Why am I unhappy?
Ever since I was in my teens I have wanted to remain a child forever, for a certain definition of "child". Well, in some ways, I guess I still am--but not totally in the way I like it. Children are supposed to feel carefree, at least sometimes. Yet, at this very moment it is hard for me to believe that I can be carefree, ever.
And to think--just three years ago, I had been carefree enough. Back then I could have a visit to the park--or the zoo, the museum, some friend's home, or even just a random bus ride around the city--every other weekend and spend a happy, leisurely afternoon there, sometimes alone, sometimes with my parents or classmates. I climbed hills, flied kites, blew soap bubbles, and even played tennis. And I did more online activities than I do now--not just online forums, but I was able to take a look at whatever new technologies that came into existance, and even have a try, if possible. Not that schoolwork was light then--and there WAS difficult parts--but I always managed to do well and to separate work and play, and more importantly, to be cheerful and enjoy myself. I suppose that, back then, some pieces of bads new in the LWN law section was about the thing that could made me most unhappy.
Yes, 2003 was a good year. And the few years before that, they were probably good, too, if I remember correctly. (Or maybe I had only remembered the good parts?)
But the years since then have not been so good. Not exactly sad, but very often I feel stressful and life seems to be so unfun, even though I'm not really studying all the time. And I tried to work hard, but so little seems to come out of it. Of course, the life of a graduate student is not supposed to be easy, but why does almost everybody else seem so cheerful? Why do they so often have a light heart to enjoy the fun thing in life, and at the same time seem to accomplish as much as I do in schoolwork?
----
In Tuesday I saw that my labmate started writing yet another paper, and this made me feel a little like crying for the whole afternoon. Am I really getting JEALOUS, which seems to be such an awful word? I don't know--but at any rate, I DID feel bad, and I suppose I WAS a bit impatient when discussing with him about that idea, and I slammed it quite a bit harder than this poor little idea deserved, or even than how I normally treats these strange ideas that I'm naturally doubtful about. I felt that I must hurry up, but I didn't know how...
Yesterday I found myself banging at the keyboard. Someone outside my lab has been doing some wireless driver hacking, and in the past month he has been asking me a whole lot of questions via MSN. Whether I liked it or not, for the most part I was able to handle his questions fine, but yesterday it was a bit too much. I was busy working on my own papers, and he kept asking silly questions that nevertheless took quite a bit typing to explain, such as basic C language issues, basic debugging techniques, the place a function was in, or various small design decisions that he ought to be able to do himself. This was very trying on my patience, not just because it took so much of my time, but I was not even sure if I had actually been of much help to him. Ah, even though keyboard-banging did not make typing any faster, at least (as of yet) no one knew about that. That's a good part of online-chatting.
And today I missed my afternoon classes. My advisor told me that there would be an important meeting in the afternoon at some yet undetermined time, so I stayed in the lab for the whole afternoon and didn't attend the classes--and the meeting, which I had thought that Someone Important would come, turned to be just a small affair with only the advisor and a few labmates as participants. What's more, it started a whole hour after the classes should have ended! So I missed three hours of classes in vain. If only I had told my advisor about the classes!
Tomorrow some students in my class are going to go out and have some fun together. I don't think I will go. With so much work waiting to be done, I doubt that I'd have much fun--I had a similar experience in the last semester--but anyway, it isn't nice to feel that I'm getting a bit farther away from the others!
----
The strange part of this is that I'm not really feeling discontented, or wishing that things were any different. I do like being a graduate student in this peaceful place, I am more interested in my current research field than most other students, and everybody around me ARE nice to me--my parents, labmates, advisor, and other dear friends--and what more can one ask? I ought to feel thankful. Actually I AM thankful--but why doesn't this make me happier? Maybe it's the rejections--but although they do hurt emotionally, my sense tells me that they don't matter much. Maybe it's the setbacks in doing research--but we all know this is unavoidable. Maybe it's because I'm more or less a perfectionist--but this should be a good thing for a graduate student, shouldn't it?
