Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
It has been an emotionally draining week and I can’t share it with most people for these reasons:
- I am fully focused on my studies and I am not working. In that aspect, I don’t have a license to “complain” since I am only a “student”.
- I am out of the industry. I am losing my skills, but at the same time, I don’t mind as I want to move on to other things instead of being stuck in a digital agency.
- Being questioned (especially by my father) why I can’t finish my masters on time. If only he could construct his questions properly but alas, his questions often comes out as an attack of my character rather than why am I struggling with my masters. I don’t like to feel if I was not doing anything at all or just slacking just because I am having a student status.
I have been crying a lot since last weekend. It’s now the end of May and I am not even sure if I can even defend my dissertation and send it in for submission by September. While I made small progress every alternate day, but there is so much to be done.
My husband and my friend even asked if I was aiming for a good dissertation and am willing to let go of good and be ok with passable. I am ok with passable but my supervisors are not letting me pass through because I have not achieve passable yet. I have handed in substandard work and that doesn’t cut it with my supervisors. They are quite good in what they do, and I know I have to be disciplined to do a good work too.
I am disappointed with myself, and while in my mind I know that I should not compare, but my friends actually manage to do it in two years while I am at the brink of extending. I am disappointed that while people are asking me out of courtesy when I am finishing, I told them hopefully September and I don’t know if I can ever reach that deadline.
I have spoken to my husband and a good friend who is doing her masters too and they told me if I need to extend, I should just extend because I still have time to do my masters. I am currently at my 2.5 years, and the maximum I can do my Masters is 4 years.
My husband and my friend told me that my fear is with my father. And that’s true. I am so afraid of telling my father things and sometimes he has weird projection on me. For example, once I said “Hi” to my father instead of “Hi dad” and he reprimanded me that I should not do that to my father in-law. I just told him that he doesn’t know my relationship with my father in-law and it is not for him to assume the worse about me. If my father has an issue with me not addressing him as “Hi dad,” then he should address it to me instead of “You don’t say that to your boss” or “You don’t say that to your father in-law.”
Dear dad, don’t project your personal unpleasantries to me by using my former bosses and my father in-law to hide the your insecurity of being respected as a postcolonial alpha male mindset.
While I have not given up on my masters and am trying to aim for September deadline, but I have grieved that I might not reach my target. I grieved that I may not get a job especially being away for 2.5 years from the workforce. I grieved that my father may not be able to sympathise with me though he is a pHD holder.
My husband told me to visit my parents less, especially these days my father has nothing much to talk to me these days. Also, my father is often pressuring me. Some people work better under pressure, but this round, my father’s pressure is pulling me down instead of encouraging me. I know some people say is tough love, but emotionally I am beaten and I need to heal before talking to my father again.
My friend told me that people have their own pace to do their work. Kids will do at their own pace, and so is the same with the adults. The baby boomers tend to make everyone progress at the same time but now it is different. There is more flexibility involved people today to what they want to do.