Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash
Today, I renewed my domain and hosting subscription and hence this post.
A new subdomain, a new post, a new direction. To be honest, I am still not sure where I am heading yet and I still have a year left to my masters. I realised that eventually I need to plan where to go if I am not going back to web.
Earlier on I was in a difficult situation. I didn’t have a proper direction with my topic and it took me one semester to write my proposal but I am glad finally my supervisors gave a go ahead. I have decided to extend one more semester as my husband just reminded me to just enjoy the learning journey rather than the expectation from others. While doing a masters in visual arts was my decision, but whenever I see my father, he will indirectly hint to me to finish latest by early next year. My husband reminded again that this was my journey and not his; this is not for him to decide if I was to finish my masters earlier or not. My topic is a complex topic compared to my friends’ topics and maybe even more complex than what my father had done in his life in pertanian. Every person I talked to had different ideas of what my topic should be and should go, because it is something as global, and yet something as localised. Some masters students are just dealing with certain elements that are showing in artworks but I am dealing with allegory. It is not as straightforward and my supervisors had told me to make it more complex.
But I guess, just have to continue writing and just be myself.
Today I read this on brainpickings about a poem about depression. After being on a crazy routine of eat, sleep, read, sketchnoting my bible reading, writing dissertation, freelance, gym, cook, managing the house and husband, I found it hard to sit down to listen to Amanda Palmer reading Jane Kenyon’s poem. I was so tempted to just play the soundcloud of the poem and do other things in other tabs but I forced myself to just listen and read the poem without being distracted. It was a most satisfying thing that I have done in ages. Being able to stop, listen and read instead of “oh no, I got to be doing this. I need to be writing my dissertation now. I need to be finding money now etc.”
Maybe that’s why people often preached of meditation. It helps us to realign ourselves instead of being always in a rush. I know things need to get done, time need to get tracked but controlling myself from going crazy helps.
Oh, talking about crazy routine, I don’t like talking to people about it. There is nothing to boast about my life. I have seen how some people have go on about “my life is more stressful than yours because I have a full time job” or “you are so free.”
Well, while I enjoy the perks of being a freelancer but I am just doing what I need to do. I am also having my own battles that I need to make sure that I have a routine and do work instead of lazing at home.
Also, I realised that crazy routine can be subjective la… you may have a crazy routine but people will still think you are free. Or just say you had a routine that you need to be in a cafe to do work because it gives a boost to your productivity but people who might see you in the cafe might say that I have too much money to spare or say that I am free because I outside doing my work in flexible hours instead of working on fixed hours. Like that, cannot win la.
I did try dayre before and the on thing I liked about dayre is the platform and how people are generally more open with their stories. However their platform doesn’t suit people like me. Dayre is for those who can write in snippets while I write in short bursts. I don’t like how I have to write within 300 characters each paragraph. Granted that platform is more of highlighting your daily life, but I realised my writing style is more reflective and it’s more than what happened to me today.
So yeah, stuck with a blog where I am talking to myself. Hahahaha.