I was insinuating…] we must really get along rather swimmingly), and another health statistician who I have not worked with but was rather frank from our meeting which is a plus in my books (as much as I sidestep/sugarcoat issues, I much prefer someone to tell it to my face if they have something to say rather than pussyfooting it) and does seem to have a rather good reputation in the statistical community (my principal supervisor is more of an elderly figure in the community and not as active in attending conferences anymore).
This would probably have been my choice if I just went by my first gut instinct which I have used multiple times in my life. However, I can’t shake the feeling that this would be the safe option and I would not be learning from it as much as I would be with the other project, in terms of the mathematical breath anyways. Also, this is taking me further down the path of being a full-fledged statistician (which I am already if you believed my previous job’s title) which was not what I envisioned to be for the most part of my degree (which was a Bachelor of Maths, not Stats) and that is giving me a rather substantial identity crisis as well. On the one hand, it seems like a natural transition from what I am already doing (both academically and professionally) and the statistical people I’ve meet so far have all been much more agreeable and sociable than the math people (which a few exceptions as with all other generalisations, of course). On the other hand, I have arguably not been as involved in my statistic classes during my studies compared with the mathematical units so often times I feel like I’m faking my knowledge in the area and one of these days it will just blow up in my face.
Aside from intrinsic doubts, there are also some practical considerations that provided additional roadblocks to this project. This area of research is by no means new, but there were always problems with data quality and test sensitivity which cast doubt over the results (some papers have even postulated models where the most significant term was the background noise which is basically saying that “we can’t tell you anything based on what we’ve done although” they would obviously have an academic spin to make it sound less useless) thus the need to actually improve in this area. And these issues have more to do with the healthcare surveillance side of things, and less so on the mathematical and statistical side.
However this project does offer an option for a career that’s not entirely stuck in academia and chasing publication counts (although it is still a possible option if I wanted to), and also frankly speaking there is more demand and career opportunities for statistical professionals than mathematical ones.
Option SPMD on the other hand deals with the modeling of cell (particularly cancer cells) movements and growth and is the arguably more scientific option of the two (where PBFD is the more practical option) and is definitely more mathematically involved than the first option but still has some statistical aspect to it as well (mostly a ploy of the principal supervisor to attract me and my current supervisor but more about that later). More specifically, it will delve into stuff (that’s scientific, right?) that is sort of an extension or even rethinking of the stuff that I’ve learned in my undergraduate course and have also been away from for the most part of this year. By definition, it is a rather new area of interest (although it is not entirely groundbreaking either).
The principal supervisor for this project is someone who I had not worked with before who emailed me rather unexpectedly [I was under the impression that he doesn’t even know I exist since I didn’t take his class and was not doing research in mathematics at the moment] (my current supervisor has the second largest contribution) although there has been a rather substantial amount of rumours/opinions about him. Some are rather opposed to his overly hands-on approach (which I agree with to some extent as I have been disturbed by his intrusions on more often than I would like) and also the fact that he seems to be helping his students way too much with their (read: his) papers resulting in them getting published way too early/often compared to the regular PhD candidates (which I will admit that part of me was wondering if that could just be a jealous remark). The benefit to his overly hands-on approach is that you will stick to the plan outlined and it balances well with my current supervisor who can be a bit too relaxed and/or withdrawn at times (but not the worst) although it may just add unnecessary stress or conflict between the two. Also, I would be then in direct competition with his current star student who already is way more ahead than me (and the majority of the current PhD candidates in the school) although we are in the same year (because of his help and I suppose they collaborated well with one another that he [the student] already has at least 4 publications even though the standard number for Honours students is typically 0, or maybe 1 if you were really, really good). Furthermore, it appears that this guy is just collecting the brightest students from each year and taking them on as his students only (or at least tries to) which doesn’t quite sit right with me even though I can see why one would do so. To that end, I should mention that he actually tried to purpose a PhD project with him twice; Once when it was just involving him and once more later on involving my current supervisor (bringing in some statistical aspect to the project) when I did not contact him a few weeks after our meeting (to be fair, he didn’t say to email him and I was still in the middle of weighing my options). I suppose his ambition is a double-edged sword that one will have to deal with and whether or not I will be happy to just knuckle under his rule as it seems to be happening with his students, or at least those that he particularly favours anyways… That being said, he seems to be a rather nice person, or that might just be his charisma/charm in action? This is the problem with considering starting with a new supervisor who I have no interaction with for the entirety of my undergraduate course – I can’t really tell if he is bullshiting me (and what makes considering external options even more difficult as well). He also seems to sugarcoat/be `politically correct’ in our conversations and tend to be a little too `yes man’ for my taste but who knows? Maybe that extra encouragement is good for oneself….
That being said, the project itself wouldn’t have to deal with less-than-ideal surveillance data as their data is experimentally obtained but it could also be argued that anything of real interest would have some amount of noise in it, as is true with life and meaningful interactions. Also it would be a formal mathematical-statistical collaboration in my school which is a rather rare thing to do (but does that really benefit me or just the school? I suppose it could be a two-way street there which seems to be a running theme for this project…). However, the applications of the project does not interest me as much but sometimes I wonder if that’s just a sign of me not being a very scientific person…
Also, this project is much more grounded in my current school whereas the other one is more of a split between my school and the health faculty (which is a marginally better option in terms of diversity of tertiary studies institutions). Furthermore, to do a mathematical project with this principal supervisor (who is relatively new and who I do not know) when I have turned down options from other mathematical lecturers who I know (and like) better and are more experienced in their fields with arguably more interesting application (to me anyways) seems rather like an insult to them.
A minor thing with this project as well is that one of the associate supervisors is a rather oddball character and has been a bit rude to one of his students (although he wasn’t entirely to blame in that situation). But he’s been nice to the others and seems to have a knack for editing (he’s one of those people who return your drafts dripping with red ink) as well as being a knowledgeable person in terms of mathematical knowledge.
So there you have it. Those are my two options right now and I really want to try and decide as soon as possible as the longer I put it off, the less time I will have to plan my holidays and also because I can feel myself developing bipolarity the more I think about this. Also, I believe the added stress of
Honours may very well be clouding my judgement making it harder for me to tell if what I am feeling is truly what I want in the absence of the stress. Furthermore, project SPMD has the Honours coordinator attached to it (who happens to be the oddball character) and I don’t particularly want to be on his bad side until I am done with it (there are still the final seminars). Who knows how vindictive he can get?
But what about my unbiased readers? Which project sounds better in your opinions, and why? What criteria would you use to decide? I can’t help but feel that in my writing about it, I am more biased towards one than the other, but can you tell which? Let me know about that as well to confirm/disprove my suspicions.
For the past however many months, as honestly I have found myself completely foreign to the concept of time and its chronology unless I had a due date looming (which I recently did and I was late for the first time! No, not my period! You should know better…), my day-to-day life has been so routine, chugging away at my Honours thesis at my desk (weekends included) that if they didn’t have a separate public transport schedule for weekends, I really don’t think I would have been able to differentiate between the weekdays and the weekends…
I see that I can still sidetrack with ease, anyways the point I was trying to make above was that over the past months I have been immersed with my Honours program to the detriments of many aspects of my life, this blog included. Any time I had for writing was devoted to the writing of my thesis (which is now finally finished and to be submitted this coming Monday) and frankly I don’t think I ever had any free time unless I carved it out of time that I could have been doing more productive work for my project, like I am doing right now. Surprisingly, even after I have finished the draft (and revisions) for my thesis, there is still plenty of work for me to do which I suppose is both good and bad. The good is that I will be getting paid for a couple more weeks to do it, the bad is that who knows where my sanity will end up at the end of it?
