You are filled with a sense of urgency. Be patient or you may end up confused.

When bad news accumulate, a good news becomes more and more 'urgent,' indeed. Am I confused? Yes, I think so. I would use the word "lost" instead of confused, but I suppose I am lost because I am confused. In fact, I am edging toward the panic point every day now.

I have had my share of bad news this year and it's only March 9th. Lately, I find myself feeling relieved and even content when I don't hear or find out a bad news all day when I return from work when I reach home.

2014 was a mix of both good and bad news, all of which were mild in its intensity. And most importantly, I didn't die as I had thought I just might.

But 2015, oh my. The first two months have given me one bad news each. The first one was disheartening. 18 months of work brushed off and belittled by one man who has no expertise in judging our work and refused to get a second opinion. The second was less cruel mostly because we knew that we had very little chance of succeeding from the beginning. At both times, I (and those who were implicated in these works) had to start from swallowing, digesting, briefly falling down on our knees knowing that we really cannot affort the time spent on one's knees, picking ourselves back as we form contingency plans and then we take a big breath. And when we are done exhaling, it's already we are behind the schedule to start fixing the problem the bad news had brought us.
Then there were other less devastating bad news. Electrodes not working, molecules complexing with metal ions, acids reducing other ions unexpectedly, porous membrane getting clogged up with residual water? molecules. And of course, my daughter will have to have 4 milk teeth removed this week and I am so late on doing my taxes, too.

I make list of things that ought to be done. I cross out those tasks, but before I can cross one out, 3 more appears in the form of emails, phone calls, noise from the lab, etc. then my day is gone. yes, I am confused, I am lost and I need time. Need time to think so I can define and construct meaningful workplan and of course, sound research direction. What kills me is that I know how I can buy this time. I need more manpower. But to have more manpower, I need money (burrowed or given) to hire them. To get money, I need grants. To get grants, I need more results. And to have more results, I need to have more manpower and this is the vicious sprial in which I find myself trapped. Some of my more fortunate colleagues have the manpower issue solved and now it appears to be a routine, albeit not an easy one, to fund their work. A scientist like mylsef, who's struggling to start my own group, I either lack all 3 elements (manpower, results and money) or only given the money but not enough to ensure the continous supply of manpower to build a sustainable research group.

I need to make a choice. I don't have much money. My human resource is limited. So I need to concentrate on producing results and just results without worrying about the first two for a while. Or get tons of money first and re-start from there? Oh, yes, I am confused. and I can sure use a good news this month.

Accept something that you cannot change, and you will feel better

Oh, Jeez. Where should I start?

Just from what has (not) happened this week....

The solenoid-valves and their vacuum tubing system. Can't fix it. Don't have enough time to, either.

Student coming tomorrow: He won't be able to work on the new high-temperature probe. It won't be ready in 4 weeks' time.

Master's student project: not going well. Cannot find the right redox couple. Don't have enough time to look into the problem. His new Faraday cage is almost ready, but the electrometer has not been ordered. Another delay.

Project money. Don't have the time to check and report changes.

Payment to a company in England. Haven't got around to checking if the payment has been made.

Project proposal. Needs to be done by next Tuesday. Thus need to be sent to everyone by Friday. This! I can do.

Time to drop everything else for the next 4 days.

By accepting something that I cannot change... does this mean I ought to give it up or do it later? I cannot give up on any of these that I have listed above. There are many more things I can add on the list if I include my private life side of "somethings." For one thing, I forgot that my husband's birthday is coming up. For the first time since we met, I forgot his birthday. I know I need to prepare my trip to see my parents, in what! less than 3 weeks. Not to mention the kids' school festival that I am in charge of. There are too many things and too little time. I have said this many times before, but this year, it's different. I simply have too many things to do.  I think this is the first time that working hard is not enough. Yes, there were times in my life that I couldn't get "everything" done. But at the same time, I knew that I could've done more if I had tried harder. This time, it's not the same. I am doing my best and all I can and it's just not enough. I can't. I don't have enough time.

I suppose this is the "something" I need to accept. I cannot do "everything."

Do I feel better? Umm, No.

But this realization forces me to make a priority list.

1. EU Project
2. Master's + Magnetometer (these two must be done in parallel)
3. DD's school festival preparation
4. Trip prep/National project, etc. etc.

So let's get them done. One by one.

Good luck is the result of good planning

This is wrong. There is a "chance" ingredient in the success obtained via "luck." So, no. The statement is wrong. But obviously, the author's intention was to use "good luck" to describe "success" and/or "fortune." I have also seen an idiom T-shirt recently worn by an innocent, yet misguided wearer that said "Winning is a habit. Success is a choice." Now that's a load of crap. Success may be the fruit of consecutive good choices re-enforced by determination, but certainly not one choice.

Tonight's point is: I am feeling the consequence of poor planning that is leading me away from any and all foreseeable success in the past few weeks.

