I just realised that I have too many blogs. I mean -- there's this one, the general one, and another one where I post all the shitty things and questions to God, and another very sentimental so-called-good-ol' times, and another one on my research and the crazy stupid things that made me feel totally incompetent and just -- unintelligent -- which was on hiatus for a very long time due to my own frustration of my own ability and research progress.
Life -- as in the current one -- is at a better trajectory I would say. Finally my computational simulation is in place. FINALLY!! The finite element model was validated against experimental data and the result is pretty impressive -- if not accurate, but very close. Last August, I submitted the semester's progress report to the school -- and although I am pretty confident that my sensei doesn't even bother to read my report, but at least, I know I did my very best this semester -- far far far better than the last few years.
It have a RESULT section -- for God's sake! A validated result!
It took a while to finally reach a stage where I am more confident with my work -- and at a more balanced life with kids and stuff. Three years -- imagine if I were to gave up during the first 2 years of my term, maybe I would't be able to reach this stage at all.
That August, I also presented at the school's colloquium, and no longer ashamed to display my result to the crowd. Walaupun adalah dalam satu orang 'kita' yang akan keluarkan statement yang buat aku rasa macam loser all over again, tapi gathering all the positive comments received unexpectedly from a person who once criticised my depth of research -- made me feel OK. The new assistant professor in my lab has been praising my work to his former lab mates -- that made me feel like finally, I am doing something right. Bila ada orang Jepun puji kerja kau -- it's something lah. Bila lab mates called you genius -- macam on cloud nine. Tak lah genius mana, tapi took the the extra time untuk use the tool to manipulate the design model as intended -- and shared it with others -- the best feeling, man.
So, sensei has asked me to start writing -- at least TWO papers within this time to compensate for the lost times and also since my terms in Japan will be come to an end -- pretty soon. Agak lega di situ -- sebab partly, it felt like he approved my findings and agreed on publication. But, writing a factual paper is not as easy at it seems. Organising the thoughts and the process in reaching the outcome -- is pretty tricky. So it took a while to finish writing off one paper. But once done -- again, rasa accomplished di satu bahagian dalam hidup. Alhamdulillah.
So, I submitted (read: emailed) the paper draft to my sensei dan rasa seperti terlepas satu beban yang berat di bahu. But -- the relief -- it doesn't last. After two weeks without any response or feedback from Encik Sensei, I became extremely worried -- fidgety, uneasy, wondering if the paper is too bad to be published -- I even have multiple dreams on the paper and my sensei's response. Some are good, some are dreadful -- but it's all just a dream. In reality, my sensei is like -- kapooofff -- nadaa! Drove me crazy lah jugak. If I didn't know any better, it felt like he's 'ghosting' me -- the term are a very popular act among Japanese couples who wanted to break up but doesn't really want to hurt the other party, hence -- the ghosting effect. The 'ghosting' term I'm using here is purely based on supervisor-student relationship, tak lebih dari itu. But damn -- very worrying!
So last week, I consulted the assistant professor asking his opinion on my situation. I received a very interesting response.
"so... how long have you sent him your paper?"
"Two week ago..."
"Hm... don't worry. It's very usual of Ta*** sensei."
"REALLY???"
"Yeah... everybody has been asking me where is Ta*** sensei, if he have read their report and things like that. I'm not even sure if he reads his email. So --- two weeks -- that's common in the academics world."
And he added ...
"Last time, I have to wait for more than 6 months for the associate professor in my lab to read my paper. That's why I didn't get many paper published during my PhD."
On that remark, tak tahu nak rasa relief or worried. I mean -- I can't proceed with submitting the work to any journal without his approval since he is named as the co-author. At the same time, the waiting game drove me pretty crazy sebab submitting the work to the journal too would require another uncertain waiting period. So it was like, nak rasa lega, tapi tak boleh lega sebab your work is pending on the hand of other people.
That's my current dilemma. No longer worried much about the research, but more of the acceptance of the result...
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