The main reason that I am writing this now is the same as I always have. To unload some of the thoughts and ramblings I have swirling in my head which have accumulate for a very long period of time now, and hopefully find some clarity at the end of it all. If that happens to be of interest for any of you to read, then come along for the ride. Otherwise, I’m sure the internet has more than enough material (and then some) to keep you occupied.
So, let’s get started, shall we?
Well, I say/write that but I don’t actually have a plan of action at the moment. I have a few general opinion ideas, some contemplative thoughts to write about (which I should really jot down somewhere before they just get lost in the recesses of my brain) and I can also write what I’ve been up to this past few months but all that require a little more planning than I want to manage at the moment. So, let’s just see what my subconscious has to offer…
I suppose I can try talking about the one main predicament that I am currently still contemplating over and see if writing it out would provide any new insights. So for the past month or so, I have been meeting a few different lecturers to discuss PhD projects (for me) to undertake beginning next year. I was lucky that everyone I’ve talked to was more than happy to accommodate a meeting with me and I had quite a few options to choose from, which is a good thing in general, but not so for me as I have a hard time choosing unless I had a very clear preference. Many a dinner plans have suffer from this indecisiveness (but my friends are somewhat to blame as well as they seem to be just as indecisive).
So it was good that there were some projects that I just knew that I would not be able to sustain an interest in for the whole 3 years (but most likely more) and those were the first few that I (politely) declined. Then there was one which offered a substantial gap between the completion of my Honours and the commencement of that PhD project in a research area that was only so-so on my preference list but had an extremely good supervisor attached as well as being a joint project with a French university which is a good thing I suppose since a lot of people frown upon doing one’s entire tertiary studies in one institute, particularly in the US (but then again, I’m not there am I?).
I did try to widen my search to other universities (particularly after the insistence of the two American PhD graduates in my family) but there were a substantial amount of loopholes to jump through (as I couldn’t just fly to various universities and knock on potential supervisors’ doors for both cost and time constraints, not because it would be weird or anything….) and the added difficulty of being considered as an international applicant (Yes, we get discriminated pretty much everywhere, but life back home has prepared me well to deal with it.). Also, I was left wondering what the hell was the purpose of university websites when there were so little to no information available on them for my purpose (less so for those bilingual ones if that’s even possible). Wait, what was that you said? They didn’t create those to cater for my purposes? Well, that’s just rude, isn’t it?
However, I did managed to get in contact with one or two external lecturers but they were either again not aligned with my research interest (which I didn’t know I had such a thing until I starting writing up my academic CV, and yes, it’s definitely not the same as a regular CV. It’s definitely more smug…) or they were very pessimistic about funding of the project(s) (granted this was in the EU so it was understandable given the current economic predicament over there). So none of them panned out and my options were now limited to those just within my university which was not too big a concern for me as not staying at the same institution just for the sake of it sounded just as ridiculous to me especially when there are some top notch lecturers here as well (or so I would like to believe). But who knows if or how I might pay for that decision in the future?
Here’s where things get a little tricky though. I am now left with two feasible options after the culls aforementioned, which was still one more than I was hoping for. This meant that I now had to choose between them and if I already made up my mind on which, then I wouldn’t be writing this now, would I? So to that end, let’s get a little acquainted with the two options I have (without giving away too much information as I still want to keep some degree of anonymity here).
Option PBFD (which was so named in order to avoid potential biases with assigning an option with 1 or A over the other) was a project related to the statistical analysis (and some mathematical modeling) of regularly collected surveillance data in healthcare institutes with the aim of studying the transmission dynamics of hospital-acquired antibiotic-resistant pathogens and ultimately how to better control the spread of such things, as if you haven’t been able to deduce (seriously?) are bad for both patients and the healthcare institutes. This project will have my current supervisor as my principal supervisor who has been much nicer to me these past few months (It’s more of a him getting comfortable with you and knowing that you can actually do research [back door compliment alert!] rather than his sneaky ploy to get me do continue on with him as he doesn’t seem like that kind of person, but then I’ve only known this man for less than a year… ) as well as a previous supervisor I worked with who I get along with very well (our meetings usually last 2 hours on average so unless we were doing something extracurricular [we were not! I’m innocent and have no idea what I was insinuating…] we must really get along rather swimmingly), and another health statistician who I have not worked with but was rather frank from our meeting which is a plus in my books (as much as I sidestep/sugarcoat issues, I much prefer someone to tell it to my face if they have something to say rather than pussyfooting it) and does seem to have a rather good reputation in the statistical community (my principal supervisor is more of an elderly figure in the community and not as active in attending conferences anymore).
This would probably have been my choice if I just went by my first gut instinct which I have used multiple times in my life. However, I can’t shake the feeling that this would be the safe option and I would not be learning from it as much as I would be with the other project, in terms of the mathematical breath anyways. Also, this is taking me further down the path of being a full-fledged statistician (which I am already if you believed my previous job’s title) which was not what I envisioned to be for the most part of my degree (which was a Bachelor of Maths, not Stats) and that is giving me a rather substantial identity crisis as well. On the one hand, it seems like a natural transition from what I am already doing (both academically and professionally) and the statistical people I’ve meet so far have all been much more agreeable and sociable than the math people (which a few exceptions as with all other generalisations, of course). On the other hand, I have arguably not been as involved in my statistic classes during my studies compared with the mathematical units so often times I feel like I’m faking my knowledge in the area and one of these days it will just blow up in my face.
Aside from intrinsic doubts, there are also some practical considerations that provided additional roadblocks to this project. This area of research is by no means new, but there were always problems with data quality and test sensitivity which cast doubt over the results (some papers have even postulated models where the most significant term was the background noise which is basically saying that “we can’t tell you anything based on what we’ve done although” they would obviously have an academic spin to make it sound less useless) thus the need to actually improve in this area. And these issues have more to do with the healthcare surveillance side of things, and less so on the mathematical and statistical side.
However this project does offer an option for a career that’s not entirely stuck in academia and chasing publication counts (although it is still a possible option if I wanted to), and also frankly speaking there is more demand and career opportunities for statistical professionals than mathematical ones.
Option SPMD on the other hand deals with the modeling of cell (particularly cancer cells) movements and growth and is the arguably more scientific option of the two (where PBFD is the more practical option) and is definitely more mathematically involved than the first option but still has some statistical aspect to it as well (mostly a ploy of the principal supervisor to attract me and my current supervisor but more about that later). More specifically, it will delve into stuff (that’s scientific, right?) that is sort of an extension or even rethinking of the stuff that I’ve learned in my undergraduate course and have also been away from for the most part of this year. By definition, it is a rather new area of interest (although it is not entirely groundbreaking either).
