December had just ended and that marked my third month here back in my parent's home again. Stuck without any clue where to go or what to do. It took me almost three weeks for me to understand attention by reading the paper 'Attention is all you need' and this one. That all before I can implement it using PyTorch. The truth is, I never used PyTorch before! So I am currently learning how to use that one.
Damn that learning curve. I used to build my project using Keras since it is very easy to learn, thus my thesis was also build using that one to save the time. Now I feel that Keras is not that easy to debug and to be honest, I don't feel like I am learning anything because everything is wrapped so nicely (which is actually I appreciate). But then I came to one realization that I haven't learn the ugly details. Why the ugly details is important? Because in my opinion it is necessary to understand the mechanism of the magic. Machine learning should not be a seen as a black-box of magic. I used to have this mindset: "Just build a simple model and train the data" Voila, you will go nowhere and thus you will not be able to explain why your chosen architecture is suitable for a certain task.
Here's the catch. I can train signal input for classification, regression, or whatever using convolution layer, recurrent layer, or maybe even a simple MLP (multi-layer perceptron). But then you can see that when you see the result, maybe one of those type (or combination of those) works better than the other. Why? I cannot answer that. Thus I have to read the articles and seek what is the underlying idea behind those architectures or layers. How it works, and at what task.
In academic research I was told that I should do my work systematically. For example, assume that I have this one paper I want to use as the baseline:
Reproduce the baseline (if it is possible, use the same data, preprocessing, features, model, and task). This does not necessarily mean that you have to use the same framework, but (sometimes) there will be slight differences in used algorithm between matlab's partial least square and python library (scikit-learn), but usually it is not too significant.
Change one by one. This means that you cannot do multiple modification from the baseline simultaneously. For instance, you cannot change the model and task at the same time.
Logging! Note everything down. Every experiment iteration, write down what you did and the outcome. I used to lie to myself that I will
Discuss. You shall never use your own understanding and you will go further by talking to people with similar interest. (unless your environment is toxic and unsupportive)
Write a publication.
Enjoy a little break. While waiting for the reviews ;)
Okay, this is my flawed thoughts and opinion for the time being for this blog is basically my life-note. My thoughts of what I'm going throughout this life.
Ah, November. Another month spent doing nothing but eat and sleep. I cannot say that I am pleased this current situation.
The second month in my parents home post-graduation from abroad is tremendously affecting my mental. To be honest, I kind of underestimated the term reverse culture shock. The only thing I can enjoy here is the food. Although basically I just feel like useless here.
When I was living by myself in Japan, I didn't have to care about a lot of things. I lived pretty much independently and took control of everything, plus the direct consequences of my decisions. I decide when I want to study, sleep, eat & cook, shopping, do laundry, and I can go wherever at my own convenience. I made plans, I executed it. If I wanted to cancel it, I didn't have to tell anyone. Nobody bothered me, and I didn't bothered by anything major. (Except the summer heat, duh)
Compared to here where I don't know why everything becomes unbearably annoying! The vehicle sounds, the mosques, the people, even my parents ordering me what to do and what not to do. I cannot express my depression, nor that I can talk to them. I cannot talk to my friends by phone because if I do that, my parents will overhear that and I know what will they say.
The only thing I can do is to silently typing my thoughts and hoping that some miracles will happen somehow. I cannot say I hate the existence of my parents either. I just need my own privacy, I want to do things my way at my own time without being preached about it.
Then there comes the 'Why don't you look for jobs?' shit. I know I need a job, a good one, the one which let me save at least as much as I saved back there in Japan. But looking for that kind of jobs here is kinda, I don't know how to address this, but I feel like looking at the wrong place.
Basically, I am looking for machine learning engineer position, I have background in signal processing (audio, brain wave) and well, I can do images too (not my ace, but yeah I can do), and yet to touch Natural Language Processing stuffs. The closest thing I can find is Data Scientist and well, looking at the job-desc, most of them listed some stuffs I never touched like Hadoop, Kubernetes, Docker, etc.
The other thing that I worried is my programming ability. I wouldn't say that I cannot code at all (how could I even graduate from Computer Science), however, if you asked me how to do Binary Search Tree, or DFS, BFS, or some sort on the whiteboard in front of some HR panels, I will most likely to freeze and fail the test on the spot.
I wish I could get my head straight and find the next thing I want to achieve. I am tired with my current state of mind and I don't want to rant too long. I am exhausted mentally. I don't blame anyone from my lab for my current situation since I know had I stayed there, it would be even worse. Maybe this is the time to look at something else or patch the holes I've been ignoring all this time.
Well, I've been staying one month here at my parents house. The place where I was raised for ~20 years before I left for the capital to pursue my undergrad school in 2012. Now that I am jobless and not willing to spend my hard-earned money this far, I decided to go back to my parents since the living cost here is much cheaper.
Let's start with the bad part first. Ever since I left this place, I could never find a peaceful moment here. The cause are only two; air pollution and noise pollution. The noise pollution come from my neighbors. The house beside my parent's are being built at the moment. The second one is the vehicles coming to the house in-front of this house. They run a business and thus every half an hour there is at least one vehicle come to pick their stuffs. The third one is from the house behind. They like to play their music out loud (and I don't like their taste). The fourth is kind of racist, but I beg your pardon. Really. I cannot stand the adhan from the mosques surrounding my house. I can hear at least 2 mosques but there is this one near the back of this house which I don't know why sounds so loud. Each call lasts about 30 minutes and there are 5 calls everyday. Sorry to Muslim audiences, I have nothing against you all. All I wanted is to live far away from the noise source. That's it.
The next bad part is nothing is free. I don't pay rent, utilities, or food here. But I paid those all with my mental health. You won't believe me if I told you that I lost 7 Kg body weight since the day I entered this place. I had maintained the same range of body weight (73~76 Kg) for the last 10 years no matter how much I ate or exercised. I suspect that this is the effect of the pollution combined with my disappointment of what I see. I hate how the people treat others here. So fucked up. Fucked traffic caused by idiots. People who walk their dog out and don't pick their poo. Unwalkable side walks, potholes, and the people who disobeyed the traffic rules.
The next thing is I like cycling. I like to travel far away in my free time and I have a lot of it now. If I was still in Japan now, I would've been cycling to Kyoto along the river and enjoying the momiji or climbed Soni highland for sure. But here? Where should I go? The weather is hot and humid all year round, the traffic is horribly dangerous enough to make it unpleasant.
Although staying here means I can eat more delicious food and helped my parents taking care of the household, that is the only positive thing I could mention here.
