On Being Smart……Not!

People get this misconception that just because I am a PhD student, therefore I am smart. That’s what I used to believe too. Of course I’d like to think of myself as a smart person because I am doing my PhD. So wrong….!!

Very often, people give me this impressed look when they ask me what I do here in New Zealand, and I say I am doing my PhD. Then they oooh and aahhh when I tell them its in Chemical Engineering.

While its nice to be praised, I also feel very embarrassed and uncomfortable. Because, third year into my doctoral program, I can tell you indefinitely that I am not smart! Seriously, I am not trying to be polite, I really am not that smart!

People who are really really really smart knows better than to go do a PhD. I started my PhD program because I hated my job! I struggle with my PhD program. To the point I ask myself almost daily now, “Tien, what the hell are you thinking trying to do a PhD???”

One of my lecturers from my undergraduate days has this to say on how to graduate with a PhD in hand. “Tien, you have to be stubborn. No matter how bad other people try to comment negatively about your work or results, be stubborn and keep believing that you have what it takes. Just be stubborn!”

The keyword here is stubborn. Not smart, but stubborn! I believe him wholeheartedly!

And then there is this article that discusses how stupidity is important in conducting scientific research. If you’d like to be a PhD student, have a good read at this article, and think long and hard whether you really have what it takes. While being smart helps at times, it doesn’t get the job done, honest!

I am not smart, but I still want that PhD. And I can appear to be smarter. I hope I can make the cut. I am fighting for it. Wish me luck, I need LOTS of it!

Hello, Hello!!

Hello blog!

Hello you!

Hello me!

How I miss my blog! How I miss reading your blogs and receiving comments!

Right after my last entry about cutie Maple, I decided to challenge myself. My progress in my studies have been terrible because of procrastination. And excuses. So I decided to set a serious target in my thesis writing and before its done and ready for my supervisor’s review, no blogging for me!

I anticipated that it would take only 2 weeks, max. It took nearly a month! You have no idea how bad it is to want to blog and then turn away from it (withdrawal symptoms haha!). My fingers were itching for weeks! But I am very proud of myself. I kept the promise, I delivered (albeit taking way longer than 2 weeks) and now I can blog…..with a vengeance *grins*

Thank you Pervisha, Danielle and Nadia for checking on me, I am still alive and well, just playing good student for the past few weeks ;)

I have so many things to blog about that I don’t know where to start. I am very hungry (it’s lunch time now) and I am just minutes after hitting the send button, e-mailing my 105-page (ahem!) report to my supervisor. The first thing I wanted to do was blog instead of eat. So yeah

I feel sorry for my little blog, going through a dry spell for a whole month. But rest assured, I am back to nurturing it with lots of writing this week. For the time being, here’s another shot of Maple while I warm up to the blogosphere! I have lots of catching up to do

Lament

Like most days, I typed away in front of my computer today trying to progress with my work as much as possible.

With at least 5 windows open at a time, I tried to multi-task between making the numbers and equations tally on an excel worksheet, referencing at least 3 academic articles on PDFs and trying to make sense of it all in a word file which somehow has to emerge as something “brilliant”. Somehow.

So many aspects to report, so many technical complications to explain and so much to solve, I begin to wonder how I could manage to link all ideas and concepts in a systematic manner. At the moment, I have so many  different word documents written on different days on various topics related to my work and I fear at the thought of trying to compile them all nicely in one continuous document, with good structure, flow and formatting. And sound brilliant too.

Oh and not to mention, it must have a complete reference list and proper citations within the text too. This is the part I drag the most when it comes to technical writing. It is not enough to know what you write about, you must also remember where you first read about it and give due credit by citing it. Otherwise, you’ll get penalised for plagiarism, very serious offense.

This slows me down a lot, spending time trying to dig through hundreds of journal papers in my “collection” and pin point the exact piece for every few lines of text I wrote. Making sure formatting is consistent and up to standard throughout is quite a headache too. I get quite put off by the task of writing my thesis because of these.

Which then procrastination comes into the picture. And then I complain. And I whine.

Sometimes I just sit there wondering why I wanted to do this in the first place. Questioning if this will ever get done.

Then I thought, at least I have a powerful word processing software that is Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel to speed up calculations and Endnote as my efficient citation management sidekick.

Imagine having to do ALL this using only a typewriter….with no delete or backspacing function. Or formatting tools. How did people do anything without a computer? How was it done 30 years ago??

I am fortunate to be in the 21st century.

With that, I snapped out of it and got back to work.

The Internet And Me

I survived life without internet for 5 days….!

The internet connection at home decided to crash on Good Friday (22 April). Murray is the one who usually manages the internet account at home and since he is still away on honeymoon with Hannah, this means no internet during the Easter weekend, through to Anzac Day on Monday and an additional observed holiday on Tuesday by the University. Which explains my abandoning this blog for like a week now. Oh how I miss blogging.

It was rainy and wet during the Easter weekend. I was stuck at home with no internet. For 5 days. I know, re-writing this made it seemed very daunting to me too. But I can’t believe that I survived it and worked out my modelling in the process. Ahhh….I realised I never really talked about what I do as a student. Well, I model. No really, I model.

Mathematical modelling that is! I have been trying to solve this one problem. By the way, that’s what we PhD students do, we create a problem (usually a complicated one) and then drive ourselves crazy trying to solve it in order to inch closer to graduation. In my case, I have been trying, (for months..!!) to derive an accurate mathematical expression to describe a complex chemical reaction. Yes, it drives me crazy every week day. The absence of internet, it seems, made me work and focus better on my modelling. Even though it’s not runway modelling, but still…

I am guilty of spending way too much time on the internet checking e-mails, Facebook, chatting online, reading blogs when I should be doing something else of more importance. I am sure I am not alone in this I thought I have an addiction to the internet. I felt like I will miss out a lot if I stop checking in for even a day.

But I went through 5 days straight doing just fine. It reminded me of the days when the internet was a luxury rather a necessity. While having no internet was a hassle for me because it made information access that much harder for my work, it has also gotten rid of unnecessary distractions that have potential to make me “wander off” from it. Yes I couldn’t blog or check on my favourite bloggers, but hey, it’s the internet, they won’t be gone :)

5 days of bad weather and no internet made me realise that life without internet is possible. Or rather, life with controlled internet access is possible and possibly healthier. I have a love affair with the internet, but not an addiction. What about you?