The principal supervisor for this project is someone who I had not worked with before who emailed me rather unexpectedly [I was under the impression that he doesn’t even know I exist since I didn’t take his class and was not doing research in mathematics at the moment] (my current supervisor has the second largest contribution) although there has been a rather substantial amount of rumours/opinions about him. Some are rather opposed to his overly hands-on approach (which I agree with to some extent as I have been disturbed by his intrusions on more often than I would like) and also the fact that he seems to be helping his students way too much with their (read: his) papers resulting in them getting published way too early/often compared to the regular PhD candidates (which I will admit that part of me was wondering if that could just be a jealous remark). The benefit to his overly hands-on approach is that you will stick to the plan outlined and it balances well with my current supervisor who can be a bit too relaxed and/or withdrawn at times (but not the worst) although it may just add unnecessary stress or conflict between the two. Also, I would be then in direct competition with his current star student who already is way more ahead than me (and the majority of the current PhD candidates in the school) although we are in the same year (because of his help and I suppose they collaborated well with one another that he [the student] already has at least 4 publications even though the standard number for Honours students is typically 0, or maybe 1 if you were really, really good). Furthermore, it appears that this guy is just collecting the brightest students from each year and taking them on as his students only (or at least tries to) which doesn’t quite sit right with me even though I can see why one would do so. To that end, I should mention that he actually tried to purpose a PhD project with him twice; Once when it was just involving him and once more later on involving my current supervisor (bringing in some statistical aspect to the project) when I did not contact him a few weeks after our meeting (to be fair, he didn’t say to email him and I was still in the middle of weighing my options). I suppose his ambition is a double-edged sword that one will have to deal with and whether or not I will be happy to just knuckle under his rule as it seems to be happening with his students, or at least those that he particularly favours anyways… That being said, he seems to be a rather nice person, or that might just be his charisma/charm in action? This is the problem with considering starting with a new supervisor who I have no interaction with for the entirety of my undergraduate course – I can’t really tell if he is bullshiting me (and what makes considering external options even more difficult as well). He also seems to sugarcoat/be `politically correct’ in our conversations and tend to be a little too `yes man’ for my taste but who knows? Maybe that extra encouragement is good for oneself….
That being said, the project itself wouldn’t have to deal with less-than-ideal surveillance data as their data is experimentally obtained but it could also be argued that anything of real interest would have some amount of noise in it, as is true with life and meaningful interactions. Also it would be a formal mathematical-statistical collaboration in my school which is a rather rare thing to do (but does that really benefit me or just the school? I suppose it could be a two-way street there which seems to be a running theme for this project…). However, the applications of the project does not interest me as much but sometimes I wonder if that’s just a sign of me not being a very scientific person…
Also, this project is much more grounded in my current school whereas the other one is more of a split between my school and the health faculty (which is a marginally better option in terms of diversity of tertiary studies institutions). Furthermore, to do a mathematical project with this principal supervisor (who is relatively new and who I do not know) when I have turned down options from other mathematical lecturers who I know (and like) better and are more experienced in their fields with arguably more interesting application (to me anyways) seems rather like an insult to them.
A minor thing with this project as well is that one of the associate supervisors is a rather oddball character and has been a bit rude to one of his students (although he wasn’t entirely to blame in that situation). But he’s been nice to the others and seems to have a knack for editing (he’s one of those people who return your drafts dripping with red ink) as well as being a knowledgeable person in terms of mathematical knowledge.
So there you have it. Those are my two options right now and I really want to try and decide as soon as possible as the longer I put it off, the less time I will have to plan my holidays and also because I can feel myself developing bipolarity the more I think about this. Also, I believe the added stress of
Honours may very well be clouding my judgement making it harder for me to tell if what I am feeling is truly what I want in the absence of the stress. Furthermore, project SPMD has the Honours coordinator attached to it (who happens to be the oddball character) and I don’t particularly want to be on his bad side until I am done with it (there are still the final seminars). Who knows how vindictive he can get?
But what about my unbiased readers? Which project sounds better in your opinions, and why? What criteria would you use to decide? I can’t help but feel that in my writing about it, I am more biased towards one than the other, but can you tell which? Let me know about that as well to confirm/disprove my suspicions.
Labels: my life
Monkey J
16:36
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16:36
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Sunday, 19 August 2012
Quick Thought
"In life, you can either move away from pain, or towards happiness."
I know I have been severely MIA for the majority of the year, and am afraid that that would be the case for the remainder of the year. I do apologise to anyone waiting to hear from me through this blog but I don't see that happening for at least a couple more months (but who knows? I tend to break promises I make on my blogs).
The only reason I am here tonight was for the quote I posted above. This quote was shared by someone on facebook but I can no longer remember the actual source of it (If you do know, please let me know so proper acknowledgement can be given).
What caught my interest in the first place was the seeming contradictory nature of it in first glance, (or at least over-specificity) however as it subconsciously mulled in my head, I can't help but agree with it.
It's a good reminder to keep on to, to remind one that in life, things are not always as clear cut as one would like. Some things come as a blessing while others require effort and sacrifice. Sometimes you hurt yourself, and sometimes you avoid the pain. Neither is a better option over the other until you realise the bigger picture.
Yours sincerely,
MonkeyJ.
I know I have been severely MIA for the majority of the year, and am afraid that that would be the case for the remainder of the year. I do apologise to anyone waiting to hear from me through this blog but I don't see that happening for at least a couple more months (but who knows? I tend to break promises I make on my blogs).
The only reason I am here tonight was for the quote I posted above. This quote was shared by someone on facebook but I can no longer remember the actual source of it (If you do know, please let me know so proper acknowledgement can be given).
What caught my interest in the first place was the seeming contradictory nature of it in first glance, (or at least over-specificity) however as it subconsciously mulled in my head, I can't help but agree with it.
It's a good reminder to keep on to, to remind one that in life, things are not always as clear cut as one would like. Some things come as a blessing while others require effort and sacrifice. Sometimes you hurt yourself, and sometimes you avoid the pain. Neither is a better option over the other until you realise the bigger picture.
Yours sincerely,
MonkeyJ.
Monkey J
20:15
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20:15
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Saturday, 3 March 2012
Of Family... A Reminder to Myself
So I’m back here again. This year would make the fourth year I have been pursuing my higher education and for what reason, I no longer can say with certainty. Am I finally caring that the reason I have always used is petty? I’m not sure but my recent trip back home only added more confusion into the mix. I’m not trying to blame my family but it’s (not so) funny how family can easily make you rethink your entire life path without doing anything at all. I suppose who else would know best how to push your buttons than them.
Don’t get me wrong, my recent trip has been more than pleasant. It was a fantastic just-short-of-a-month spent with my family and friends which only makes it so much harder to swallow the realisation I am back where I am all alone wondering what the hell I am doing, as if the pain of waving goodbye alone was not bad enough.
Homesickness, I suppose is what this ache is called. The funny thing is I am sure, in some alternate universe, I would be laughing my innards out at such self-pity wallowing but the one in this universe sure doesn’t feel like laughing anytime tonight at least.
All this sappiness could very well be triggered by my lack of sleep and/or the nearness of the parting, as the above paragraphs were written on the very day I got back. I did not post them up then as I did not feel they were adequately describing what I was hoping to convey. So after two weeks, I am giving it another go.