I need something that allows me to move from this place and quickly build a new home somewhere for my parents in a quiet, clean, and idiot-free environment. Once my dad retired I will execute this plan with their permission. That's my oath.
After my thesis defense is it over? Nope. Do I have time to relax and enjoy my time? Definitely nope. Then what can I do in my last few days here? Preparing to move out. This gonna be the last post about my life in Japan.
Man, I never thought that moving out here takes a hell lot of things. Packing my stuffs and scheduling when to close my accounts here in Japan. September is the month of typhoons as far as I can remember. The typhoon does not hit my place this year (hopefully) but southern areas like Kyushu took a lot of damage already. The good thing is that the weather become somewhat bearable so that I can enjoy myself a little more even though I still cannot go anywhere far anymore. Deadline, deadline, deadline, appointments, bills... F@#%!
As the time goes by, I realized that everything is just a phase. People will come and go. Nothing really lasts. You will eventually leave your friends or they'll just simply embarking on their own life journey. It is not like you won't become friends anymore, just distant and perhaps disappear eventually. It depends on the situation. But looking back to last month when I met with my friend from junior high school, I started to realize that we don't really know about anything. I know him and his background, personality, how he did at school and so on. But look at him now, continuing his study in Japan? What a surprise. I thought that he will be working like a regular person somehow but, nope.
Things like moments, feelings, stuffs, wealth, health also will come and go.
Then another PhD senior who will also graduate at the same time with me finally secured a researcher position at Honda Research Institute. He is working with dialogue system. So lucky for him since he applied for that post-corona lockdown.
Realized something during a conversation with one Indonesian friend from the Bio dept. That actually the project offered in Q4 last year is actually the PhD ticket. Which I stupidly refused since I was not interested in that.
Everything is impossible until someone did it. Realization of what life means and what you are actually doing and heading towards is important. I wonder if the definition of each role is explained when I was a kid instead of learning things we don't actually care about. In my opinion it is much better to learn something first and learn the other stuffs that related to it. The connection, the system we live in is the most important thing.
I will take myself as an example. The first time I learned about roles in IT fields is when I was in the third year of middle school although I have been programming (and even hacking, cracking, etc. which of course just out of curiosity not for money) since a year before. It is about life choice. I couldn't imagine if I took the accelerated program that let me finish middle-school in just 2 years. They keep the curriculum the same, but the pace is very fast. What's the point? None. The students are choked with things that they just need to memorize in a short period and then forget after the exam. Okay, I'm generalizing too much here. Of course there are people who are so smart that they can handle those. Certainly not my brain I guess.
Where did I go wrong?
I have a classmate who was the smartest student in my high-school, he wanted to be a heart specialist and he made it I guess. When I mentioned his name to someone from his university (same faculty at least), they seemed to know him as well. So I guess he is doing great. Part of it I guess is because he knows what he wants and make his own way towards his goal. This is where my problem is. I AM LOST. Somewhere along the days I passed.
The weather is somehow getting nicer recently. Today it was only 27 at noon and 19 in the evening. I can't believe what I'll be leaving. Just talked to my sensei today and ask for advices since I know there is something wrong with me which led the Prof to not letting me continue to PhD. I remember he mentioned 2 things for sure:
No big goal
Passive
Ok. Those two are causative which led to my current situation. How can you get yourself motivated if you don't know what actually you are working on? I don't blame anyone this time so I asked him that why then my topic changed at the first place. He said that the topic is clearly too difficult to complete. I understand this one, but then why does nobody explained to me when they changed the topic so that I can get the big picture? Did I miss that one too?
In the end of the conversation, I got some advices. the most important point is to know what exactly you want to do. I should be the one who decide the big picture and plan how to accomplish it. How would you like to change the world? Then, pick a place where they are doing that thing. Don't pick a lab since they are working on a certain field. For example, lab-A and lab-B both are working on the utilization of X. The most important thing is not the X itself, but what they are trying to achieve with X. Pick the closest one and then ask the professor whether they are willing to supervise you.
The end.
Last week of September is the most emotional week for me. Not only it was physically demanding, but also mentally. From the graduation ceremony, group farewell party, summer camp, lab farewell party, putting my bike to the hotel, and moving out.
It was raining on the day of the graduation ceremony. Well, not so many people graduated in September and due to covid, only student representatives were called to take the diploma. The good part? It didn't took so long. :) I forgot to print my academic transcript and some copies of my diploma. Ah.
Then in the afternoon I went to the hospital to take my PCR test result and in the evening I had the group farewell party. After the party, I talked to that Japanese girl that I like and told her my feeling. I didn't ask for her answer because I know it wouldn't matter anymore, plus, I have no expectations since she will enroll into the PhD program and I don't want to disturb her. Not to mention that I am still not certain about my future.
Then on the next day I got to put my bike to the hotel near Itami airport. I went out around 8 in the morning and arrived in the hotel around 3 in the afternoon. Wasted 2 hours since I took a wrong turn and fell down since the road was so slippery and my tires were bald so I lost the grip. Here's the catch. Usually, that 38km-ish trip should tire me up but that time it wasn't. I was tired for sure, but it didn't expect that I didn't get tired as much as I expected.
After I crashed, an old man offered me his used gloves to cover my wounds. Then an old lady near Kuragari landmark who also owns a little cafe there treated my wounds. She gave me some alcohol and band aids. Then I continued my journey to had some curry udon and wrote my memento there before went down to Osaka. One of the best moment ever. That feeling of accomplishment. Then around 10KM from the Itami airport, my battery dried up and I ended up asking for direction at 'koban' it was the first time I went into that place. The police officer helped me charge my phone for 5 minutes and told me the easy way to get to the airport. He then checked my bike license number and let me go after a while. I arrived at the hotel around 3p.m.
Then I went back by bus to Namba and went inside Takashimaya to get my phone charged for 10 minutes. Luckily, there's a classy leather shoe store (the prices are so fantastic. >50k yen at least), where the manager (or the owner) helped me. Then I contacted my friend and met with her, who worked for Kidzania, at Umeda station. We had a little baguette as a night snack before we head back. There goes my last Saturday in Japan.
On Sunday, I spent most half of the day for the summer camp which usually held at Biwako, but this time it was held at campus due to covid-19. I personally regretted my decision since I wasted too much time. After the summer camp, they held a mini graduation ceremony for those who graduated this month.
