For 2015 and all that happened, I thank and praise and honour God. He who brings me to this, will bring me through it. So I shall trust in Him and keep going. And thank God for bringing a very special person into my life - my tall, dark and handsome love. Without him, the past seven months would've been worse.
A summary of 2015, academically-speaking:
I lived my life in fear for the best half of 2015 - after the series of traumas in my first attempt to be registered as a full PhD candidate.
First, I was told that I should not travel, or attend any soft skills training programmes or conferences, since I have so little time left to do a PhD after transferring to the department. So every time I took a few days off I was feeling guilty and then was told I took too many days off. I didn't know all PhD students were eligible for a month of holidays per year. I didn't know there was Christmas shut down of the university. So I worked through most of Christmas and New Year holidays...
Then, after conveniently trying to get rid of me partly because I had really bad writing skills and horrible time management plus being unwell most of the time, some non-academic-supervisor individual who somewhat was involved with my work announced during a meeting to resolve all these problems the reasons I was not good enough in his opinion to be a PhD candidate. A stack of papers was passed to me... And so, I found out that my daily attendance in the department was tracked for two months without my prior consent/knowledge, my lab books were scrutinised and was given a spreadsheet of all my experiments with dates, I was threatened that if the supervisor and others let me stay, they'd show me the door the next time I make a slight mistake... I know by keeping silent and taking their rubbish offer wouldn't help me to overcome all these, so I asked for help....
Fast-forwarding to skip all the meetings and the nights spent to construct timelime of events, etc...
Seven months later..
The current trade off package: I get to stay and work on the project, but I'd have forgo my complaint to the university against the individual whom I claimed to be psychologically-bullying me for that past eight months and to apologise to that individual that I had undermined him. I did part 1...
Truth is... I only get to stay if I submit a report. That's the real deal. And I only found out I'd need to submit a very formal report a week before Christmas holidays began. Maybe the communication between my supervisor and I really sucks. The worst is my paralysing fears due to all the traumatic experiences I had with them mess up my brain the moment I start writing - all the bad things that happened in 2015 crashed in and I'd be so fearful that I couldn't think at all.
So, after welcoming 2016 in a very Scottish manner with my boyfriend and his family, I'm resolved to live fearlessly in 2016.
Take breaks every now and then, as I am eligible to do so.
Try to strike some form of communication with my supervisor without fearing he'd kick me out from the lab.
Manage my experiments using online lab book tools to avoid incidents where the individual can be tempted to stalking and bullying and stealing ideas again.
To live life to the fullest (John 10:10).
Thanks for reading.
To a great year of academic writing! #AcWri
