Here I am after that fateful decision to leave Penang. 2015 broke many, many things. My confidence is in shambles, my hopes shattered. I do not know what’s left of my faith. This is a long piece and I am unsure of the best way to signpost, but it's mainly for my own closure so I'm not going to try that hard.
Perhaps the biggest failure of my life
My idealism caught on pretty quickly at the year’s start. Like any young researcher I was bright-eyed and energetic, ready to change the world. I forsook half my pay to get on board. I could obtain a research site within a week of being on the project, and enthusiastically offered to leverage my network for the team. There was a minor hitch - my supervisor preferred one line of communication. I obliged. Hierarchy was needed in some situations. But it would be 9 months before an actual site is obtained. I discovered that my contact, despite being highly influential in the organization we chose to work with, did not receive as much as a nudge. It was a very long 9 months.
Another douse of reality happened when my energetic rush was kept in check by a supervisor. I was told to relax and not move too fast. I relented, only to be hammered mercilessly in a meeting with a higher up for not doing enough. I was confused then. Too much or too little? The next few months consisted of pushes and pulls. There were as many as 4 research directions in a month. Protests were met with humiliating remarks. Could I really accumulate enough technical depth after 3 days of reading into Neural Networks (while not being a computer scientist)? I was ousted from meetings, threatened and patronized. There was some petty language stuff going on too. I could speak conversational Mandarin, but technical terms eluded me. The group seemed eager to take full advantage of this. Mandarin became the mode of communication (in an Australian campus).
A couple of things occurred to me at this point. I happen to belong to a generation where each day, we are reminded of how we are the worst: spoilt, entitled, and weak. So my first step was to take full accountability. I rationalized that I DID have moments that lacked initiative. Perhaps I was being oversensitive. The world owes me nothing, and treats everybody like crap anyway. Take it or lose the roof over your head (and think of some grandfather story as a motivator: When I was your age, I didn’t have…). I decided to take things in stride - carve out the personal attacks and glean any truths I could find. For a while, this mental framework seemed to hold.
Until 14 months later. Lofty philosophical contraptions did not shield my psyche against the persistent salvos of vitriol. It did not manufacture the mental vaccine I thought it would. I faced mental exhaustion. At one time, I even forgot what energy was. Simple sentences in rudimentary journal articles started to make no sense. As if to compound things, corneal erosion set in. I now have to undergo long term treatment. It was also at this time when the lead supervisor decided to unfold his grand scheme, which unveiled why researchers were forbidden to work together all this time. Awfully pleased with himself, he revealed that he had engineered a winner takes all scenario. What we were working on was contrived such that the success of one would render the rest irrelevant. Play and win at his little game, and we will graduate. Lose, and the consequences are ours to bear. What happens if I lose after 4 years?
It was really Cedric, who finally tipped the scales and convinced me this was an outlier. This was a sham. He convinced me that quitting won’t make me a spoilt and delicate member of Generation Y. Somehow, we almost make it a point to forget each other’s birthdays each year, but don’t we always save each other in the things that matter?
But there are still insights
I suppose there’s no harm in looking for a bright spot. I learned some things I did not know about myself. Like how bad I was at accepting failure, or how broad my definition of failure was. Given the circumstances, it was the wrong time, wrong place, wrong supervisor. Perhaps I can't fully be blamed. But why is it so hard a lesson to learn? Because the job market may disagree with me. Because graduate institutions may use this to judge my capability as a candidate. This tale may be written off as an excuse by every person capable of opening or closing the door to my next step. I must now live with that.
Another thing that shocked me was how much I cleaved to 'success'. Without it I felt I was nothing. Suddenly, in my mind, I am not valued as much to my friends anymore. That is of course presumptuous (or not, depending on who).
Finally, I was arrogant. I never thought much of failure. I had somehow framed my life around success. I can't fail. Of course, that's ridiculous for anyone! But truth be told, I have sailed through life mostly unscathed, and so my expectations were truly insane. In one of the Clone War episodes (I’m sorry, it IS the season), even Yoda took time to figure out he was fighting his own hubris. A new journey begins now.
What now?
That's a very uncomfortable question. Things are not so simple now. 2015 simply broke my heart, and I unwittingly developed negative associations toward engineering and research. I feel like a drastic change is due. But what? Is this feeling biased? I think I should take a sabbatical to recover and be more objective. But how do I recover? The more I apply for jobs, the more lost I seem to be. Hating engineering is fine. But what am I really interested in? What am I meant for?
And so, to my few friends who are reading this: I hope I will have something brighter to post around this time next year. May 2015 be redeemed in 2016.