Spending my last day in Japan is not that much of fun. Instead I felt so melancholic. I can't seem to leave the view of my veranda. The thought of the upcoming autumn is also haunting my mind. The life quality, the peaceful environment, the freedom, the internet speed, the fresh air. Compared to my hometown, I lost all those things. Especially when I could work without thinking about my financial situation.
Thanks to my senior who introduced me to another senior from another lab. He was the one who gave me some important information regarding my thesis committee. He is also the one who adopted my fridge, winter coat, and microwave. He is also the one who helped me carry my stuffs from campus to the airport along with another girl who also came along but only my senior stayed 'till the next morning flight and helped me pack my stuffs.
Going back as a jobless person is not a good feeling. The pressure from within. Seeing your parents getting old, living with them and all the things they have to do 'till their rest of their life. Imagining how they will rot. I can't simply leave them, but I also can't simply live with. I don't belong here. The pressure from looking at your friends who already earned their experience since the day we earned our bachelor degree.
Friends.
I think in this 2.5 years, I still don't know how to make friends. I mean, at the very end, there are people who I consider as a friend but never want to disturb gave me a little parting gift. I don't know what to say. Is this how having friend feels like? What is the meaning of this? I mean, did I succeeded to make some real ones?
I just don't understand kindness. But, thank you. For sparking some warmth in the cold heart of mine. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for the talks we had. Thank you for listening. See you when I see you.
1st August. The last 71.3Km round-trip to Amakashi no Oka. Burnt my skin. Lol. This is also my personal record so far. Actually I never had such urge to ride in this heat but since this might be the last time that I can ever do that, so what choice did I have?
2nd August. Mitarai Valley trip with the new friend I made last month.
Thesis defense by the end of this month. Moving out preparation.
Emailed some companies, either no reply or plainly rejected. Pure bad luck? The reason is always simply 'not enough experience' where they don't even mention about it in their requirement. Just say that you are afraid to take risk in this current situation. I can understand that. It is happening globally anyway.
11 August. Went out with my new-made friend who was run out of rice. Sat in front of the 'einstein' building. Talked a little while and suddenly I saw the first shooting-star in my life. It was around 22:30 and soon after I knew that from 11-12 August there was a meteor shower! I felt so lucky. It looked like a bright object but gone in a flash.
14 August. Went to Osaka to meet mid-school friend is currently a research student in Muroran, Hokkaido. He came to Kansai area during Obon holiday and the flight ticket was damn cheap (12k yen round-trip). Ate duck ramen Moeyo Mensuke near Fukushima station. Went to a dept store where he bought a shirt. Then we went together with 2 girls from my campus who were coincidentally went to Osaka around the same time. One of them is a postdoc researcher at Bio dept. The trip continued to shinsaibashi where we planned to eat at Cafe Bintang but unfortunately, it was closed. So we went to Saizeriya and got back together.
15 August. The long-awaited laptop finally delivered; Welcome home my custom Lenovo T14 Gen 1. This is my first ever AMD device. But the sad news is kissanime and kissmanga were finally taken down due to the copyright shit. Fuck you.
19 August. Another progress report group meeting. My co-supervisor asked me about the result of the previous additional result. I didn't put it in my presentation. Got a bad feeling. Went to the lab immediately since the data was in the laptop which turned itself off at critical moments. Sent the result that afternoon and also discussed with my supervisor. He told me to do another run with other feature. I hate to say this but I feel that it is not solving the whole problem. Asked my co-supervisor, she couldn't give any orders since the time is so limited. Understandable. Last resort, the big boss. He told me to do the full comparison with baseline method but the same input features used for the proposed method since the problem is there.
22-23 August. Worked my ass off to get the new additional result ASAP since it will affect my thesis conclusion. Got the result and reported to the big boss Monday afternoon. He told me to just put those into appendix of my presentation and update the thesis.
26 August. Got an email from the international office that the ticket might be delayed, thus I have to stay in Japan as a research student (again). That is if my lab or any other wants to take me in, otherwise? My other concern is that even though the offer is good (plus the campus would let me stay in the dorm) my willpower to do research has already been depleted. On the other note, the Professor might find it hard to keep a refugee for uncertain period of time since neither the international office nor the scholarship sponsor knows when they could obtain the flight. So why it is hard to the Professor you might ask. The reason lies within the workload of the project that they have to assign on me.
28 August. Got the news from the international office that the big boss said that he agreed to let me refuge as a research student due to the current situation. Met him on that day to proceed with the application, and in the afternoon I heard that he was questioning my preparation for the thesis. I didn't realize what's lacking. But on Saturday, I sent my presentation slides to the committee as a form of feedback. Seriously, do I lack some sort of common sense? Lately I've been wondering.
29 August. I woke up in the morning with a terrible nightmare. So my brain replayed the scene when the big boss was signing the application for my special research student application. That time, the secretary asked for a clarification from him about how long should I work per week and her instinct was to follow the past application (back in 2018 when I was first came to Japan). The scene was truly as it was except the ending when the boss said "Sure, no problem." It was supposed to stop at that point, however I heard something like "As if he did his job." following the first sentence.
Later that afternoon, I took a nap wondering about what will happen during the defense because honestly I am still traumatized by what happened to me during the Go/No-Go presentation last time. I don't want that to happen and the truth is that thing is rarely happens in the lab. Most of the time the students will just graduate as it is. But that didn't happen in my case. I guess I'm really exceptional (in a bad term). In my dream I got a confirmation email from the thesis committee that my presentation already fine, but then I realized that it is too good to be true so I checked the email one more time to make sure, and yes. It was all a dream.
So I spent the weekend terrified and drowned in anxiety. As I realized that it only takes 30 minutes to shatter everything I've done in the last 2.5 years.
31 August. The thesis defense day. Went to the lab in the morning to have some rehearsal with my Thai friend. Spoke too fast, the second one I rehearsed it with my supervisor and one M2 student. Still too fast, but slightly better. There was a 10-minutes QnA session too. One thing that came to my mind that time is keep an open mind and respect the asker. Which is the complete opposite of the word 'defense'. the night before I spent some time to read how to handle the thesis defense. That night I realized that no one wants me to fail; They wanted me to succeed instead. So the term defense is not an appropriate word here to be honest. This might be the turn-point.
Lastly, on that day I asked another thesis committee to do quick-check my slide for a moment and added one slide to describe how I trained the model. That's it. Another 1.5 hour for self-rehearsal and it's my time. Luckily, it was as what that post said. Most of the questions are rather asking for clarification rather than the justification of the method or asking why I didn't do something.