In all honesty, I should admit that I am only continuing on this post because I feel like I am stuck with my academic progress and this (emotional blockage, maybe) could be a reason why. For the past week or so, I have barely made any progress with my project and it’s scaring the hell out of me. So, if my mental blockage is caused by this, I am hoping I’m here to put it to rest, or at least, some sort of temporary satisfaction.
Looking back at the few years I have taken this trip home and back made me realise that this is probably the first time that I have done it alone. In previous years, I had either a companion (or two) on the journey, or at least waiting to meet up once we got back. However, as last year marked the departure of the lynchpin (for me anyways) of the group, I came back to no one’s welcome, well, no one that I cared about. And after two weeks, I still have not heard from any of them. The only time I had a similar experience of loneliness would be my first year here after my mum left after a week of our arrival. (Boy, that was a much bigger pain…) However, logically speaking, it’s something that I have to learn to be able to handle as this would be something that I will be doing quite regularly in the long run.
While it still hurts today, the ache has become a lot more tolerable especially when I am around people, but I suppose the point is that it is still there. Yes, I know that it will always be there and that is a good thing, but when it’s actively stunting my performance, it’s just too strong (for me anyways – I am not trying to sound heartless here, rather weak-spirited if you will). My love for my family should be pillars of my strength, not my kryptonite.
The only way I can see to remedy this (on my own, as it gives a better guarantee of working, for me anyways) is to alter my mindset. I need to convert these pangs of loneliness to a reminder of the love and support, however far, they have for me. I should be using it to motivate me to work rather than a reason to procrastinate (as if I need another).
It may seem odd that I am actually writing all this out but for me, the message is kept closer to my mind when I actually write it out. While I am on the topic of remembering, I should also try to remember this quote my father shared recently; “Worrying does not take away tomorrows' troubles, it just takes away today's peace!” which I believe would be another helpful reminder to keep for this year. I know all too well how excessive worrying and stressing (which I am [genetically] prone to do) is terribly detrimental to one’s progress and it’s something I always wish I could improve on (without going overboard and becoming blasé about everything).
Of course, things like these are much easier said than done, and the stress that I will be dealing with for the next 10 months (and more, if I want to reach that goal of a PhD) provides many opportunities that could easily push me back to the dark side. But I will have to remember to see it as a challenge, one to overcome as a testament to my family; to show them and me that their faith and love has not been misplaced.
Till next time, I hope to be able to stay strong.
Edit: I stumbled upon my much better written post on homesickness from last year while transferring the draft for this post into my completed drafts folder [yes, I keep all my writings] which I happened to have titled the same. I believe most of the sentiments behind that post still holds (except I wasn't an angsty teenage brat this time, so go me!) and I could not have said it any better than I did then.
On a side note, my writing is really becoming worse... If only I have more time for creative self-expression.
Don’t get me wrong, my recent trip has been more than pleasant. It was a fantastic just-short-of-a-month spent with my family and friends which only makes it so much harder to swallow the realisation I am back where I am all alone wondering what the hell I am doing, as if the pain of waving goodbye alone was not bad enough.
Homesickness, I suppose is what this ache is called. The funny thing is I am sure, in some alternate universe, I would be laughing my innards out at such self-pity wallowing but the one in this universe sure doesn’t feel like laughing anytime tonight at least.
All this sappiness could very well be triggered by my lack of sleep and/or the nearness of the parting, as the above paragraphs were written on the very day I got back. I did not post them up then as I did not feel they were adequately describing what I was hoping to convey. So after two weeks, I am giving it another go.
In all honesty, I should admit that I am only continuing on this post because I feel like I am stuck with my academic progress and this (emotional blockage, maybe) could be a reason why. For the past week or so, I have barely made any progress with my project and it’s scaring the hell out of me. So, if my mental blockage is caused by this, I am hoping I’m here to put it to rest, or at least, some sort of temporary satisfaction.
Looking back at the few years I have taken this trip home and back made me realise that this is probably the first time that I have done it alone. In previous years, I had either a companion (or two) on the journey, or at least waiting to meet up once we got back. However, as last year marked the departure of the lynchpin (for me anyways) of the group, I came back to no one’s welcome, well, no one that I cared about. And after two weeks, I still have not heard from any of them. The only time I had a similar experience of loneliness would be my first year here after my mum left after a week of our arrival. (Boy, that was a much bigger pain…) However, logically speaking, it’s something that I have to learn to be able to handle as this would be something that I will be doing quite regularly in the long run.
While it still hurts today, the ache has become a lot more tolerable especially when I am around people, but I suppose the point is that it is still there. Yes, I know that it will always be there and that is a good thing, but when it’s actively stunting my performance, it’s just too strong (for me anyways – I am not trying to sound heartless here, rather weak-spirited if you will). My love for my family should be pillars of my strength, not my kryptonite.
The only way I can see to remedy this (on my own, as it gives a better guarantee of working, for me anyways) is to alter my mindset. I need to convert these pangs of loneliness to a reminder of the love and support, however far, they have for me. I should be using it to motivate me to work rather than a reason to procrastinate (as if I need another).
It may seem odd that I am actually writing all this out but for me, the message is kept closer to my mind when I actually write it out. While I am on the topic of remembering, I should also try to remember this quote my father shared recently; “Worrying does not take away tomorrows' troubles, it just takes away today's peace!” which I believe would be another helpful reminder to keep for this year. I know all too well how excessive worrying and stressing (which I am [genetically] prone to do) is terribly detrimental to one’s progress and it’s something I always wish I could improve on (without going overboard and becoming blasé about everything).
Of course, things like these are much easier said than done, and the stress that I will be dealing with for the next 10 months (and more, if I want to reach that goal of a PhD) provides many opportunities that could easily push me back to the dark side. But I will have to remember to see it as a challenge, one to overcome as a testament to my family; to show them and me that their faith and love has not been misplaced.
Till next time, I hope to be able to stay strong.
Edit: I stumbled upon my much better written post on homesickness from last year while transferring the draft for this post into my completed drafts folder [yes, I keep all my writings] which I happened to have titled the same. I believe most of the sentiments behind that post still holds (except I wasn't an angsty teenage brat this time, so go me!) and I could not have said it any better than I did then.
On a side note, my writing is really becoming worse... If only I have more time for creative self-expression.
Monkey J
15:49
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15:49
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Saturday, 31 December 2011
Another Year, Another List
Well, here we are again. The end of yet another year, and if you believe some of the street people, we are at the end of time! Sadly, I’m not here to make further prophecies on how the world’s coming to an end in 2012 because there’s already plenty of material floating around, and I don’t care too much for the mass contemplation of the end of life going on as well. If you want to live life differently just because it’s the last year, then I don’t really think you understand how fickle life is.
The end of the year does bring along with it a unique set of events; celebration, overdrinking, insane traffic, fireworks, increased death tolls, and for me, making my new year’s resolutions which, to be honest, I have completely forgotten about until just now. So, if you sense a little scrambling going on, it’s because there is since I will be, for once, working against the clock to get this post up before the year comes to a close.
As per tradition (which I had to look up since I had completely forgotten all about it), we shall begin the festivities with a look at how I fared with the list of resolutions I made exactly a year ago.
MonkeyJ’s 2011 New Year Resolutions
Since that’s done, I suppose it’s time for a new list for the upcoming year:
MonkeyJ’s 2012 New Year Resolutions
Till then, go and be merry, and all that. Happy New Year!
