silliness

After 78 days, my female owner finally received the report for her thesis yesterday. The good news is that she has a provisional pass, pending minor changes to certain parts of it. The not-so-good news is that she can’t graduate this year as she has hoped. Given that her hopes were conclusively dashed, my female owner’s spirit spiralled downwards. Objectively she knew that she did well. Examiner A passed her without asking for any revisions. Examiner B needed just ten revisions and most of them were nitpicking on her grammar and nothing too conceptual or dramatic. An easy-peasy revision to be honest. Subjectively, she was upset. Her perfectionistic streak was ruffled. Rather than saying she had a provisional pass, she told a friend that she did not pass her thesis. Ah, the difference between a positive statement and a negative statement. My female owner couldn’t figure out why people, including her supervisor, were congratulating her, and one friend even tried to shout her dinner. You see, my female owner prefers things to be definite and not “almost there” – a clear example of her black-and-white/ all-or-none thinking. Either she has a pass, or she failed. You would think that after three years of postgraduate clinical psychology, she has become better in sorting out her inner demons.

I believe one day, she will laugh at her own silliness.

submission

Out of sheer necessity, my female owner finally pulled up her socks and submitted her thesis on Tuesday (i.e. two days ago). Why “sheer necessity”? Coz her housemate was leaving Brisbane indefinitely on Wednesday and my female owner wanted to host a Good Riddance Party before she leaves.

My female owner tried to savour the process of submitting her thesis. She did not find it particularly flavourful. It was with an apprehensive and ambivalent heart that she handed over three copies of her 252-page, 57734-word thesis. She kept wondering if she had done enough and (as expected), catastrophised the worst case scenario that she had to rewrite big chunks of her arguments. And of course, the great uncertainty surrounding her future also dampened her mood.

So anyway, as a gesture of appreciation for her friends who laboured with her through her thesis, she hosted a dinner at night. My female owner felt so blessed to have such friends around her. She even said that with such friends around, she won’t mind doing another thesis. Err… sure anot? I think she was drunk when she said that.

threshold

Apparently my female owner’s supervisor took so long to revert with his comments on her second drafts that my female owner had the luxury of time to revert to her old-time habit – prolonged MSN chats. She hadn’t been visible for many months because of Thesus but just this week alone, she made connect with some buddies whom she had not spoken for some time – Potahto, Canadian Jogging Kaki and Melbourne Fren. She also went out with Intuitive Fren and got her dose of wit and fast-firing exchange of sarcasm.

All good times must come to an end, and it ended when her supervisor finally reverted with her drafts. Essentially her heart sank when she saw the multitude of comments and question marks he generously dosed onto her draft and the most perplexing thing he wrote came at the end of the two chapters: “good work, congratulations”.

My female owner finds it hard to reconcile his actions and words. Internally, she is fading away already. She is reaching her threshold of last minute comments which should have been pointed earlier, if at all. She says that her chapter has reached a point where if you fix something here, something else might collapse. So finally, she asked Special Fren if he would be available to do a last-time job of proof-reading her chapter, so that these cracks would be spotted now, than later. As usual, he kindly said ok. Ah, so blessed, my female owner.

escapism

The latest (but boring) update is that my female owner has finished the first chapter of her thesis. i.e. her supervisor’s last comment on her draft was “congratulations, you done a good job”. The empirical chapters are still on his end, so she can’t really move forward.

The latest (less boring) update is that my female owner feels very sianz about staying on in Australia. Surprise surprise! Besides the usual apprehensions about whether she can find a good paying job, getting her PR application and registration sorted out, money issues, car licence etc, the latest thing on her mind is that high likelihood that she has to move out of her current house by the end of the year, coz her landlord wants to rent out the whole house. Another big uncertainty coz it is hard to decided where to stay if you don’t have a job. My female owner’s usual catastrophising mechanism kicked in and her first response was to return back to Singapore. Oh well… escapism in its full glory.

Anyway, she decided that she can think about that later. Right now, its really just Theseus and her, working (hand in hand) to complete each other’s misery.

Stats Knight

And so, my female owner met her knight in shining statistical armour. Stats Knight hails from the sunny island of Singapore. He’s someone whom my female owner know through Therapist Fren. They were never really close but he’s a helpful and caring person by nature, always looking out for his friends and feeding them with information to help them along as international students. Recently, my female owner faced an uphill task trying to figure out the discrepancies in her statistical outputs. Stats Knight had always been good in statistics but my female owner never approached him for help coz she felt they were not really close and as usual, she didn’t want to bother people.