Earlier this month I made one new friend. She is from Indonesia but has been in Japan for the past 3 years. I met her at 7/11 near Aeon Tomigaoka. That day, I just went back from my short solo trip to Mt. Wakakusa to release my stress due to my pre-defense presentation.
At first I saw her as a Malay/Indonesian withdrawing money from the ATM at the corner. I proceeded to bu some bread since I hadn't had anything that day except water. Then after I paid those at the cashier I went out to eat some. Then she also came out to ride her bike when she realized that her rear tire has completely gone flat. Judging by her reaction I can finally conclude that she is an Indonesian.
She then walked away and it was like around 10pm or something. There was no bike shops or even Daiso was open. The only option she had was just to leave it there and walk home (campus dorm). Why campus dorm? There's nobody would take that route unless they want to go to the campus. I followed her before she had gone too far and asked what happened (though I knew already and I spoke to her in English). So long story short she intended to leave her bike there and get it fixed on the next day before she go to her a part-time job. So, I offered to help her fix the bike and finally we went back to campus walking.
So that's how it was started.
~Fin~
I've been ranting about my situation a lot in recent posts. Yes, it is true. Ain't it humane? Aren't we all like that? Especially when things are not happening the way we expect it to be. Maybe some of you possess that special ability to accept the reality faster than I do.
So I reflected some things these days since it is holiday (22-23 July + weekend = 4 days off. Yay). The thesis was submitted for official review last Wednesday, so I have some time to stop doing anything and just go on rest-mode. There are 3 points that I realized:
What seems good does not always give you the lesson you need.
God still helps you even in the worst situation.
Nothing lasts forever.
If I remember why I choose my current lab group, it is simply because I didn't like how I was treated in the previous one. In my current group I received better treatment, to the extent that my supervisor doesn't even care anymore. Basically, nobody complained about my technical ability (maybe it is because of academic research?) but most of the time I received comment regarding my writing and presentation.
How did I fail the Go/No-go presentation was mostly caused by my inability to compose my thoughts and take the listeners along with the presentation. Big thanks to my supervisor who didn't give comments or like 'This is how you should do it.'. Nope. He didn't say anything about that. About the journal? Nah, I don't want to do it anymore. No time and basically no motivation for that anymore. Not that I cannot, but I just have no reason to do so. Another reason is that usually the journal would take a year at least to be finally published. But it also depends on the reviewers. If the reviewers asked for any additional analysis, then it would be hard for me to fulfill those.
You see, until this day, I tried to stay positive and keep reminding myself that everything happened for a reason. But it is very hard. I can' believe the sweet 2.5 years is gonna be over soon. Worse, I graduated in this pandemic situation with no job secured. Who the fuck would like to hire someone like me? How could I even save this much ? Hey hey, life is not all about money, no? Just take anything you can get and stay low. Nope. That's not the problem here. I know how to stay low, and in face I've been living like a beggar all these time so that I can save a lot. Those who continue for the next 3 years amid the pandemic will have at least 6M yen in their account by the time they graduate. Me? Only half. I won't nag about it, in fact, I am grateful. Truly.
Meaning that, if I can find a suitable job where I could save at least as much as I could save right now, it would be enough.
Speaking about moving out. Shit, I hate to talk about this. But every time I look out my veranda and see the greens, I look at the bike that I used to travel. I am wondering whether I still can do the same in my country. It is so sad that my country at has nothing like Japan. The cleanliness especially.
Well, at least let's close with something a little positive. My Interspeech paper got accepted. Great, isn't it?
This month, my only concern is my thesis and some additional works to be compiled into a journal. My sensei told me that a journal would be beneficial in case I would like to continue to Ph.D. one day. Yea, one day he said... Whatever. Speaking about the thesis, there is another thing that still bugs me. Job hunting. What could I expect in this situation?
A little story about my job hunting progress since that fateful day where I was condemned that my sensei is not and will not recommend me to continue to the doctoral degree. I visited the career center on my campus which I hope can give me some lists of companies that I might be able to try. It is even before Covid-19 strikes.
I made an appointment and did the counseling. You know, their suggestion was like: "Oh, so you don't have JLPT certificate and has limited communication capability. It's gonna be hard.", "Why don't you return to the previous company?", "Unless you are very skillful, it will be tough.". I don't blame them for saying those things, they barely know my background, story, and ideals. Those are normal reactions, my question is, why are they even exist? What is their job desc other than asking the students about the job hunting situation every now and then? I don't receive any support but instead, I feel pressured. I am seriously pressured by those emails asking me about my job-hunting situation and to fill the job-hunting report.
Lastly, they suggested me to have career counseling with a Japanese sensei from another lab that handles student employment and another counselor from outside. Again, I don't think those are supportive. I mean, everyone will ask the same question. But to be honest the replies from the sensei are much better than anyone I met so far.
Skip forward several weeks and poof, Covid-19 hits Japan. As expected, this results in a lot of businesses become in limbo, especially those relying on the tourist as their main income since it happened in late March-April, the peak of tourists season which I have described in the previous post (I forget which one, I will put the link here if I remember). As a result, many businesses went bankrupt and I don't know the details if there are any supports from the government regarding this. What I know is the government gave 100k yen to each person indiscriminately. Would it help? For a month or two it may be fine, but not longer than that.
Yet, the career center keeps doing their job, blasting emails about seminars from companies held in Japanese. Even if the QnA session could be done in English, it is not helpful for people like me since it will make me ask dumb questions and put me in a position where the speaker would think I didn't pay attention. What I need is just a mere list of companies that don't care about language capabilities and would hire people with a skill set like mine. Which what my sensei did this week. Very nice of him after what he did last December.
Following the lockdown and social distancing rule, the businesses were forced to have their employees work from home which already been 'planned' for far far too long but never really put into realization until this time. They also couldn't lay off their full-time employees that easy but for a huge number of part-time workers, it is another story. Ah, do you know that these part-time and non-regular workers made almost half of the employment chart?
My friend worked in a foreign company branch in Japan. She told me that her monthly salary was cut-down to 80% but it was still better than nothing (much better since she lives in a subsidized company share house). Then here comes another problem, the hiring curb. Imagine you are an employer who is trying hard to make money in this situation, would you add another financial burden to your company by hiring a new employee who you have to train for several months before he can even contribute to your business?