In fact, it's worse than that. I see myself and those closely around me (at work) heading toward a big hole of failure.

I wan to jump off this train.

There, I said it.

I cannot stop the train. I don't know how to change the course without derailing.

Then which "luck" in its pure or in a metaphoric sense can I hope to obtain now? A pure luck will certainly come in handy. All of my experimental apparatus start working as of this week. But that's very unrealistic. Certainly it contradicts all what we know about "success." "Success" is the result of good planning. See above.

 Help from allies (colleagues)? Oh My. I have always been helped more than I have helped the others. Is it time to repeat? I am afraid so. But I need to propose my service in return. What am I good at?  Now I am whining. Time to start planning. Start choosing. I just asked all essential questions in this present paragraph. I need to get help. Know which help and from whom. and know what I can offer in return. The answers are there (in my head) and are clear.

Yes, I can change the course, I can fix the train, I can hook my wagons to another locomotive.

With this being said, I can go back to sleeping peacefully. Blogger is my therapy and in the comfort of knowing that I am the only reader (apart from a few random passers-by) I can become my own listening ears and a therapist. Good night.

Your life will be happy and peaceful

Last Spring, I dreamed that I will die on Feb 16th 2014. In my dream I heard myself announce, matter-of-factly, that "and so this is how I died on the February 16th, 2014." To be perfectly honest, I don't remember if it is Feb 14th or the 16th that I am supposed to, well, die. Nor do I remember "how" exactly I am supposed to leave this life. No matter.

While I have no good reason to believe that this is going to happen and I honestly don't (believe), for the most part, the thought of my own death happening in less than a year has stayed with me for the past 10 months and affected my behavior to a certain degree. For one thing, I started to count number of minutes left 'til my supposedly imminent death. It has also compelled me to accomplish certain long-standing goals, such as getting my act together and obtaining my "Habilitation" degree last summer. I have also be telling my kids how much I love them more often than before. 

On the other hand, my presumed death has made me procrastinate on other less exciting duties under the pretext that "I may not be here (Earth) by same time next year." Tonight is no exception. I really need to be finishing a report on a project. It is not a critical situation. If I fail to provide this in the next couple of days, the rest of the committee members can easily deliver their decision on the project without my input.I do not know if my behavior has become more erratic and my work attitude less reliable since the start of the year. But I do see more unfinished tasks piling up on my desk every morning as I go to work. Scientifically, I am facing a huge wall, yet I am incapable of finish reading articles that my save my research. In a nut shell, if I don't die in 12 days, I will have a lot of catching up to do. Aïe.

It is frustrating, boring, annoying, tiring, sad... but somewhat exciting ... to die.

Hard to explain.

The only other during-sleep-vision with a crystal clear understanding of myself happened when I was a small child, 3? 5 years old, maybe. I was an adult inside, a woman. Waking up to being a child and reciting to my child-self "Ah, yes, I am now a child, I live here, I have a mother. I have a father and a sister.  This is my bedroom. This is my bed. These are my possessions... yes I am me and I must live." That morning, I spent the first few minutes being acquainted or reacquainted with my own surroundings. That day, I started this life as I have known as mine. And that was the same me who declared my own death, a mere 10 months ago. As if I came in contact with my true-self. A strange and rare incident that is probably just my groggy neurons misfiring in random directions during the last few seconds of sleep, but sure as hell felt real. Oh how silly.  

It is still amusing to think that I may start my life over again, rather than being disintegrated into nothing, as I normally would expect. At the moment I die, I wish I could choose which period of my own life (or another person's) I can go back to. I'd prefer very young or 15 y.o. again. The year I moved to the States and relive my mistakes or make different mistakes.So just in case I have correctly predicted my own death through a process that cannot be explained by today's science...., and just in case that I will relive my own life again (and again) or live another life elsewhere (Brazil!) or as another animal (a cat!), I sure hope that my life will be "happy and peaceful." And as for my children, my husband and my parents, "I love you with all my heart. Thank you for being in this life.  I have to go. I love you, love you, love you, love you." 

“Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them." Rita Levi-Montalcini

True. I only wish that this brilliant statement were all true. But we all know this is only half true. Sometimes 'the worst' comes out from difficult moments. Other times, 'next to nothing' comes out. Besides, we don't really fear "difficult moments." We fear "what will come out of them." In most cases, difficult moments are like taking a packed commuter train during the peak rush-hour in downtown Tokyo to go to, say, the airport to catch a plane that will ultimately take you to Rio. It's annoying, but we push our bodies into the sweaty mash of people because you know that there is RIO in the end. But if you are not sure of the destination, or if you realize that the train can change its destination, like Westgate Mall, at any moment, then you are more reluctant to accept the challenge. The point being, if we know that 'the best' will always come out, difficult times don't look so bad.