And I'm glad that I have this place to write this on, which those who personally know me probably will not find. I can afford to be negative here, without everyone seeing it and beginning to view me as someone like Aunt Atossa because of it, or worrying about me, trying to console me, or blaming someone else for my unhappiness. I know they all have good intentions, but certain matters just can't be easily resolved by a few words. As for those who say bad things about someone else to me, likely in an attempt to make me feel batter--such words actually hurts me. I don't exactly know why, but it hurts me to hear negative words about someone around me, even if I feel the same way myself. Maybe it's just pride.
Okay, at least, there still ARE cheerful days, and even in the days that are not so good, I believe I had been more or less productive in most of them. I want to be a happier person than I am now, but--that probably doesn't come by ranting or otherwise doing things that don't matter, anyway.
----
Today one labmate asked me what I would like to do after I graduate.
"Would you like to work in the academic circle after you graduate?" he asked.
"Maybe." I answered, "This depends on how comfortable I feel about doing research."
Then I added, "But even if I do succeed to become a college professor like my advisor, I'm not sure if that would make me really happy."
"He is quite rich." he said.
"I know. But I don't think writing project applications and supervising a lot of students would be interesting work."
"But money and power do matter."
"I don't think even the U.S. President is very happy. At least, I wouldn't, in his place."
"I guess Bush is happily doing his job, and that's why he can get the position. And--" he added, "if even this can't make you happy, what can? This is getting to be a philosophical question. I guess you have been doing too much thinking these days."
And all these remind me of a paragraph from an LMM fanfic called "Schoolmarm Cecily":
[From a certain Mrs. Dawson]
"Don't look so worried, Cecily. Whatever happens, you ought be glad. I really envy you, so young, so innocent, without a bit of the rust that one is bound to have after spending so much time in the big, unfriendly--sometimes--world. You have such a long life before you, so many promising possibilities, and a bright mind--while I'm just an old ghost roaming in the world, with no goals except for feeding myself, and have parts of myself breaking down everywhere. You ought to be happier."
Well, what if there really is such a Mrs. Dawson trying to cheer me up? Would her words make me happier, or actually the opposite? I guess the latter effect might be more likely--but I'm only guessing.
And to think--just three years ago, I had been carefree enough. Back then I could have a visit to the park--or the zoo, the museum, some friend's home, or even just a random bus ride around the city--every other weekend and spend a happy, leisurely afternoon there, sometimes alone, sometimes with my parents or classmates. I climbed hills, flied kites, blew soap bubbles, and even played tennis. And I did more online activities than I do now--not just online forums, but I was able to take a look at whatever new technologies that came into existance, and even have a try, if possible. Not that schoolwork was light then--and there WAS difficult parts--but I always managed to do well and to separate work and play, and more importantly, to be cheerful and enjoy myself. I suppose that, back then, some pieces of bads new in the LWN law section was about the thing that could made me most unhappy.
Yes, 2003 was a good year. And the few years before that, they were probably good, too, if I remember correctly. (Or maybe I had only remembered the good parts?)
But the years since then have not been so good. Not exactly sad, but very often I feel stressful and life seems to be so unfun, even though I'm not really studying all the time. And I tried to work hard, but so little seems to come out of it. Of course, the life of a graduate student is not supposed to be easy, but why does almost everybody else seem so cheerful? Why do they so often have a light heart to enjoy the fun thing in life, and at the same time seem to accomplish as much as I do in schoolwork?
----
In Tuesday I saw that my labmate started writing yet another paper, and this made me feel a little like crying for the whole afternoon. Am I really getting JEALOUS, which seems to be such an awful word? I don't know--but at any rate, I DID feel bad, and I suppose I WAS a bit impatient when discussing with him about that idea, and I slammed it quite a bit harder than this poor little idea deserved, or even than how I normally treats these strange ideas that I'm naturally doubtful about. I felt that I must hurry up, but I didn't know how...
