(no subject)
A friend recently pointed out to me that I never use this anymore. And I think now, more than ever, I need to. This is my journal space. And I have some things I need to get off my chest. Not for you to read. But for me to say.
I'm not sure if right now what I have to say will actually make much sense. My thoughts are so jumbled. I'm not even sure where to begin. Last year was a big year for me. Emotionally, it was a rollercoster. And not one of the fun ones.
I went back to uni last year. I left a job I loved, was frustrated in, but loved, to go back to uni. To do my PhD. I'm specialising in ethology, the study of animal behaviour. It's a 3 year course. Another 3 years of schooling. Another 3 years without a steady income. Without a decent income. I left home. I moved interstate. Hell, I moved to the country! Actually, to a place not that far from where I used to live on the coast. I wanted to study non-human animal cognition, intelligence, problem solving. I wanted to do field research. I wanted to work with orang-utans. I wanted to study homosexuality in non-human animals. I'm working with marmosets, new world monkeys, in a lab. I'm studying sensory processing. Multimodal sensory processing, even. Trust me, that's much more exciting than just sensory processing. But what is all that? I'm not sure I could even explain it to you! I just know that I have now researched primate sensory capacities, vision, audition and olfaction. Very little is known about olfaction in primates. I've also looked into predation on primates, how primates recognise potential predators, how they are sensed through visual, auditory and olfactory cues. From there I've also checked the literation on sensory processing, multisensory neurons, communication signals, multimodal communication signals and higher cognitive function. It's a lot to take in.
I moved here not knowing anyone, not really knowing what I was getting into. My supervisors are at the top of their fields, world reknowned. My main supervisor is tough, critical, a tad absentminded, frustrating, really frustrating, exciteable, encouraging, inspiring and a lot like a grandmother. She seems to trust me to do my work and to do a decent job of it more so than her other student, which is nice, but we still all love it when our supervisors go away.
Last year was tough. I had this big change in my life, this big defining moment. But I thought I'd have someone there to help me through it. Someone to share my new life with. Only, it turned out he had other plans. I'll talk about that more in other installments of this self cleansing. But the thing is, it's now been almost 6 months and I don't think I've come even close to recovering from it. I'm ashamed of myself. I thought I was moving on, but then something happened and I relapsed. Or maybe I was never as far along as I thought I was. And now more than ever I realise there's a hole inside of me. He took a part of me with him. But not only that he took something from me. Lately I've been thinking about what that could be. I've come to realise, to my great surprise, it was an innocence I never knew I had.
Yesterday was my birthday. I've never felt so alone. Never been more away of what's missing from my life. I'm at the end of what could be considered my mid-20s. I'm now one day closer to being in my late-20s. I don't own a car, or a house, I'm single, no prospects, I don't have a steady, good income job, no kids, I'm away from my dearest friends, I live in a room, most of my stuff is still in boxes and I'm going to be stuck like this for a while still. I guess right now it's just getting to me. I hate coming back to my room. I can't even call it home. I hate waking up in the morning. Both things just remind me of how empty my life is.
Stay tuned for future episodes.
I'm not sure if right now what I have to say will actually make much sense. My thoughts are so jumbled. I'm not even sure where to begin. Last year was a big year for me. Emotionally, it was a rollercoster. And not one of the fun ones.
I went back to uni last year. I left a job I loved, was frustrated in, but loved, to go back to uni. To do my PhD. I'm specialising in ethology, the study of animal behaviour. It's a 3 year course. Another 3 years of schooling. Another 3 years without a steady income. Without a decent income. I left home. I moved interstate. Hell, I moved to the country! Actually, to a place not that far from where I used to live on the coast. I wanted to study non-human animal cognition, intelligence, problem solving. I wanted to do field research. I wanted to work with orang-utans. I wanted to study homosexuality in non-human animals. I'm working with marmosets, new world monkeys, in a lab. I'm studying sensory processing. Multimodal sensory processing, even. Trust me, that's much more exciting than just sensory processing. But what is all that? I'm not sure I could even explain it to you! I just know that I have now researched primate sensory capacities, vision, audition and olfaction. Very little is known about olfaction in primates. I've also looked into predation on primates, how primates recognise potential predators, how they are sensed through visual, auditory and olfactory cues. From there I've also checked the literation on sensory processing, multisensory neurons, communication signals, multimodal communication signals and higher cognitive function. It's a lot to take in.
I moved here not knowing anyone, not really knowing what I was getting into. My supervisors are at the top of their fields, world reknowned. My main supervisor is tough, critical, a tad absentminded, frustrating, really frustrating, exciteable, encouraging, inspiring and a lot like a grandmother. She seems to trust me to do my work and to do a decent job of it more so than her other student, which is nice, but we still all love it when our supervisors go away.
Last year was tough. I had this big change in my life, this big defining moment. But I thought I'd have someone there to help me through it. Someone to share my new life with. Only, it turned out he had other plans. I'll talk about that more in other installments of this self cleansing. But the thing is, it's now been almost 6 months and I don't think I've come even close to recovering from it. I'm ashamed of myself. I thought I was moving on, but then something happened and I relapsed. Or maybe I was never as far along as I thought I was. And now more than ever I realise there's a hole inside of me. He took a part of me with him. But not only that he took something from me. Lately I've been thinking about what that could be. I've come to realise, to my great surprise, it was an innocence I never knew I had.
Yesterday was my birthday. I've never felt so alone. Never been more away of what's missing from my life. I'm at the end of what could be considered my mid-20s. I'm now one day closer to being in my late-20s. I don't own a car, or a house, I'm single, no prospects, I don't have a steady, good income job, no kids, I'm away from my dearest friends, I live in a room, most of my stuff is still in boxes and I'm going to be stuck like this for a while still. I guess right now it's just getting to me. I hate coming back to my room. I can't even call it home. I hate waking up in the morning. Both things just remind me of how empty my life is.
Stay tuned for future episodes.