Saturday, March 17, 2012

``It Really Makes You Think™''

Time passes rapidly, especially when one is having fun. And in this case, I am of course referring to the stuff that I am working on.

Spring time is barely here, and my mood is already looking up in spite of the many things that caused it to go down in the first place. New friends are made, new connections emphasized, old ones less emphasized---life goes on. Spring brings a renewed type of vigour that is quite infectious, really. Good time to get things done, get things going, and staying alive.

A senior PhD student once said that ``in a PhD programme, you do a lot of thinking---not just about your research, but about everything in general''. I used to take that statement lightly, but now, I think that it holds quite a bit of wisdom in it. If we think of an athletic programme as a means of training the body to do things at a higher intensity while maintaining good efficiency, then the PhD programme is the exact same thing but for the mind. Like with athletics, once you have reached the intensity provided for by the programme, it changes the way you operate at a fundamental level, which leads to the whole business of thinking about everything in general. I think this is a very powerful message to take from this whole confusing apprenticeship that is the PhD programme, and is one that will serve me well in terms of keeping everything in perspective.

But anyway, apart from work, having some sort of balance is pretty important too, much to my amusement. I've since discovered that despite my self-proclamations of being a workaholic, I'm actually not that obsessive about work---obsessive enough to keep pushing, but not obsessive enough that I cannot put it down for a while to do something else.

Alright, I've lost the momentum for writing this entry. Maybe more will be forthcoming next time.

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