The end of the year does bring along with it a unique set of events; celebration, overdrinking, insane traffic, fireworks, increased death tolls, and for me, making my new year’s resolutions which, to be honest, I have completely forgotten about until just now. So, if you sense a little scrambling going on, it’s because there is since I will be, for once, working against the clock to get this post up before the year comes to a close.
As per tradition (which I had to look up since I had completely forgotten all about it), we shall begin the festivities with a look at how I fared with the list of resolutions I made exactly a year ago.
MonkeyJ’s 2011 New Year Resolutions
- Better manage my schedule to balance work, studies, and friends in a more sensible manner – Well, not really a success on my whole work-study-friends balance because the first two have been kicking the latter’s ass from the get go up until today. It’s just when you have a full course workload and two days of work as well, there is rarely any time left for anything else. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t go out occasionally. So, I guess this one was a win.
- Maintain grades - Done and done. While the stink of Time Series did not stick with my long term performance, it did experience consistent drops from the semester before that. (More on that later, hopefully.) But bottom line is that CGPA was maintained and I have graduated with what could be comparable to a summa cum laude. Mission accomplished, for now.
- Improve living situation – Sadly, due to my crippling laziness, I am still staying at the same place although I have been looking intermittently for a new place, so that’s something, I guess?
- Get cracking on post-degree opportunities, either scholarships and schools – Secured a scholarship for my Honours year and I have been told too many times that one for a PhD is easy enough to come by due to the low numbers of people willing to submit themselves to the torture. So, check! My brain is officially headed to be mush-ville.
- Pick up the enthusiasm for my studies (and work) especially after the Time Series Analysis blow – Well, considering how I spent almost all my waking hours dedicated to my studies and work, I would say this was definitely accomplished. And I am still pretty enthusiastic about work, so that’s good. Just need to feel the same for my studies (which is actually the more important of the two).
- Improve literacy skills (Write [more and] better, read more, learn French final-freaking-ly, and speak more [stupid stutter]) – Sadly, I can only report mild improvements in this resolution. I still can’t speak French, except for a few words I picked up when my colleague went there, but I do speak more normally nowadays. I have not been reading as much as I did in previous years, but I still pick up books from time to time, which is better than nothing.
- Maintain my newly made friendships (as I have a tendency to just drop of the radar) or make new friends. Either way, work on social skills – Seeing as how most my time has been devoted to studying or working, I have surprisingly been able to keep up with my friendships. Granted most of them are work/study-related, but it still counts right?
- Improve on fitness and grow taller – Well, I know people are not going to agree with me on this, but I feel like my fitness has been doing pretty well considering what I put my body through this year. Sadly, I can’t say I have grown height-wise,quite the contrary in fact (I’m not sure how. Is it too young to have osteoporosis?). Sad face...
- Be more optimistic? I’m not too sure on this one but definitely for my writing as it is so easy to drift from dark humour and sarcasm to cruel, sad and/or pathetic whining. – I think I can chalk this up in the win column just based on a quick recollection of my life this past year compared with the last. I don’t really have a yardstick to measure it by, but definitely less suicidal thoughts this time around. Not even my annual birthday post (I had to double check twice, because even I couldn’t believe it) but then again, exams were too close to the date this year as well...
- Continue the hunt for Mr. Cupid – Well, no luck with the hunt. But it’s alright because I am no longer interested.
Since that’s done, I suppose it’s time for a new list for the upcoming year:
MonkeyJ’s 2012 New Year Resolutions
- Find and maintain motivation for my studies and work, especially studies! (Considering my next year will be the hell of all the student academia years [according to various PhD grads], getting motivated for my studies is a top priority!)
- Maintain my grades, hence my scholarship (Can’t slip up here, bar is set pretty darn high due to all the strings I had to pull to get the scholarship so hopefully this motivates me more)
- Plan for my doctorate future (Will needs to get my ducks all lined up for my PhD, and there is still quite a bit left to do, especially if the rumours of a certain person’s retirement comes true)
- Try to keep some contact with my friends, close and far (I will be frank, I know I won’t have much [if any] time next year for myself and judging from my past performances when I had a sliver of additional time, the emphasis is on the word try)
- Life a relatively healthy life (for a Honours student anyways) ,i.e. don’t die of malnutrition.
- Network, network, network (Is sort of related to 3, but I’m running out of things to put on my list)
- Control my television addiction (It’s getting pretty bad at the moment)
- Minimise procrastination! (Wasted time is a big no-no next year)
- Find a new accommodation (Unlikely, but maybe just putting it on the list might help)
- Get some quality me time (At this moment, just wishful thinking but who knows?)
Till then, go and be merry, and all that. Happy New Year!
Monkey J
20:23
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20:23
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Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Ambition?
All our lives, we have thought of being someone; fireman, lawyer, teacher, famous (somehow this is a career these days), actor, scientist, singer, academic, wife, mother, father. All our lives, we navigate through the maze of day-to-day living hoping to reach the finish line of our chosen paths, hoping it is everything we have hope it would be and maybe more.
However, all our lives (at least for some of us, fine, just me then, you perfect annoyances), we also seem to fall down rabbit holes halfway through the proverbial maze only to be lead to a completely different maze to begin anew. Some of them come at certain checkpoints in all our lives like when we realise certain childhood ambitions are more fantasy than reality (or when our hypothetical vocal coach says her cat’s wailing has a better shot at Broadway than our voice), when we finish the different levels of schooling, when we get fired or like a sadistic plan of some greater power, when we reach the end of a maze. Others may be less predictable such as a significant death, an inexplicable change of heart, or the sheer boredom of excelling (dedicated to all my overly brilliant friends).
Either way, down the rabbit hole we all fall...
I know what this sounds like. It sounds like I am quitting this blog and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that given how dead quiet it has been here. The funny thing is I have been so busy studying this past year (and just graduated this month. Yay me!) that I have not had much time to think and hence write about my thoughts. (Would this count as a proper use of ironic? I can never tell ever since Jagged Little Pill was released.) I haven't even posted up my results from my final semester released early this month. Well, I’m not planning to close this down just yet. That said, I don’t foresee too much time writing in the near future either due to my further studies commitments ( I’m still not sure how smart am I for doing further studies...) . So what is all this about then?
Well, I believe anyone who has been following my blog long enough knows why I generally write. You would not be mistaken to assume that I have been feeling blocked lately. I don’t have much motivation of late to do what I am being paid to do. I have dread, but not drive. That, to me, just does not seat right, especially considering what I am dreading to do is closely related to what I will be doing for the next year (more like a minimum of four, but we’ll get there when we get there). I have had four days of rest already but my fatigue still looms heavily on my shoulders, so I am beginning to wonder if this mental blockage is due to the other part of my mind that I have not been in touch for a very long time; the part that loves to write. At the very least, writing might clear my head a little more.
For me, as a child, I never really had a concrete idea of what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. Every year, I would randomly spit out three agreeable occupations when the teacher asks me that question. I would not bore you with them but to hint that my blog is autobiographical by nature. I will however neither confirm nor deny your speculations or suspicions (because where’s the fun in not teasing?). And I have been in that constant state of uncertainty up till college and occasionally through my undergraduate life.
