The Search for Time

I sometime believe that time just passes by like a train that I see at a railroad crossing. I am in the car and sitting there watching it pass by. I can't go forward because the train will wreck my car. I am just waiting till the long train has finished its scheduled course of action. The train is time. YOU can choose to make time something you schedule so that you don't have to stop and watch the train go by in front you, or run along side with the train.

So how do we do this? How do you schedule all the things you have to do without feeling overwhelmed. Simply by understanding your priorities. Easier said then done. I have priority. I have to read articles related to my PhD or any other research projects that I am on. I have to read for classes that I need to lecturer on. I have to read for my spiritual fulfillment.  But which reading should I start first. The answer is I should start with the word of ALLAH.

We have been separating life from religion for too long (at least I know this is what I have been doing). In order to start this right I have to start with the supreme being (Allah). Once I am done with that then I can schedule the other things that I need to do. Life should be scheduled around prayer times. In islam we have Five slot that we need to fulfil, Farj, Zuhor, Asar, Maghrib, and Isyak. My schedule should start with these five slots. The rest of my time can be filled with doing things that needs to be done to fulfil the balance between life and our spiritual well-being. If our Deen has it roots the rest of life will follow you.

Between Facts and Fiction

Life is a journey that requires us to define the very facet of its unique makings. As weird as this might sound, I have been put to the test of defining life. Perhaps, I am exaggerating my circumstances a bit. What am I talking about? I am referring how much information we process on a daily bases. We have to deal with a lot of information. From each of these information that reaches our hands, we are also forced to identify which one is fact and which one is false. How do you know the truth from fiction?

Like I mention in class today, it is simple to be in deep understanding of things. One of my supervisors (I had many supervisors) during my whole journey of PhD (by the way it is still a work in progress) had mention to think critically we need to do three things: 1) Think; 2) Read; and 3) Write. She did mention the order of these three processes was up to me. I had to find what was the right formula for my situation. I totally agree with her.

So when you are reading a piece of information, you need to pause and think. Once you have thought it through, you need to examine your thoughts. If you are able to reproduce it in a piece of writing, you have a piece that have been examined critically. So is this enough?

With the Phd, the answer is no. You are not writing a novel every little thing you say and think about the piece of work must be backed up with literature or for that matter the proof of lack of literature. It is not as easy as said. It is hard for you to actually decide which is fact and which is an opinion (which is not proved by scientific studies).

This piece is written to think about how in life you are always faced with lots of information. You cannot take everything as the truth you must evaluate all the information that you have to determine which is true and which is false.

Life As We Know It

It has been a year since I last visited my PhD. The progress of the PhD is almost non-existent until yesterday. My husband likes to unwind by watching YouTube. He was watching a question and answer session of a prominent speaker Tun Daim Zainuddin. Tun Daim said he quit because he wanted to be rich. When he shouldn't have quit but rather aim to be successful. If you have success then you will be rich. So here I am again in this predicament of where I am going. Could I be successful? 

The question that is to be answered in the next entry...

Bloglovin

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/13510547/?claim=62kbs79mwvk">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Our Deepest Fear - Spoken By Marianne Williamson

Our Deepest Fear - Spoken By Marianne Williamson

Changing habits

Part of the PhD process is about changing the you think about your education process. When you were in your elementary, you are taught to be prepared for the next level with is college. In college, you are taught to be independent but with a structured program. At the undergraduate and postgraduate program with courseworks. However, at the masters by research and PhD level you are being prepared to be a researcher and a future scholar. To be successful in your PhD, you need to understand what it means to be a researcher. You are at the very lowest level in the whole hierarchy of researcher and line of scholars. 

So what do we need to understand about being a researcher? This is an answer that is not easy to explain, but very crucial to understand. One important element of being a researcher is to maintain focus on your project at all times. To maintain focus requires the need to remain interested in your research at all times. You need to always find ways to remain intrugued in your research project. 

Next, you need to maintain a schedule. Setting schedules and sticking to it. This easier said then done. How do you keep to a schedule when there is no set of sure elements that needs to be done exactly. It is different for every researcher. 

Identity and depression

This morning I started out the day going through my emails. Despite countless time, I was  told that to be productive you need to check your email at the end of your day. You should do this at the same time everyday. However, for me, if I put checking my emails last in my agenda, I end up not checking it at all. Besides, I checked my email first today because I didn't really care if I was unproductive today. After checking my email I came across an email from James Hayton. 

James Hayton is a blogger that I follow that writes about writing your PhD thesis. He goes throught the process of writing your PhD thesis/ dessertation and all the associated process in a manner that is so real and spot on to what I feel in my daily undertakings as a PhD student. Today, his topic was depression. 

He talk about how depression was his demons and angels. He said that they were his angel because it drives him to continue to do better than before. Depression was his demon because it also caused him to be unhappy with his success. Most of all, he talked about how depression was not something that people are openly talking about. As a matter of fact, we constantly oppress it despite that it is a common sickness, and can happen to anyone. He explains that people don't openly discuss this health problem because of the stigma that the society place upon such illnesses. 

Depression is a mental illness. As mental illnesses goes, it is not the the norm. We live in a society. Regardless of whether you come from collectivist or individualistic society, mental diseases are not the norm, and places the individual in the outgroup. We live in a society, so we want to belong to the society. As long as the society sees mental diseases as something that we should not talk about, then regardless of the type of culture you come from, depression will have the stigma of a disease that we should not talk about. However, depression will still exist, though we choose not talk about it. It will not go away just because we choose not to talk about it. 

In Malaysia, not only do we not talk about depression, we  blame depression on demons/ black magic that someone has cast on us to destroy our success. I believe in a logical explanation in everything that happens to us. Does black magic/ demons exist? Yes, demons, black magic, and dark

mystical powers exist, if you believe in it. I think some cases and most cases of changes in a person is a symptom of depression. Like any other society, it is easier to blame on the demons because that theory is more acceptable to the society then to acknowledge mental disease. Even the most intelligent and educated minds that I know of in Malaysia believe in the demons that cause these changes in a person who seems to be a very normal and successful individual to go into a state like depression (but not depression?). Yes, they are demons and they are within us. It is our demons and we need to confront it and acknowledge that to fight this demon you have to talk about it. And for the society, we need to listen to what people with depression have to say. Depression can happen to anyone. Even people who are very successful.