But her recent crisis was so overwhelming that she just had to seek help. Stats Knight immediately made time to meet up with her to suss out her issues. He even went the extra mile to print things for her to refer to and “translate” those text into plain English. In fact, he was so excited while fixing her statistical knots that for a while, my female owner thought he actually made statistics look sexy.

Ah, and he rescued her from the bloody thorny snares of statistics, and my female owner says she is a happy girl again (until the next crisis happens).

fragile

Did I mention that my female owner had a crying session last Friday, as she tried to rerun her stats to confirm her results? Having almost reached saturated point, she started making even more mistakes even as she tried to double-check her analyses and data entry. It reached a point where she couldn’t go on anymore and she started crying, the whimpering type of crying… not the tears of frustration type. But the tears of helplessness.

Mr S who was chatting with her on FB told her to take a break and she started to tell him how inapt she felt, that she couldn’t even do the simplest thing of checking numbers. And his reply was short and sweet, that she couldn’t do it, coz she was too smart for it. And she should leave such things to people with simple minds, like him.

In spite of her angst, my female owner couldn’t help but laugh at what he said (things people say to cheer you up). She promptly remembered the last time this laugh-and-cry-dichotomous-split-personality appeared – on the day when she was leaving for Brisbane this year. Special Fren brought her around to run her (last minute) errands and while approaching her house. My female owner was feeling sad so she started to cry. Special Fren then played her a Malay song which had touching words. He sang the song in English in a highly ticklish manner that also made her laugh. And she ended up really laughing and crying and freaking him out in the process. Classic moments with my female owner.

Today, she was struggling with interpreting her statistical findings. Her uni fren couldn’t figure out any statistical explanation for the weird patterns and started to question her supervisor’s decision making. My female owner also wanted to cry (she’s so fragile these days!). Then her friend started to make a parody of her situation. “So, your discussion would go something like this: I did correlations and didn’t find anything significant, but I decided to move on to regressions just in case there’s something happening there. And now that I did and found significant results, I can’t really explain what happened, and think that my sample size was too small to start with. Crap.”

My female owner ended up laughing over the silliness of the situation.

ikan bilis

My female owner has been feeling touchy and angsty lately, and she attributes it to the ridiculous directions given by her supervisor regarding her thesis. Dodgy concepts and statistics galore. She ended up doing 84 multiple regressions (whatever that means), on top of other statistical analyses that he wanted her to do. It was as if her supervisor was casting his net wide to see what ikan bilis would be silly enough to be caught in her holey net. He changes his mind last minute, adding more analyses each time, and thus, changing her story each time.

So my female owner is very frustrated, and being her, she tends to direct her anger inwards, towards herself. She loathes to put the blame on her supervisor, so she says that she “should have been” more assertive and directive, and she “should have” clarified more etc etc. At the end of the day, she is blaming herself again. At the back of her mind, she feels sabotaged by him.

And we turtles are affected too. So hard to talk to her these days, without being pricked (hence my less frequent updates). I am still around, but my female owner had been MIA, tackling her T-monster

Nonetheless, she is thankful for her friends who have extended practical help to her. Besides Special Fren who readily agreed to be her proofreader, her Statistics Fren came out of FB to offer his statistics expertise. So did another uni friend who made time between his commitments at uni to look at her statistical write-ups and SPSS outputs when she asked him for help and even went the extra mile to offer more time-slots should she need it. Kudos also to her other uni friends (including Therapist Fren) who took pains to listen to her statistical dilemmas and offered their expert inputs and experience. And Mr S who said he would make time to do “humanitarian, charity work” just as long as it was something within his ability.

proofreader

My female owner has a prolonged mental gymnastics session today, as she tried to work out how to address all her supervisor’s comments and feedback for her thesis. The process, while not depressive (thankfully)...yt, sucked out all her vitality, spark and emotions. She was just robotic, going through the motion and trying to fire-fight. At the back of her mind, she wonders if she can complete her thesis in time and occasionally, would kick herself for being so ambitious.

Anyway, one crucial procedure for submitting a thesis is to have it proofread by a naïve reader, someone who has no privy to what the thesis is about. However, it is not easy to get a good naïve reader, given that firstly, the person must be willing to go through the torture of reading a thick write-up which is an instant cure for insomnia and secondly, the person must be psychologically-minded in order to be able to digest the material. My anal female owner has other criteria as well, such as command of English better than hers, cleverer than her, able to give critical feedback, work under tight time pressure etc. (sounds as if she is looking for a partner actually). My female owner almost convinced herself that she could do without a proofreader but she decided that it was not a wise choice.