I had a brief fascination with psychology but nothing became of that after my parents refused to fund that. (Interestingly, both my childhood close friends ended up with a psychology degree.) After that spun another two years of adrift-ness sponsored by my A-levels before I was pointed to my recently completed course and I became known as that maths guy (Disclaimer: No one has actually called me that, partly because everyone in my class (of EIGHT pure mathematicians) is that guy....). A course which I intent to follow up (in Statistics anyways) next year with an Honours year and if conditions are “ideal”, a PhD to follow.
While in writing that sounds like a solid plan, I question it probably more than I should, especially in moments of uncertainties such as this. During those two years adrift (and occasionally when I was younger) I began to also cultivate a love of writing (from writing blogs like this) and the life of a writer in ‘the big city’. (Those living in pristine, cultured environments, not the boozy ones.) It’s a dream of folly but what better to dream of? However, I realised that the lack of inspiration and imagination evident from my short stints writing would prove to be detrimental to my career as an aspiring author. Hence I remain until today an occasional writer of my own blog as a compromise between dreams and reality.
For some reason, every time I begin to reconsider my life’s path, I turn to writing. I’m not sure why, but I just do, no matter how illogical a choice it may seem to be for me. Maybe it’s the very minimal amount of writing one does in a degree of mathematics, maybe it’s just one of those dreams I have that I’m not close to ready to let go of, maybe it’s just a mental oddity that I was conditioned with.
(Enumerate, enumerate, write!)
All these leads me to wonder whether we were all born by some grand design to a destiny (I have been spelling this as density twice already! My scientific dyslexia is getting worse) of one true vocation, or is it all just a game of trial-and-error until the end. I know many of us did not end up being what we thought we would be as a naive 5 year old, but how many of you have stayed on the straight and narrow path you envisioned as a sensible individual? How did you distinguished between the true calling from all the rest? Or does it even exist at all?
Or, maybe, I’m just watching too much telly instead of actually putting in the work...
However, all our lives (at least for some of us, fine, just me then, you perfect annoyances), we also seem to fall down rabbit holes halfway through the proverbial maze only to be lead to a completely different maze to begin anew. Some of them come at certain checkpoints in all our lives like when we realise certain childhood ambitions are more fantasy than reality (or when our hypothetical vocal coach says her cat’s wailing has a better shot at Broadway than our voice), when we finish the different levels of schooling, when we get fired or like a sadistic plan of some greater power, when we reach the end of a maze. Others may be less predictable such as a significant death, an inexplicable change of heart, or the sheer boredom of excelling (dedicated to all my overly brilliant friends).
Either way, down the rabbit hole we all fall...
I know what this sounds like. It sounds like I am quitting this blog and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that given how dead quiet it has been here. The funny thing is I have been so busy studying this past year (and just graduated this month. Yay me!) that I have not had much time to think and hence write about my thoughts. (Would this count as a proper use of ironic? I can never tell ever since Jagged Little Pill was released.) I haven't even posted up my results from my final semester released early this month. Well, I’m not planning to close this down just yet. That said, I don’t foresee too much time writing in the near future either due to my further studies commitments ( I’m still not sure how smart am I for doing further studies...) . So what is all this about then?
Well, I believe anyone who has been following my blog long enough knows why I generally write. You would not be mistaken to assume that I have been feeling blocked lately. I don’t have much motivation of late to do what I am being paid to do. I have dread, but not drive. That, to me, just does not seat right, especially considering what I am dreading to do is closely related to what I will be doing for the next year (more like a minimum of four, but we’ll get there when we get there). I have had four days of rest already but my fatigue still looms heavily on my shoulders, so I am beginning to wonder if this mental blockage is due to the other part of my mind that I have not been in touch for a very long time; the part that loves to write. At the very least, writing might clear my head a little more.
For me, as a child, I never really had a concrete idea of what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. Every year, I would randomly spit out three agreeable occupations when the teacher asks me that question. I would not bore you with them but to hint that my blog is autobiographical by nature. I will however neither confirm nor deny your speculations or suspicions (because where’s the fun in not teasing?). And I have been in that constant state of uncertainty up till college and occasionally through my undergraduate life.
I had a brief fascination with psychology but nothing became of that after my parents refused to fund that. (Interestingly, both my childhood close friends ended up with a psychology degree.) After that spun another two years of adrift-ness sponsored by my A-levels before I was pointed to my recently completed course and I became known as that maths guy (Disclaimer: No one has actually called me that, partly because everyone in my class (of EIGHT pure mathematicians) is that guy....). A course which I intent to follow up (in Statistics anyways) next year with an Honours year and if conditions are “ideal”, a PhD to follow.
While in writing that sounds like a solid plan, I question it probably more than I should, especially in moments of uncertainties such as this. During those two years adrift (and occasionally when I was younger) I began to also cultivate a love of writing (from writing blogs like this) and the life of a writer in ‘the big city’. (Those living in pristine, cultured environments, not the boozy ones.) It’s a dream of folly but what better to dream of? However, I realised that the lack of inspiration and imagination evident from my short stints writing would prove to be detrimental to my career as an aspiring author. Hence I remain until today an occasional writer of my own blog as a compromise between dreams and reality.
For some reason, every time I begin to reconsider my life’s path, I turn to writing. I’m not sure why, but I just do, no matter how illogical a choice it may seem to be for me. Maybe it’s the very minimal amount of writing one does in a degree of mathematics, maybe it’s just one of those dreams I have that I’m not close to ready to let go of, maybe it’s just a mental oddity that I was conditioned with.
(Enumerate, enumerate, write!)
All these leads me to wonder whether we were all born by some grand design to a destiny (I have been spelling this as density twice already! My scientific dyslexia is getting worse) of one true vocation, or is it all just a game of trial-and-error until the end. I know many of us did not end up being what we thought we would be as a naive 5 year old, but how many of you have stayed on the straight and narrow path you envisioned as a sensible individual? How did you distinguished between the true calling from all the rest? Or does it even exist at all?
Or, maybe, I’m just watching too much telly instead of actually putting in the work...
Monkey J
19:18
0 commented
19:18
0 commented
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Differences of Opinions (Matter)
prologue : What you are about to read was something that I was rather inspired to write about some time ago and did, however events transpired and I never got to finish it off in my inspiration high, much less proofread it, until today. So it may seem a little disjointed, particularly towards the end, but hopefully the take home message is still rather evident.
Differences of opinions.That’s the root of all our arguments. That’s the motivation for every debate ever held worldwide. Segregation of mindsets into pros and cons; against and for; right and wrong. From issues as trivial as which writing instrument to use to matters of national importance such as who’s running the country for the next few years, opinions are plenty, varied and mostly opposing.
That’s the little Catch 22 to us being individuals. Our individuality stops us from all having the same sets of thoughts, preferences and opinions. There may be issues with herd mentality and peer pressure but again, not everyone is pushed to (and choose to follow) the same set of opinions (otherwise, that would just be called brainwashing).
The motivation for me to write this up came from one of my more reliably sources of inspiration; movies. With some free time on my hands, I decided to enjoy one of the movies I have left untouched for a few months now, and randomly I chose to press play on a little known (to me and my circle of friends anyways) called “Down with Love”, a 2003 rom-com starring Renée Zellweger (Bridget Jones) and Ewan McGregor (I can only visualise him as the psycho priest in Angels and Demons), where the female lead writes the titular book about shunning love to be taken seriously in the workplace circa the 60’s (or maybe it was the 50’s). For the full plot, please check wiki or imdb but the point is that both leads have extremely different mindsets and that got the proverbial ball rolling.