This is what I see in this situation. There are two big groups here. Let me divide it by nationalities. The foreigners and the locals. Each group has two categories; The employed and non-employed which not only counts the people who are unable to work anymore, but also includes students and those who currently not working (due to laid-off part-time workers or just simply quit at the wrong time for instance). This situation also forced many unlucky people from the employed group to fall into the unemployed. These people are supposed to be experienced in their careers and in my opinion, have a higher chance to be hired back. While the students especially foreign students who can barely communicate and considered unexperienced will face a big hurdle in finding an ideal job.
As an employer, who would you like to hire suppose there are three skilled candidates? The experienced one would be the best bet; but if we exclude that option, choosing between your own people and the foreigner who can barely communicate? The answer is obvious. So, I give up my hopes and dreams, my ideals and expectations. If I can't find a job here, then that's it.
Enough about my rants. So how's research? How's my master study going?
In short, towards completion.
So I had my Go/NoGo presentation last Monday together with another friend of mine who will also graduate in September (she continues to doctorate though). In Go/NoGo presentation, the students who are going to graduate have to present their master thesis in front of the lab faculty. That time I wasn't prepared that much since my last seminar so I just reused the slides and presented it the same way I did during the seminar. The result was so bad that my Prof gave me a second chance to revise my presentation in 2 days. I asked almost all the faculty members to help me revise my presentation and finally on Thursday, it went well. Big thanks to my supervisor, my previous supervisor (from the previous group), and the other sensei from the other group also. In the day of the second-presentation I also received some help from my PhD senior whom I have a complicated feeling with. I mean, we are not even that close to begin with even though we share the same hobby (yes, anime). Maybe it is me who cannot build a trusty good interpersonal relationship with anyone.
I'm fucked up. Yep. For one month I did nothing because I couldn't think about anything aside from revising the paper and did a little experiment that honestly finished within a night or two. I feel like I wasted my time too much.
Many will say that several rejections were considered normal. But I'm not. I don't handle rejection very well. I can say myself as a tunnel-visioned person. Once I want something, I want it to work no matter what. Basically, I have to plan for everything I have in mind, but not necessarily detailed, but tailored. Got the difference? For instance, I'd fill my CV with related projects with the position I'm aiming for.
So, the first rejection story was a soft rejection. There is this startup company that works on brain image analysis for detecting dementia. I got called for an interview but then a holiday week came. After the holiday I notified that the interview was called off because the company is revising its hiring policy. Regarding the situation, I'd say that that company is not healthy financially.
Second rejection story. I applied to another company looking for an AI engineer. So there I applied my CV along with the sample codes of projects that I did. Basically, I can't open all of my codes for some reason. They rejected me for a ridiculous reason; Not enough project. Oh well... So do they mean that they'd like to hire someone who submits a 5 pages CV filled with the college homework regardless of the relation on the aimed position?
The third rejection story came from my sensei. It was very kind of him to contact the company that collaborated with our lab on a project. The company is one of the big-named companies in Japan, it is on par with Sony, Panasonic, etc. They replied to my sensei telling him that they are not hiring this year. Fuck. So if big companies are not hiring, the startups also not hiring, how many graduate students will be a part-time worker in convenience stores or ramen restaurants (even restaurants and hotels are struggling)?
Honestly, I don't want to go back to my country for a reason that might be too silly. I just don't find myself suited to live there. I have tasted Japan (at least in my area) and my life is quite enjoyable here. If I have to go back to my country and assuming that I can work remotely, I'd like to live in a place like where I am right now. Which would less likely to be liveable. Too far from the food source, no internet, and on the final note, I just can't appreciate the stupidity. Living in a city is a big no-no for me.
From mid-April to mid-May, the campus increased the restriction that makes the staff and students had to work from home. It was still possible to come and work for minimum hours for several reasons though, as people in the bio lab, they have to take care of the animals and plants and have to control the ongoing experiments.
The information science students and staff had the upper hands on this thing in my opinion. We can work from anywhere as long as we can access the data in the project disk or the computing clusters via SSH. The only problem I had was the working space in my room is just too cramped. I live in a 3*4 room, but to be honest, my table is just too full to work on. Moreover, my chair is just slightly too low for my table making my hand position uncomfortable.
I will submit my last paper into Interspeech this year and soon I have to prepare for my thesis. The deadline for the table of contents is at the beginning of July. Do you know what's worse? I want to do a journal as the final blow. It sounds overkill and has a high chance of rejection but my sensei highly recommends it.
Lately, I feel so lazy to cook anything. I'm hungry but I don't want to do anything about it. Usually, I just go back to sleep or just take simple food/sweet drinks like cereal or honey, or even plain bread. What makes me lazy? I don't even know. Nothing really changes my mood or something.
This dire situation makes me wonder how long until the recession officially announced or at least appeared in the news. I've never been this anxious about finding a job. I only thought one thing when I came here; To change my life and live properly. I don't like making excuses, but I really can't find a job that really suits me back then. Right when I found one here, this virus strikes.
I can only think what if that day, my supervisor let me continue to PhD. At least I got the scholarship for another 3 years and now I don't really have to think about job-hunting. Maybe I will not survive the PhD anyway or even after another 3 years, the situation is still not really good either. Who knows?
But for now. I can do nothing. Literally nothing besides enjoying the last 4 months, and the upcoming thesis defense + the tight deadlines towards it. I'm 10 billion percent fucked up.
I planned to go back to Indonesia for one full month this March, many thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, I couldn't take any risk of getting infected. I guess I will spend my life in Japan for another 6 months and make it 2.5 years without return. Hell yea.
This year the spring arrived quicker than ever. Guess what, it was still mid-March and the sakura flowers had started blooming. That's one good news, the second is I got positive feedback from the company I'm interested in. We did a simple interview and he offered me a part-time position beforehand so that I could get used to the task and at the same time to know how I perform before I step for an interview for a full-time position. Fair enough.
I don't really know the rules or any programs at this campus I'm in. The only thing I know until that day was just I come here, take classes and make sure I pass, do my research, and eventually write some papers, journals, and thesis for sure. However, on that fateful day, the lab secretary called me to talk in person just to inform that I am a rank-1 student (maybe in the faculty). I forget the details already, but that means that it would be easier for me in case I do job hunting in Japan. Good news aside, I just want to live far from crowds and work at flexible hours and permitted to do remote work. As I always concern about my financial health, I'd like to save 100k-200k yen per month. I don't really care about the total amount of salary because the tax, insurance, and fix living-cost will strip the number away before you could even touch it.
Early hanami. Well, I went out in the middle of the fucking corona lockdown. The government suggests the people to stay inside and avoid physical contact with people. For introverts, this is not a problem, but even for me who has been staying in the campus area the whole winter, it is time to get some sun! So I decided to go to Tsurumi-ryokuchi park on 20 March. As expected, nothing much to see because technically the spring hasn't arrived. Only some trees have bloomed, but the tulips were not one of them.