Yesterday I found myself banging at the keyboard. Someone outside my lab has been doing some wireless driver hacking, and in the past month he has been asking me a whole lot of questions via MSN. Whether I liked it or not, for the most part I was able to handle his questions fine, but yesterday it was a bit too much. I was busy working on my own papers, and he kept asking silly questions that nevertheless took quite a bit typing to explain, such as basic C language issues, basic debugging techniques, the place a function was in, or various small design decisions that he ought to be able to do himself. This was very trying on my patience, not just because it took so much of my time, but I was not even sure if I had actually been of much help to him. Ah, even though keyboard-banging did not make typing any faster, at least (as of yet) no one knew about that. That's a good part of online-chatting.
And today I missed my afternoon classes. My advisor told me that there would be an important meeting in the afternoon at some yet undetermined time, so I stayed in the lab for the whole afternoon and didn't attend the classes--and the meeting, which I had thought that Someone Important would come, turned to be just a small affair with only the advisor and a few labmates as participants. What's more, it started a whole hour after the classes should have ended! So I missed three hours of classes in vain. If only I had told my advisor about the classes!
Tomorrow some students in my class are going to go out and have some fun together. I don't think I will go. With so much work waiting to be done, I doubt that I'd have much fun--I had a similar experience in the last semester--but anyway, it isn't nice to feel that I'm getting a bit farther away from the others!
----
The strange part of this is that I'm not really feeling discontented, or wishing that things were any different. I do like being a graduate student in this peaceful place, I am more interested in my current research field than most other students, and everybody around me ARE nice to me--my parents, labmates, advisor, and other dear friends--and what more can one ask? I ought to feel thankful. Actually I AM thankful--but why doesn't this make me happier? Maybe it's the rejections--but although they do hurt emotionally, my sense tells me that they don't matter much. Maybe it's the setbacks in doing research--but we all know this is unavoidable. Maybe it's because I'm more or less a perfectionist--but this should be a good thing for a graduate student, shouldn't it?
And I'm glad that I have this place to write this on, which those who personally know me probably will not find. I can afford to be negative here, without everyone seeing it and beginning to view me as someone like Aunt Atossa because of it, or worrying about me, trying to console me, or blaming someone else for my unhappiness. I know they all have good intentions, but certain matters just can't be easily resolved by a few words. As for those who say bad things about someone else to me, likely in an attempt to make me feel batter--such words actually hurts me. I don't exactly know why, but it hurts me to hear negative words about someone around me, even if I feel the same way myself. Maybe it's just pride.
Okay, at least, there still ARE cheerful days, and even in the days that are not so good, I believe I had been more or less productive in most of them. I want to be a happier person than I am now, but--that probably doesn't come by ranting or otherwise doing things that don't matter, anyway.
----
Today one labmate asked me what I would like to do after I graduate.
"Would you like to work in the academic circle after you graduate?" he asked.
"Maybe." I answered, "This depends on how comfortable I feel about doing research."
Then I added, "But even if I do succeed to become a college professor like my advisor, I'm not sure if that would make me really happy."
"He is quite rich." he said.
"I know. But I don't think writing project applications and supervising a lot of students would be interesting work."
"But money and power do matter."
"I don't think even the U.S. President is very happy. At least, I wouldn't, in his place."
"I guess Bush is happily doing his job, and that's why he can get the position. And--" he added, "if even this can't make you happy, what can? This is getting to be a philosophical question. I guess you have been doing too much thinking these days."
And all these remind me of a paragraph from an LMM fanfic called "Schoolmarm Cecily":
[From a certain Mrs. Dawson]
"Don't look so worried, Cecily. Whatever happens, you ought be glad. I really envy you, so young, so innocent, without a bit of the rust that one is bound to have after spending so much time in the big, unfriendly--sometimes--world. You have such a long life before you, so many promising possibilities, and a bright mind--while I'm just an old ghost roaming in the world, with no goals except for feeding myself, and have parts of myself breaking down everywhere. You ought to be happier."
Well, what if there really is such a Mrs. Dawson trying to cheer me up? Would her words make me happier, or actually the opposite? I guess the latter effect might be more likely--but I'm only guessing.