However, to say that the movie was my only inspiration would be extremely narrow-minded of me as this is a prominent matter almost everywhere one turns, and even within oneself.
Take for example the protests going on back in my home country, which is just one of the many protests, globally and historically, requesting the dissolution of the current ruling party. A majority of people believe that the parliament has been unfairly stacked with yes men and are protesting for a fair re-election. Yet there are also a group of people who have no such concerns or even believe that to be a ploy of the opposing party to garner attention and votes. I know some of you (or maybe even all of you) will be saying that it is fairly obvious that the government is a sham, and a poorly constructed sham at that (given their often contradictory claims or ”statements”). The facts do not lie, and the case against them is strong, but I would like to point out that I am not discussing who’s right or wrong. Rather, I am trying to highlight the point that either sides of the argument are, in their opinions, correct and that opinion is their constitutional right. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, right or wrong.
One may further argue that if one was to look at the matter objectively, it is clear as day who is in the right. However, objectively, it is also inefficient to have that many governing bodies in the world. Objectively speaking, it would be much more efficient to have a global governmental block, and just get rid of the notions of different nationalities, currencies and even languages. However, in the matter of politics, as it relates greatly to people, subjectivity (and hoodwinking) plays a large part. And that’s why I rarely, if ever, discuss politics. There is simply no clear right or wrong, and whichever side you choose, there are bound to be people who disagree.
But I digress. My intentions were not to push the hot button topic. It just happened to serve as a slightly relevant, current example (because all my examples so far have been terribly dated. I mean, 2003? Who can remember that far back?).
In order to maintain an open mind, let us consider a less serious issue. Say there were 5 jelly beans, obtained from no particular source, to be divided to 3 people. How would the division be made, and who would make the decision? Who will be short-changed? Who stands to gain? Obviously, the decision made would depend on a number of factors. Say the decision was made within the group, it would depend on, amongst others, is there a more generous person in the bunch, who likes jelly beans, who actually can’t have jelly beans (due to allergies say), is there a clear group leader, are the benefits to accepting the smaller share, what is the relationship between the members of the group, are the jelly beans actually still edible? There are plenty more, but I think the point has been made. Rarely is a situation just purely black-and-white. Even for caught criminals, there is still a trial to determine his/her innocence.
However, not all differences of opinions are detrimental to the opposing parties. There are also many times that differences of opinions also serve as a fresh perspective on the topic under discussion. It relies on our willingness to hear them out and see if a middle ground may be achieved for the benefit of the mutual interest. Almost every industry takes this into account. That’s why when a company decides to come up with a new product, it has to go through sessions of brainstorming and consumer testing. In the film industry, the director, the producer and the executive(s) all have input to contribute to the final product, as well as occasionally, a group of test audiences, any or all of which may change the trajectory of the movie plot considerably. On an individual level, we all also practise it one time or another. We have all, at some point, asked for a second opinion on a piece of technology, clothing, style choice or even, partners. Of course, I do not refer to those times where you phrased the question in such a way that the answer you want is in the question itself. At times, when there is no one around, or if one just has no friends, one also tends to debate issues with oneself (like I do, constantly).
This leads to the next point I would like to touch on. Throughout my writings here, I have highlighted time and time again the posts are solely my opinions on various matters. The thing is, even my opinions about myself and my life is ever-changing (creating a potluck of crazed, incoherent ramblings which this lunatic appreciates that some people still read).
Someone once said, “Every five years, I look back at my life and realise what an asshole I have been five years ago” (thank you, happythankyoumoreplease) and that’s just it. Our perceptions and opinions on basically everything, ourselves included, changes (I refrain from using ‘matures’ for certain reasons) as time progresses. I am (pretty) certain that my readers would be able to agree with me on this point. It is just one of those things that we have to deal with. I implore you to momentarily step back into your shoes 5 years in the past and consider the quote I have just mentioned. (Since this is not a two-way communication, I shall just relate my experience instead but don’t cheat! MonkeyJ wants you to think and be a better person, or so the insane monkey wants you to believe.)
Five years ago...
I was in my last year of secondary school. I was stressed about what and where I was going into after finishing school. I was worried about the impact of my lack of participation in “extra-cocurricular” activities. (Boy, was that stupid...) I still had quite a bit of school boy mentality and my temper was short as ever. I was still under the impression that I could draw decently and I did not have a pseudo-stable blog(s). I still spoke regularly to some people (KF, JM), was friends with a lot more, and was liked enough by the others. Yet, I still knew not the majority of my closest friends today. I was also an even bigger naive, pretentious and unreliable little bitch (ignore the horrible construct and focus on the meaning) back then (so it was probably a good thing I didn’t know my current friends then). If I was to be completely honest, looking back at myself then, I can’t say I was proud of who I was. (And trust me, that wasn’t where I planned to go with this when I started this paragraph.) I can’t help but think of how petty I was about so many issues and how horribly I treated my family, my friends and in general, everyone....
Before I derail into the abyss of self-hate, let’s get back on topic, shall we?
As I was saying earlier, an individual’s opinions aren’t set in stone. There will always be changes, regardless of how strong we felt about an issue. I, as always, am the harbourer of examples. At a not so recent past, I strongly believed that I was a “free-flow thinking (i.e. hippie-like) liberal psychologist to be”, poised to tackle the world’s psyche but look at me now. I am almost finishing my degree (highscoring constantly on the way as well as I’m sure is a fact any reader of this blog is well aware of) in perhaps what many consider to be one of the most rigid, empirical courses. In the past, I always thought I will never travel down here (due to the many, many people who seem to think this place is god sent without actually knowing squat about it) but rather I envisioned myself west. However, I have been here for three years and I have grown quite fond of the place (sans the idiotic foreigners, myself NOT included obviously). I used to have the most peculiar belief system based almost entirely on self-made superstitions which I now often look back and laugh at (but still, never direct the base of your feet to my direction! It’s still gross, not to mention, unlucky.), or maybe not...
The point is, before I start over-contradicting myself (again), taking even just one individual into account, it’s almost impossible to assume or predict what he or she thinks. Now, if we were to extrapolate that to a population, the job of a representative of a group might as well be to predict when the aliens would drop by to massacre us, plus the winning numbers of next week’s lottery.
However, there are also times (let’s hope for humanity that these are rare and far in between) when a person’s right to their opinions might as well be mute by the way the person handles themselves but it is always good to have at least one encounter with such a person so we know we are relatively alright. I certainly have.
And, that’s just my opinion.
Differences of opinions.That’s the root of all our arguments. That’s the motivation for every debate ever held worldwide. Segregation of mindsets into pros and cons; against and for; right and wrong. From issues as trivial as which writing instrument to use to matters of national importance such as who’s running the country for the next few years, opinions are plenty, varied and mostly opposing.
That’s the little Catch 22 to us being individuals. Our individuality stops us from all having the same sets of thoughts, preferences and opinions. There may be issues with herd mentality and peer pressure but again, not everyone is pushed to (and choose to follow) the same set of opinions (otherwise, that would just be called brainwashing).