I went to the park and met with a group of people. Basically, they are friends of my Indonesian friend who came and studied Japanese in Kobe and recently she got a full-time position in Kidzania. I met with one Japanese girl who is going to start working as an elementary school teacher starting next April. Her English is good and she is very friendly too. The other interesting people I met were 2 Mongolian boys who look like Korean and pursue their master degree at Kobe Unversity, one of them will study psychology and his friend will study animal science. One American-German guy, he is the friendliest among all, one Italian girl, and one French guy who brought an American-Indonesian girl. I will talk about her in a moment. Finally, there was a Belarus guy who came with his Japanese wife and 2 kids.
This American-Indonesian girl was born and raised in Japan until the first year of high school. If I don't misunderstand the story, her biological father left and her mom remarried with a Japanese man. She was sent to Indonesia for 5 years to study in pesantren (kinda Islamic based school?) because of her bad behavior in the past according to her story and she just recently came back to Japan. Funny thing is that she got this French guy in the bar.
The deadline for the last paper I can submit is changed to a later date, May 8th. I think I can thank the virus for this since I can have a little more time to write the manuscript and extend my research a little bit before submitting it to the proceeding. Yay.
March 24th was the last day I saw my M2 friends. I hate farewells so I didn't come to any party. I don't like it. It seems to me as if it is better to forget them rather than remember and hope that they will be there the next time you come to the lab. It kinda hurts somehow. But people come and go, and somewhat I oughta get over this bad habit of mine.
Well, these thoughts came to me when I played Plague.inc. The goal of the game is to eradicate the humans on planet earth, I lost to several times as I tried new kind of disease (virus, fungus, etc.). When you lose the game, usually there are 2 things that happen; There are some people left, or the vaccine has finished and mass-produced. As always, disclaimer first. I'm not trying to capture any country as the mastermind or claiming this virus as a bioweapon (even though I know some media to picture it that way). That being said, I don't know the truth! I can only see what is happening and honestly everything I wrote is based on my own thoughts. Please don't be offended and trust me, I'm trying my best to be neutral here.
Enough of the game and let's go back to reality (or at least what I've seen until now). So the outbreak was started in China, Wuhan city to be specific. Anything suspicious? No, not yet. How fast they did the lockdown and how fast they built the hospital? Nothing so suspicious about it (yet). Alright. No problem. I remember I saw the news that the virus actually identified by a Chinese doctor and suddenly 'silenced'. I don't know the truth about what was happened, but if that's true then, something is fishy.
China is a huge country. almost as huge as several European countries combined. But I have a big question here, how come the virus is not spreading inland that much? What about the other cities? China is highly populated, isn't it? I've never been there, to be honest, but Wuhan looks just like Osaka and Kyoto. There are also some things that come to mind as some events prior to this incident, the WW3 issue, the US-China trade war and the HongKong riot just happened recently.
Now that the city has been locked down and so does the labor-intensive factories. Are they going to face a crisis soon? No news about that so far, while the other countries especially those who are close to China are afraid of the infection, Europe and the US can rest easy. Learning from the game, the virus can easily spread within land borders, planes, and ships. The virus can also spread using rodents, livestock, blood, insects, and avians. But this one seems to spread by cough and sneeze despite the news that said the virus came from a bat soup.
Let's be honest here, we all know that almost everything made in China, even the simplest thing. That means China has the power to control the world economy. Let's say they finally said "Ok, we will only make goods for ourselves. The rest of the world can go fuck themselves.", Then I can see that the prices of everything would be multiple times higher then it currently is since countries like Japan, US, EU, has clear and strong labor-law which covers working hours, health insurance, minimum wage, etc.
So logically, the virus should spread like an earthquake. It started at the epicenter and go affecting the surrounding area. But I see some weird patterns here. Cities that are close to it are somehow spared from the outbreak, but the virus itself somehow made its way out of China. To this point, I should've thought about Russia and N.Korea who are not in a quite good relationship with the US. Let's say in the case of Russia, the city center is located closer to Europe rather than Asia and in the case of N.Korea, I heard the infected people are executed almost immediately. I'm not saying that Japan is also spared since I believe there are many hidden cases to prevent massive panic regarding human psychology. But I'm going to talk about that at the end of this post.
How this virus benefits the world? Wait a minute. What's so beneficial about this? Ha! Don't you realize that air pollution mostly produced by vehicle emissions? Now that everyone is told to stay home and work remotely, there are fewer gas-vehicles operated. The good thing is that this virus (hopefully) make the people realize that some of them don't even need to be at the office working from 9-6 (maybe even more). On the other side, individual electricity bills will rise significantly. How about China in particular? Well, since the virus started in China, and it seems like they already get hold of it, the economy has started to run as usual. This benefits them in some way. First, they show themself as a capable country when the rest of the world is in chaos. This would lead to more and more countries look for China for help and it will lead to trust. Once they trust China and feel indebted to China, then China can easily control that. Second, the early bird catches the worm. As the economy slowed down, the market prices crash, The wealthy people can easily buy that at the rock-bottom price making them the major-owner. That's how the rich are getting richer. The same scheme could also be played by the US by making it as if China is trying to conquer the world and the US can play the victim of maybe the hero? Whatever, I don't want to blindly accuse anyone. It is a bad thing. Peace.
As the closure of this pointless, baseless, idiotic post, I'll just want to explain something that has been bugging me in the past few days. In Japan, we know that people tend to overwork and strictly following the law. This has a lot of positive sides, but it also has a bad effect. One of those is the lack of survival instinct. The people seem to truly depend on the orders given by the government, and if the government says nothing, they will also do nothing despite the situation. I will take an example from my campus. The campus did some changes regarding the credits, adding some programs, and change some mandatory subjects. it caused a lot of trouble because somehow people are used to the old system and the new system is not well communicated. Reflecting on that example, in an emergency situation or if there is a sudden change happening in the system, Japan cannot adapt quickly and will cause a lot of confusion. Therefore, the government (maybe) tried their best to control the possibility of massive chaos by you know what they did (or didn't).
Recently some shopping centers in Japan closes at 8pm in order to prevent corona and my friends have been complaining about how the Japanese government prevents the virus outbreak. By the time this article is written, the Japanese government has announced the re-opening of the schools in April, the postpone of the Tokyo Olympic, and Tokyo lockdown until April. The statistic of infection cases and the number of death in Japan is relatively low. Meaning that Japan is relatively save at the moment, but I beg to differ. However, I should put my disclaimer here that I have nothing against them and this post is based only on my own thoughts without any official sources.