In my current situation of 100%-self-inflicted difficult times, I fear, Oh yes I fear the outcome. No, I do not fear the difficult moments. They are not enjoyable, but bearable. The recurring questions such as; "Was my ground-breaking idea wrong?," "Did I destroy my student's career?," and ultimately, "Am I destroying my own career" keep me awake at 3-4 am in the morning almost everyday. The gut feeling tells me that I am failing miserably, yet I know that I have not yet exhausted all my resources and I must try harder.

A few years ago, I faced another sort of difficulty. It was against other people who inflicted my life (career, mostly) in a negative way. Now it is against science, or rather, Nature itself. There is no winning if I am wrong. I cannot convince Mother Nature to change its rules. I simply need to find out how it works or why it doesn't work. And I am failing miserably at this game.What then, are my options? Should I continue on this line of research until I have exhausted all possible routes. But what if the conclusion is negative - that I have been wrong all along - in the end? What good will come out of that?? And my students who are following me?

Writing blogs used to alleviate my anguish and helped me go back to sleep. It's not working tonight.

Decide what you want and go for it

There are many idiomatic phrases that carry the same (essential) message as "Decide what you want and go for it." The one that comes to my mind immediately is "Simple in my virtue. Steadfast in my duty." This is an English translation of the motto from my elementary school (and their junior high and the high school, too if I had stayed long enough in Japan). The original text is in French "Simple dans ma vertu. Forte dans mon devoir."

The trickiest thing about following this simple and banal recommendation is in fixing the target (what you want), and not forgetting it (what you going for). I never really understood what the motto meant while I was in school. And for that matter, I highly doubt that the teaching staff, many of them nuns, did either. As a child, I simply had no interest in the essence of the school motto set forth by a group of nuns some hundred plus years ago. The nuns, retrospectively speaking, appeared to be lost in the eternal act of executing their 'duty' and lost the sight of 'virtue.' There were many instances, when 'duty' and 'virtue' were treated as synonyms and worse, 'duty' had completely replaced 'virtue' in their teachings. And THIS irritates me about many -blindly- religious and/or conservative folks, but here I digress.

The point is, the goal (what you want) should be invariable, while the method (how to go for it) should be devised wisely and firmly yet creatively and flexibly. What happens often to many of us, or at least it happens to me more frequently that I like, is that we become too preoccupied by our quotidian errands and obligations that we change our goal more often than our habits. And in the end we forget what is it that we wanted to achieve.

After opening this fortune cookie (yep, I still read my fortune cookies and this one is no exception), I opened my 'notebook of everything' to see what is that I want. This notebook (I am on book#6?) contains my life: the list of errands, meetings, calculations, cooking recipes, doctor's appointments and what not. I am lost without my notebook and my children will be, too. With ever increasing workload and parenting duties, I no longer keep anything in my brain. Everything is written down and dated in this notebook. BUT strangely, there is nothing written about what I *want* to do. Hmmmm... what do I want beyond some general and arbitrary concepts like "world peace" and "clean air" (okay, that's not 'arbitrary' per se,  but at the individual human level, it's as tangible as world peace).

It turns out that I only have incremental goals (I want my HDR (it's a degree), higher salary) and generic wishes (healthy children). Incremental goals are, and should be, part of struggle before reaching the ultimate goal.... so for what purpose am I working so hard to clear these incremental goals, I have some thinking to do now. But first, I have to make breakfast and wake up kids. Darn..

The first step to better times is to imagine them

Much has happened since I last connected to my own blog. This proves once again that I am not the kind of person to be remembered for her record keeping skills.
A man died. His death was unexpected and brought immeasurable amount of pain and complication to those bereaved. His death also brought, rather predictable and measurable consequences to his colleagues, once it happened. For one of his ex-colleagues, me, it has given me the emancipation so sorely needed. My career has morphed and prospered since a year ago and there is no denying that I enjoy the sense of accomplishment. But there is also this lingering feeling that tells me.. that I did not pay for this, albeit small and short, period of professional success. Somebody else has paid the price and I am not entitle to claim the prize....   Regardless of how he was perceived at work, there is little doubt that he had been a dedicated husband and a father; one of the most dear quality that our society seeks in a man.  So why am I the one benefiting from someone else's loss?

Ahhhh.... The fact is, the two entities (my career and the bereavement of the family) are not correlated because I did not cause his death (brain cancer, so we were told). The two simply intersected one another through his death. But a human mind, my mind, does not accept such an over simplified mathematical representation. I started to realize that the two line crossing picture could have been the correct one, if our lives can all be described by, or be forced into via a sheer will power, a straight line. I could have cut all ties with the family, just shrugged them off as bygones. They could have shrugged me and the rest of us at work as bygones and moved on. But we didn't. We exchanged calls, invited each other, car pooled. We shared. We kindled. Now our lives have become twisted. At the beginning the twist pitch was frequent, now we only interact once every few months. Soon every 6 months, then just exchanging new year wishes, maybe. But I know that our lives will cross again and again in the future and that these people are part of my future. I can only hope that my imagined better times and theirs have something in common.