And so, my female owner approached Special Fren who fit the criteria perfectly. And best part was, he readily agreed to help her out. My female owner tried to warn him of the humongous task ahead but he was game for it. True friend, says my female owner.

teary

My female owner had a teary week. It started on Tuesday with the bombshells her supervisor dropped on her. She ploughed along on Wednesday, heavy hearted. Had a brief chat with Mr S who asked if she was ok. Thursday came, and she was still ambivalent and distressed over the happenings on Tuesday. However, she kept working on her thesis. Grateful for Mr S who sent her emails reminding her of what she had to do (coz he knew she would forget) and encouraging her to be more proactive in getting her supervisor to play his part. Emo Sponge came over at night. Had a brief face-to-face chat with him and my female owner almost teared again, talking about her problems. Friday. Emo Sponge had been faithfully whatsapping her to cheer her on and support her efforts in taking care of Sayang. When my female owner remarked that she feels as if she is having post-natal depression, he promised that he (being the god dad) and the father of Sayang (a friend who self-confessed to be her father) would be supporting her emotionally, financially, spiritually and physically. Ah, sweet words. Late pm, my female owner dragged herself to school to return an overdue book and to meet Mr S (how funny, both of them had to go to school but were too lazy to do so, unless they had other additional reasons to go out, hence they agreed to meet). Was meant to be a brainless evening but Mr S asked her again about her coping and emotional well-being, commenting that she was “flat”. He found out that it was very important for her to graduate by the end of the year and through his persistent but therapeutic probing, sussed out the deep seated reasons for her relentless pursuit of a ridiculous deadline… and in the process, she teared again. My female owner had never been teary over a stretch of so many days before. This is new and rightly distressing for her. However, after Friday's guided soul-searching, my female owner said that she is clearer of her irrational thoughts and inflexible beliefs.

losing

My female owner had her biggest emo episode yesterday, no thanks to her supervisor who dropped the bombshell on her that he has not been able to find any markers for her thesis (at this late stage) and who questioned her ability to complete her thesis by 30 Aug 10. Not funny. My female owner didn’t know how to respond to these that she simply stared at him in shock. The nightmares of eccentric supervisors are happening to her. Had she worked so hard, all in vain? Every decision she made was in view of her plan to submit her thesis by 30 Aug 10 with ready markers.

She felt down and moody henceforth. She then met up with Mr S who, as usual, could tell that she was losing “it” and perhaps out of compassion, bought her coffee and cake and offered his listening ear. She tried her best to be good company for the rest of the night (after all they were meeting up after a long time) but the issues weighed heavily on her mind and heart. For the first time ever, she really wanted a beer for dinner. And she apparently had an hallucination which freaked her out (she saw two trains on the sushi line the whole time during dinner but Mr S said there was only one).

She went home and found Sayang missing. Another straw that threatened to break her back. Her friend, who had earlier popped by to feed her dinner, had told my female owner about the fierce cat neighbour who scared Sayang, and my female owner was convinced that Sayang had gone into hiding for the night. Her housemates and Emo Sponge were around and my female owner had brief conversations with them.

Going into her bedroom, my female owner started crying. She didn’t know what she was feeling. Was it anger? Or disappointment? Or hopelessness? Sitting through her tears, talking to Onli Fren and Emo Sponge (powers of technology), my female owner finally realised that while her chief complaint is tiredness, at her very core, she felt scared.

Some people call it fear.

notice

My female owner just submitted her Notice of Submission, i.e. she is officially notifying the school of her intended submission date of her thesis. Having stated 30 Aug 2010 as her deadline, she is now regretting her lack of foresight in not giving herself some buffer time and declaring such a bold deadline (For those who don’t know, her thesis is actually due in Oct).

So she is in her final month of school and she is starting to feel the heat. The heat of getting her thesis written up and the heat of knowing that she has little plans beyond August. The high-achieving side of her which screams that she should be doing more with her time and the fun-loving side of her wanting to enjoy life even while writing her thesis. These days, she gets cranky easily and her friends suffer the brunt of her unintended sarcasm and snappiness. That’s why during such times, she rather be alone, so that she doesn’t step on anybody’s toes or ruffle any feathers. But ah, she is often surrounded by people, friends who bless her richly with their support, practical help and undying patience.

Still, she is cranky. She felt it within her today as she went out with her friends for dinner. She caught herself with great determination and reminded herself not to say or do anything that she would regret later. My female owner was not sure if she succeeded but she did her best to stay on safe topics.