The motivation for me to write this up came from one of my more reliably sources of inspiration; movies. With some free time on my hands, I decided to enjoy one of the movies I have left untouched for a few months now, and randomly I chose to press play on a little known (to me and my circle of friends anyways) called “Down with Love”, a 2003 rom-com starring Renée Zellweger (Bridget Jones) and Ewan McGregor (I can only visualise him as the psycho priest in Angels and Demons), where the female lead writes the titular book about shunning love to be taken seriously in the workplace circa the 60’s (or maybe it was the 50’s). For the full plot, please check wiki or imdb but the point is that both leads have extremely different mindsets and that got the proverbial ball rolling.
However, to say that the movie was my only inspiration would be extremely narrow-minded of me as this is a prominent matter almost everywhere one turns, and even within oneself.
Take for example the protests going on back in my home country, which is just one of the many protests, globally and historically, requesting the dissolution of the current ruling party. A majority of people believe that the parliament has been unfairly stacked with yes men and are protesting for a fair re-election. Yet there are also a group of people who have no such concerns or even believe that to be a ploy of the opposing party to garner attention and votes. I know some of you (or maybe even all of you) will be saying that it is fairly obvious that the government is a sham, and a poorly constructed sham at that (given their often contradictory claims or ”statements”). The facts do not lie, and the case against them is strong, but I would like to point out that I am not discussing who’s right or wrong. Rather, I am trying to highlight the point that either sides of the argument are, in their opinions, correct and that opinion is their constitutional right. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, right or wrong.
One may further argue that if one was to look at the matter objectively, it is clear as day who is in the right. However, objectively, it is also inefficient to have that many governing bodies in the world. Objectively speaking, it would be much more efficient to have a global governmental block, and just get rid of the notions of different nationalities, currencies and even languages. However, in the matter of politics, as it relates greatly to people, subjectivity (and hoodwinking) plays a large part. And that’s why I rarely, if ever, discuss politics. There is simply no clear right or wrong, and whichever side you choose, there are bound to be people who disagree.
But I digress. My intentions were not to push the hot button topic. It just happened to serve as a slightly relevant, current example (because all my examples so far have been terribly dated. I mean, 2003? Who can remember that far back?).
In order to maintain an open mind, let us consider a less serious issue. Say there were 5 jelly beans, obtained from no particular source, to be divided to 3 people. How would the division be made, and who would make the decision? Who will be short-changed? Who stands to gain? Obviously, the decision made would depend on a number of factors. Say the decision was made within the group, it would depend on, amongst others, is there a more generous person in the bunch, who likes jelly beans, who actually can’t have jelly beans (due to allergies say), is there a clear group leader, are the benefits to accepting the smaller share, what is the relationship between the members of the group, are the jelly beans actually still edible? There are plenty more, but I think the point has been made. Rarely is a situation just purely black-and-white. Even for caught criminals, there is still a trial to determine his/her innocence.
However, not all differences of opinions are detrimental to the opposing parties. There are also many times that differences of opinions also serve as a fresh perspective on the topic under discussion. It relies on our willingness to hear them out and see if a middle ground may be achieved for the benefit of the mutual interest. Almost every industry takes this into account. That’s why when a company decides to come up with a new product, it has to go through sessions of brainstorming and consumer testing. In the film industry, the director, the producer and the executive(s) all have input to contribute to the final product, as well as occasionally, a group of test audiences, any or all of which may change the trajectory of the movie plot considerably. On an individual level, we all also practise it one time or another. We have all, at some point, asked for a second opinion on a piece of technology, clothing, style choice or even, partners. Of course, I do not refer to those times where you phrased the question in such a way that the answer you want is in the question itself. At times, when there is no one around, or if one just has no friends, one also tends to debate issues with oneself (like I do, constantly).
This leads to the next point I would like to touch on. Throughout my writings here, I have highlighted time and time again the posts are solely my opinions on various matters. The thing is, even my opinions about myself and my life is ever-changing (creating a potluck of crazed, incoherent ramblings which this lunatic appreciates that some people still read).
Someone once said, “Every five years, I look back at my life and realise what an asshole I have been five years ago” (thank you, happythankyoumoreplease) and that’s just it. Our perceptions and opinions on basically everything, ourselves included, changes (I refrain from using ‘matures’ for certain reasons) as time progresses. I am (pretty) certain that my readers would be able to agree with me on this point. It is just one of those things that we have to deal with. I implore you to momentarily step back into your shoes 5 years in the past and consider the quote I have just mentioned. (Since this is not a two-way communication, I shall just relate my experience instead but don’t cheat! MonkeyJ wants you to think and be a better person, or so the insane monkey wants you to believe.)
Five years ago...
I was in my last year of secondary school. I was stressed about what and where I was going into after finishing school. I was worried about the impact of my lack of participation in “extra-cocurricular” activities. (Boy, was that stupid...) I still had quite a bit of school boy mentality and my temper was short as ever. I was still under the impression that I could draw decently and I did not have a pseudo-stable blog(s). I still spoke regularly to some people (KF, JM), was friends with a lot more, and was liked enough by the others. Yet, I still knew not the majority of my closest friends today. I was also an even bigger naive, pretentious and unreliable little bitch (ignore the horrible construct and focus on the meaning) back then (so it was probably a good thing I didn’t know my current friends then). If I was to be completely honest, looking back at myself then, I can’t say I was proud of who I was. (And trust me, that wasn’t where I planned to go with this when I started this paragraph.) I can’t help but think of how petty I was about so many issues and how horribly I treated my family, my friends and in general, everyone....
Before I derail into the abyss of self-hate, let’s get back on topic, shall we?
As I was saying earlier, an individual’s opinions aren’t set in stone. There will always be changes, regardless of how strong we felt about an issue. I, as always, am the harbourer of examples. At a not so recent past, I strongly believed that I was a “free-flow thinking (i.e. hippie-like) liberal psychologist to be”, poised to tackle the world’s psyche but look at me now. I am almost finishing my degree (highscoring constantly on the way as well as I’m sure is a fact any reader of this blog is well aware of) in perhaps what many consider to be one of the most rigid, empirical courses. In the past, I always thought I will never travel down here (due to the many, many people who seem to think this place is god sent without actually knowing squat about it) but rather I envisioned myself west. However, I have been here for three years and I have grown quite fond of the place (sans the idiotic foreigners, myself NOT included obviously). I used to have the most peculiar belief system based almost entirely on self-made superstitions which I now often look back and laugh at (but still, never direct the base of your feet to my direction! It’s still gross, not to mention, unlucky.), or maybe not...
The point is, before I start over-contradicting myself (again), taking even just one individual into account, it’s almost impossible to assume or predict what he or she thinks. Now, if we were to extrapolate that to a population, the job of a representative of a group might as well be to predict when the aliens would drop by to massacre us, plus the winning numbers of next week’s lottery.
However, there are also times (let’s hope for humanity that these are rare and far in between) when a person’s right to their opinions might as well be mute by the way the person handles themselves but it is always good to have at least one encounter with such a person so we know we are relatively alright. I certainly have.
And, that’s just my opinion.
Monkey J
18:31
0 commented
18:31
0 commented