Firstly, one of the largest income sources in Japan is their nature and culture (including the big cities) which attracts tourists from all around the world. From my own baseless observation, the tourists who come to a country mainly come from its neighbors. For example in Japan, mostly the tourists are Chinese, HongKong, Korean, Philipinnes, Vietnamese, Thai, and Taiwanese. Secondly, those tourists arrived in big cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. From there they will go splurging their money in the cities and maybe countrysides depending on their itinerary. Having a country lockdown means that less tourism all around the world. Lockdown not only happens in Japan, but also the other countries such as Italy, and Saudi Arabia, where the Muslims around the world come to Mecca.
Secondly, most of the workers in Japan moved to big cities as the number of available jobs in those areas is higher. I think it is obvious in any country that the business and IT offices are located in the city center. Thirdly, the tourists are seasonal. Have you ever been to some places that are only good during autumn and spring? Those places are located mostly in the countrysides. In winter and summer, there is nothing to be seen, meaning that the locals have to survive with what they earned during tourist seasons. That's maybe one of the reasons why young people left the countryside for big cities; more job opportunities especially for university graduates. This makes people who live in those cities have to live in a very small apartment and close to each other (do you know how thin the Japanese apartment wall is?). Have you seen how crowded the train station during rush hour in Tokyo and Osaka? That is the best place to spread the virus.
I've heard from my friends that there are job offer cancellation cases since the Covid-19 outbreak. Meaning that some people or students who are going to graduate got their job offer canceled and graduated without a job. Maybe this is not a good thing only in Japan but not the case with any other countries. But let's take a look from the other perspective, why the company decided to cancel the job offer, it rarely happens and this is the first time I heard about this.
If I am the business owner, having a newcomer means I have to spend a little more to earn even more. If a cancellation happened, it could mean several things. One, the company itself is going down, in this case, they have to trim down the expenses in order to save the company. This takes form in closing the door for the new employees to laying off some of their current employees. It is a common thing. Two, at a larger scale, the Japanese economy is somewhat not as good as it might seem. The stagnation of the economy leads the 2% increase of consumption tax which was applied since October 2019. The government did this in order to stimulate the economy. Well, now let's think this way; You are an ordinary citizen living and working in Japan with an 8% tax applied in everything you buy. A 2% increase might not seem too much, but two scenarios might happen in my mind. In the first scenario, you will buy a lot (clothes, books, everything that can be stored for a long time) in the last months before the tax hike [this stimulates the economy for a while of course]. After the tax hike, your spending will just go back to normal. In the second scenario, which is most likely to happen for people who earn just enough to live, is they will not buy as much as they would before the tax hike. Therefore in the long term, these people will live even more frugally. In this second scenario, the plan to stimulate the economy fails.
The next thing is regarding the effect of the Covid-19. This new virus spreads quickly and the incubation time takes up to two weeks before showing any serious symptoms. In addition, this virus is airborne and able to stick to your outwears for several days. This is why it is recommended to clean your body (especially hands) and wash your outfit every time you visited any public areas. So what's the matter about this and Japan? We can say that Japan is a relatively clean country with religiously law-abiding citizens. But let's look at the current situation here. Some offices and schools are closed to prevent the spread. You all also know how hard the Japanese work, some even died because of long working hours. Okay, let's make it a topic for another time. Now, if you have a family with children, this is the best chance to have some great family time, isn't it? Moreover, this is near the hanami season. The places which used to be packed with people to see the cherry blossom will be less crowded due to less visitor from overseas. Perfect family time. The bad thing? It happens nationwide! + virus. Ah, don't forget pollen allergies a.k.a kafunsho.
We know that the virus will easily infect people with a weak immune system. This means the children and elderly people are especially vulnerable. How many children can stay at home for a long time? I'm an introvert, yet I have to admit that when I was a kid, I can't stay inside for a long time. So definitely, going out is necessary. Especially for the elders, speaking from my experience with both my grandmas, they will get bored easily only staying inside the whole month. The chance of getting infected is high. Plus the Japanese have this weird habit, that is they only take bath once, which happens usually in the night time after coming home from work. I'm not saying that cleaning our body will reduce the chance to get infected because you can see in Indonesia where the people mainly take the bath twice a day even has a higher number of infection. So, the best way to get infected is to go outside where the crowd is.
Combining the current situation with the delayed Tokyo 2020, the economy this year looks grim. Even if Japan opens its door for the visitors, the countries all around the world won't let their people go outside their home, let alone to Japan. As we all know the effort that has been done by the government and other institutions in preparing this event. The long-expected revenue, which in fact, delayed makes the economy slowed down even worse. If in fact, the Japanese government is not being transparent in releasing the number of Covid-19 cases due to any reason holds true, then I could expect the inevitable truth will come to the surface by the end of next month. I've heard some cases where the patient with the corona-like symptoms are told to just take rest at home. Again, I don't know if this is true or not, but I am hoping that Japan will do nationwide tests like South Korea.
I will close this speculation of mine with a darker note. The Japanese economy is suffering because of the lack of people in the productive age PLUS the number of elders is significantly higher. This results in the ever-increasing cost to support these people. If the number of elderly people falls, I think it will somehow make the situation a little better for the government. The money used to support the 60+ people can then be used to support children and thus stimulating the people to have kids. Things take time because it is not that easy to persuade people to have children, especially in big cities. You know how expensive the rent is. Do you know what I think, if because of this virus outbreak, Japanese companies start to allow the employees to work from home, it would be great because if that applies, I think many people will move back to the countryside and work from their parent's home or they can rent a cheaper place and save a lot to spend on other kinds of stuff. For people like me who really hate crowds and love the solitude of the hills, it is perfect.
I started this month by going to the Heijo-palace with my Malaysian friend after came back from the church. I saw his improvement in cycling and decided to take him somewhere a little further. I took some good sunset photos.
Sunset
The next weekend I went skiing at Shiga-Kogen at 15-16 February. The first-ever ski in my life. It was snowing but somehow I didn't feel that it was too cold. It was my first time to see snow piling like that. So I went there with 18 members including the big boss, one assoc. Prof and another Prof. from another lab.
I am a newbie at this thing. I watched the basics of skiing from youtube but in practice, it was totally different. So, on the first day, the big boss gave us some basic lessons about skiing; the feet position, how to step, and most importantly how to stop which I failed on the first day. What you can't learn from youtube is where to put your weight.