4 more weeks.

usual

My female owner had another emo moment today as she grappled with her insecurities, self-doubts and fears about the usual things concerning her thesis (will she get it passed by Nov?), her future (to stay or not to stay), her finances (will she be able to get a casual job in Sept, and eventually a professional job?).

Strange but true, my female owner was just surfing her usual news websites when she suddenly found herself on seek.com looking at available jobs in Brisbane. She apparently clicked on some advertisement about furthering your studies in psychology and somehow landed there within a few more clicks. Is that a sign that she better buck up? Even stranger is that the private hospital where she is supposed to be running group therapy is looking for a psychologist (needs to be fully registered though).

She just did some financial check on her bank accounts and realised that her money is running out. Probably can last her for about 6-9 months. This increased her sense of urgency (and poverty) and fantasises of her taking a long road trip vanished quickly. In the first place, she don’t think she can find anyone to travel with and she doesn’t want to do it alone.

And Theseus is giving her problems, no thanks to her supervisor who keeps changing his mind and has been slacking for a few weeks. She ends up writing and revising but not really progressing ahead.

Emo.

routine

After about two weeks of dedicated work, my female owner has more or less settled into a routine with Theseus. Not actually the most exciting thing in her life, but at least, she is no longer as angsty and distressed over him. She has set up a "home office" kind of thing. She wakes up, starts working on him at about 10am. She normally starts by doing a day time-table and goal-setting. Keeps up a steady pace until about mid-arvo where she decides if she wanna go jogging. Her decision is based on many factors like the weather, her sense of achievement for the day and finally her motivation level. At night, she takes a breather by watching Masterchef on her lousy TV where reception goes bad religiously at the same time as Masterchef. The great mysteries of life.

Her social life is integrated into her work routine, and she makes it a point to do a few hours of work a day, no matter what. If not, weekend is pay-back time. While she has isolated herself much of the time, God had been taking care of her in the sense that her friends have been more proactive in asking about her state of being. Some of them have kinda become her personal cheerleader, waving her on, showering her with heaps of encouragement and understanding, and providing practical aid such as cooking meals and even resort to pulling her away from Theseus at strategic times.

Ah, wondering if she is beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel?

alone

My female owner had been feeling alone in her battle with Theseus. Alone coz she doesn’t openly share her distress with people (after all, it is only a thesis and there are bigger issues, like poverty and natural disasters, in the world to deal with) and may honestly share a little when people ask her how she is coping (otherwise, it’s the polite “yup, its tough but I will get there” response). And because she is socially withdrawing from people, it increases her aloneness. She spends her time in her room (closed door), frantically reading and typing away. She doesn’t come out to chat with her housemates (hasn’t seen them properly for days). She avoids big social gatherings. Her choice of social interactions has been narrowed down to uni friends (coz she feels they can understand her pain without her saying too much) or one-on-one appointments with selected church mates (who ask to meet her). She hides on MSN. She hasn’t been able to sleep properly, either being unable to fall asleep, or when she does, wake up several times in the night. And she has been so frustrated with this that she has considered taking sleeping pills. Alas, she is not one for medication. She has conflicting thoughts and feelings about her situation and most definitely, she is upset with herself for being upset about something as simple and straightforward as writing a thesis. Ah, another one of her "I SHOULDN"T be feeling this way" traps.

balance

My female owner had been striking a reasonable balance between Theseus and personal time-out over the week (in her opinion – considering that she completed a paper and watched two movies, all episodes of Masterchef, had dinner with Mr S three times, coffee twice, jogging once, shopping once, lunch with uni friends once). As usual, she felt that she could have done more, but nonetheless, a good start for a cerebrally intense July. Unlike last weekend, she declared this weekend as Getaway WITH Theseus. She intends to work really hard (and efficiently) on her General Introduction and aims to write about 10000 words (how many blog entries is that?). Already, she had made progress in the right direction by firstly, coming up with the skeletal framework of the introduction (and discussion) and secondly, transferring all her existing references to Endnotes (whatever that is, too high-level for a domestic turtle to interpret). Now all she has to do is to keep writing, reading and thinking. Her goal for today is 1500 words and she has 491 words already. Sounds like progress.

race

My female owner aims to complete Paper 3 today. Her supervisor is going away for two weeks this Saturday and she hopes to submit something to him before he leaves. Never mind that he might not have the time to read the paper before he leaves (he is apparently still sitting on Paper 2). It is just one of the time pressures she created for herself in order to get moving on Theseus.

