Photo by Brent Gorwin on Unsplash
I have been feeling very awkward and out of place in most situations. Sometimes I try striking conversations to feel less awkward but it doesn’t work out because I am trying too hard to fit in. So I have stopped trying to strike conversations which works out very well.
I feel awkward because I struggle to connect to others because of my decision to do this studies full-time this year. Doing studies full-time means that I am out of the industry and would have been outdated in a lot of things. Not only that, I admit that I feel at imposter and I feel self-conscious about myself in social settings.
Despite of what I feel, I have been very grateful that friends who are not in my academic circles invite me out. I have gone to the beach with my Chinese educated friends and conversing with my rusty Mandarin. Recently I have been reunited with my ex-colleagues and it was fun listening to all the stories, even if I don’t share much about my life. It was fun seeing different perspective, and it also shows me how much I don’t know which is a good thing because then I will actually go home and do more research.
I do better with one-to-one conversation because I noticed people have more time to ask deeper questions rather than “When are you going to finish?”