.. from working 16 to 18 hour days every day for the past 35 days.
I’m now nearing the end of my stint here and looking at all the work that I’ve managed to get done, I have to say I wouldn’t have it any other way.
No matter what happens results wise, I can truly say that after giving it my all, I have no regrets should things fuck up. The next 2 days are absolutely crucial. Re: the last post, I’m so close to doing the treble. Wish me luck!
Before I came to Taiwan, I imagined myself working hard to meet my objectives and seeing the country during the weekends. When I came home after the 4 month stint, I thought I’d have completed most of the work and got a great travelling experience out of it as well.
Well, let’s just say things didn’t go as planned. I did do what I set out to do but in vastly different proportions. To begin, I worked hard. Ridiculously hard. 12 hour in the labs, 4-6 hours in the room typing up reports/reading up on lectures, and 6-8 hours sleep. I had to juggle my Malaysia project and the project my Taiwanese advisor cooked up so my day was often a carefully coordinated overlap of tasks. Leave this in for 4 hours, use the time to do something else, come back to it, finish it up for 2 hours, back to the other thing.
The only break I got from the 7-days-a-week routine was when there were power trips that forced me to stay at home. Also, when experiments didn’t go my way, and science experiments rarely do, I got really down mentally. It was just the thought of expanding all that effort and having little to show for it that really killed me. Science is a bitch that way. Unlike accounting or corporate jobs, where it’s more muscle than brain, research is a crazed amalgation of both. You need to put in a hard shift in the labs and also have the critical thinking to dissect the information you’ve obtained; how and why it’s failed or succeeded. More often than not, there are no references for you to fall back on and if there are, they are often intentionally vague. In other words, it’s all you out there, nobody’s there to save you, not even your advisor. And I’m saying this for all forms of science, not just chemistry.
Now you might think reading this that I’m bemoaning my fate but although it was really exhausting, I think I really grew as a person after this experience. I mean, I thought I’ve dealt with setbacks before, but what I experienced here was unreal. Experiencing failure after failure, I learned the value of perseverance the hard way and success tasted so, so sweet whenever it came along. It’s a very exciting ride, if anything. I really do think now that if/when I step into the corporate world, I’ll be able to handle anything it throws at me. There will be problems on a bigger scale and I’ll struggle sometimes, sure, but I’ll look back at this and think, nah, I can deal with it.
Of course, I haven’t survived it yet. In fact, I’m still walking a tight rope. I’ll really say I’ve made it when I’ve survived the viva voce and donned the red robe. And so, back to the Taiwan attachment, with less than a week remaining, it comes down to this. In a strangely identical image of Man United’s treble season in terms of order and significance, my projects come down to 3 defining tests: the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League.
I just won the Premier League today and I’m over the moon. There’s the FA cup tomorrow, which I’ll be more than glad to win but won’t be overly disappointed if I don’t. And then there’s the Champions League, a big bitch of a test with even greater rewards if I conquer it. Sure, I have the Premier League, but like United when they lost to Barcelona, the victory will still feel a bit hollow without Ol’ Big Ears. The silver-titania nanocomposite photocatalysis test is my Champions League final.
5 days to go. Game on.