She finally realised or accepted that working on Theseus is really a solo expedition. A journey she has to undertake, endure and complete by herself. While she has many friends cheering her on the sidelines (and she is very grateful for their tireless support), they are in no position to assist with the technicalities and the difficulties she might face. It’s an endurance race to the finish. A race she claims as her own. And she has every intention to finish a winner.

GATW

My female owner had her inaugural Get Away from Theseus Weekend last weekend. It probably started on Friday arvo when she went to watch a movie cum dinner with Mr S. And ended off Friday with a trip to the dessert store with some of her church friends.

Then on Saturday, Mr S and her went to Mount Warning (in New South Wales – so she went interstate!), a World Heritage rainforest park for some steep mountain climbing. Was the most challenging she ever done with any of her hiking buddies. But extremely rewarding she said, for the paranomic views on the mountain top. She would have remained on the top for hours if she could. It helped tremendously that Mr S was well-organised and took care of safety aspects of this climb, making it more pleasant for my female owner (think protective gloves to counter huge metal chains).

They then made impromptu stops along the way home (2hrs drive) for coffee and dinner. My female owner also witnessed her first partial lunar eclipse and was thrilled by the phenomenon.

Sunday started off leisurely. My female owner read her book (Eat, Pray, Love). Then she went out with one of her housemates for an impromptu shopping spree at their favourite outdoor shop (Kathmandu) and their favourite coffee joint (Campos Coffee). Despite taking their own sweet time, they made it to church in good time. After service, they went home for a dinner of leftovers (which they were happy about coz they had so much food in the fridge). My female owner’s perfect day ended with an episode of Masterchef and more reading.

Her verdict was that she should schedule in more GATWs to keep her motivation level up. I agree too!

housewife

My female owner says that she has become a full-time housewife with effective from yesterday.

Firstly, she successfully terminated flute with no drama. Congratulations on that. Everyone at her dinner party was happy and gleeful for her. So this means no more obligation to practice flute when she doesn’t feel like it and spending half a day travelling to and fro for lessons. And of course, saving about $43 each week (note to her: to redo budgeting again!)

Secondly, a bonus, there is no group therapy for the next four weeks. She cannot thank God enough for this, especially since her supervisor would be away for four sessions and my female owner is expected to take those sessions.

No more group therapy on Tues and Thurs. No more flute on Thurs. That means, no commitments for the next four weeks. So my female owner, can, in theory, stay home 5 days a week and be a full-time housewife. In theory, that is. (another note to her: to establish another routine so that she can complete Theseus asap)

match-making

My female owner meant to spend at least three hours with Theseus today but she ended up doing other things for other people.

She spent 4.5hours formatting 200 powerpoint slides for her technologically-challenged-old-enough-to-be-her-father research supervisor. 2 hours grocery shopping for tomorrow’s house dinner. 30mins to help mum with her conference abstract. 1 hour to practice flute. 1.5 hours to watch Masterchef. 1 hour to chat with friends, emails , FB etc, okay, make that two hours. Hmmm… and the day is gone!

Poor Theseus. Very neglected and unhappy. And my female owner has massive R&R plans for the weekend, starting tomorrow.

Thurs: Toowong, Final flute lesson (by hook or by crook), House dinner (apparently to celebrate her stopping flute lessons - obviously assuming that she would be assertive enough!)
Fri: Maybe movies with Mr S (I think I should call him Mr S from now on, Fated Guy sounds so misleading)
Sat: If weather permits, bush walking with Mr S
Sun: Lunch at Campos Coffee with housemate, church

Okay, I think she needs to start prioritising Theseus come next Monday. You must understand that it’s not love at first sight for them, but rather, an awkward match-making attempt by the above-mentioned supervisor.

exhausting

My female owner had been largely anti-social recently, being bogged down with Theseus and given the fact that most of her friends are working or unemployed. Hence, they are really “free” to chillax the whole weekend. However, after starting on her “love letter” to Theseus, she managed to pull herself out for a jog with five of her friends yesterday. She couldn’t really get into the rhythm of running as she normally would but celebrated the fact that she actually went for it.

After jogging, the group of friends ended up at her house for an impromptu home-cooked dinner. Normally her friends would have eaten out. Her housemates and her just pulled together whatever ingredients they had. The guys did their part to buy chicken, wine and rent a DVD – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. An interesting quasi-artsy film.

Late night, more of her friends gathered together to watch World Cup (since Australia was playing). However, my female owner chose to skip that (in the past she would have joined) and went to bed. Theseus, she says, is exhausting.