I failed miserably on the first day. Fell countless times and I gave up because I felt slightly dizzy after lunch. I went back to the hotel, took a bath and went to sleep immediately. On the second day, I went to the top alone and tried several hard courses knowing that I will never be able to clear those without falling. I tried them anyway and failed as expected. After I tried those tracks, I went to the green-line (the easiest route designated for beginners like me), and I only fell once! Once again I tried and I didn't fall at all! And again, and again, and again to understand the control.
Finally, I can ski! I was so happy. :) I think that would be the best 50k yen ever spent. Not cheap, but totally worth the effort and pain.
The landscape.
It is soft. It is white. It is cold. It melts in your hand. IT IS SNOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!
The cable car
The mesmerizing view of mountains.
Cloudy on the second day.
21 February. That day some guests from a startup company in Canada visited our lab an I was appointed to give a presentation of our research group. They seemed like nice people, but well I don't know much. Maybe this is the chance?
In the afternoon we had a farewell yakiniku party at Moku (yakiniku-ya near Yamato-Saidaiji sta.) in order to congratulate the M2 students from our group who will graduate this March (currently our group has only 1 Ph.D. student <which I don't know when she will graduate>). I went to the restaurant with my friend using our bicycle. It took 40 mins from campus and on the way back my pedal hit a roadblock and I went over the bars almost fell into the river, luckily no serious injuries and my bike seems fine but the front wheel is a little bent now. :(
28 February. Another farewell party for an intern student from German. This time it was a little unusual since we had oden instead of pizza. After the party, I took a little time to chat with my fella who was lucky enough to be able to continue to Ph.D. Or that's what I thought.
She is a smart girl. Maybe smarter than I am. All the staff (sensei) have a good impression on her and put a great expectation on her. However, after I talked to her, that doesn't seem to be the case now. After a little talk, finally, she said that she is sort of regretting her decision to continue. The reason is that it is not that she dislikes what she is doing, but rather caused by how the task was given to her. In other words, tight deadlines.
The problem worsened by the push from her parents hoping she will continue to Ph.D. Lucky that she has a boyfriend who she can talk to. While I have none of that fancy stuff.
I think that everyone has their share of problems. I have come to a realization that Ph.D might not be the best choice for now, no matter how I like this place. I hope she can decide what's best for her. In whatever we do, wherever we are. I sincerely hope that I can be thankful for everything. It will not lighten the burden or solve the problem, but at least it will change our brain to look for something good in everything and cope with the hurdles.
Last December, I sold my old bike (the one I used to go to Nara park for the first time) to a new Malay friend. Apparently last year I got several new friends in the church a week before Christmas. 2 of them are Malaysian. The other one just arrived in Japan last October, so currently he is still a research student and since he is new, I offered him my bike for 5k yen only. The only drawback of this bike was just the rear tire, pretty worn out and I already patched it twice.
Unexpectedly, he bought it and crashed it several days after. He looked at his phone while riding. Gosh, never ever do that unless you know the path very well. As the result, he snapped the derailleur hanger and broke the rear mech. He also bought the wrong set of inner tube and tyre replacement.
The following week after we repaired the bike, I asked him to go for a grocery shopping. The total route we ride was just 12.6KM. Bringing him with me made me remembered my first days here. I really wanted to visit a lot of places with my bike and I felt so happy doing so. But yeah, I will not do it for many times. Just once or twice a year, that's enough. There are a lot of places other than those and things are getting more and more packed into my schedule; You know, classes and stuff. So I ended up not going out that much.
Talking about this new friend of mine, he rode really really slow! Jesus Christ. I can't wait forever. If it was an incline than I can understand that maybe he has not used to it yet, but on the oh-so-fun declines he dragged his brakes and therefore wasting his momentum into heat. But before I conclude not to ask him to do any ride together anytime soon, I should realize this one thing. That is that I was also like him.
That takes me back to the first summer in Japan when I joined the 50KM journey of Nara Mahoroba cycling tour. That time our team was led by a team of pro-cyclists. That time I burned out, thinking that cycling is easy, I have been doing that all the time, there should be no room for errors. WRONG! From the wrong saddle height and wrong pacing from the start unknowingly how the terrain would be. Total stupidity. Like anything else, never underestimate anything and test the water before you swim.
As I titled this post as "Pacing Myself", I would like to remind myself that each of us is walking (or maybe running, flying, sliding, whatever~) at our own pace. There are some people out there who are looking at us wondering when they could be at the same level as us in some aspects, while we might also look at the other group of people wondering what can I do to achieve what they gained.
"The thing is, my dear myself, you don't have to rush yourself. Let's be honest here; you are here because you were mad at her, right? You made that promise you know have a little chance to fulfill. But guess what, The truth has been there all the time and all you need to do is to accept it. The fact that you are here means that you are more capable than what you think. But you are not enjoying it because you keep comparing yourself to others. She will continue to the Ph.D. and guess what, it is what she wants to do. Do you really want to walk her path or your own designated path? Do you really know what it takes, do you really think that you will be happy?
You are not going to be like her and she has her own ideals which you cannot stand. You already stopped chasing for her but deep inside you know that you are not fully letting her go because you are afraid to be looked down. Actually, you like places like this and you don't regret being here. But the fact is you are actually bored with what you are doing because it is not what you initially want to do and unfortunately the lab cannot support your ideas any further.
You are not stupid. You just need to find yourself first.
Now take some time and think about what's good for you. Be it your future career, education, or where do you want to settle in. Take some time to think about what you can tolerate and what not to decide which shit-flavored sandwich do you want to take because at some points life will get suck anyway."
But if it was not for her, I wouldn't be here. Yes! It is an amazing achievement indeed. Going overseas with a scholarship and get a degree plus you can save some of the stipends for your future. How great is that? But one thing I forget. WHAT'S NEXT? Because this thing won't last forever.
Then lastly, for the last semester, I've been asking myself this very question: "What kind of life do I really want to have? What kind of place do you want to be in? What kind of people do you want to surround yourself with?". I've watched a lot of related videos and articles. And yesterday I went to the church and I don't remember this phrase from Mark 10:15 : "Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.". So that I think to myself. Last time I ask something from God, I asked Him this way: "God, if this is really for me, please let it be mine. However, if it is not, then please give me the strength to accept Your decision.". Because I know I am prone to anxiety and can't handle rejection well.
So I'm asking God a different thing this time; "Show/tell me what do You want me to do.".
