Late night euphoria

I want to write about this before the feeling wanes. Two days ago, I thought to myself, this feeling I have, is very reminiscent of the first time I applied to the Ph.D. program (and I wrote about it too). A sense of disbelief combined with a form of relief, I felt very hopeful and excited that I knew what I wanted to do, and no matter what happened with respect to the results, I am on a path that I cannot be moved from.

That's honestly how I feel about my HRI paper submission. I wanted to submit to it one way or the other, all the way since May. Now I know my paper may not be the best, it hasn't gone through any rejections yet, so it won't possibly be accepted. But the pursuit of this question, the excitement of user studies, learning statistics on the flow has been incredible. It has been stressful, no doubt, I have lost count of weekends lost and nights spent working and not sleeping, and how can I forget, that voice of anxiety always around to pull me back. But I've learnt to work around it. I've learnt to love my work more than I fear anxiety. And maybe for a moment, I feel like I won.

Maybe this is all temporary. But this is me, capturing this moment, before it flies away from me.

The many small questions and the few big answers

I am ushering in the new year on quite a high really. I think it has been quite some time before I felt this childishly happy. There are a few legitimate reasons for the same

1. I had one very good last week of the semester.
Something I have kept referring to for the past few years is about how it feels alien to have a good thing happen to me. I'm almost on guard for a bad thing that I believe, will most definitely follow a good thing. I might have finally given up on that this year. That week, was a week of too many snippets of good news ( which i will now tag as the good-news-week in the post). I passed two of my classes with grades that ensure I don't have to take them again and grades that might have been too good to be true. Yours truly, as usual, was happy to deny she had anything to do with it. But I am learning to give myself credit, so I might have come around to accepting it. This was followed by my flight being delayed and missing my connecting flight and reaching Mumbai 2 days later. But I got to spend the 2 days in my own home and not in a dingy airport gasping for fresh air. I guess I should consider it enough proof that good things can last by themselves after all. :)

2. I am okay with being an adult

It began when about 10 days ago, I wasn't asked for an I.D. while entering this lounge (which is unusual given if you don't look above 40, they do ask for it). And amidst jokes of looking old enough, I realize it didn't matter to me. Mostly people hate the responsibilities that come with it, but I guess it has been long enough that I have come to accept those the way I expect myself to brush my teeth every single morning. I learnt that adulthood comes with its share of turmoil, especially during this phase, where most people are going through their quarter life crises. That I definitely do not have solutions to most problems, that conflicts are unavoidable, and the fewer people, the better.

What has also changed, is my perception of my parents. I now see them as fellow adults, with a little more experience, of course, but nevertheless, stumbling through each day. I see them wondering how to let go of us as adults while we ask to be treated as kids when home. It is so much easier to talk to them, to be understanding. I give them a lot of credit for having transitioned to this mode of being with us, treating us back as fellow adults. In fact, I had this detailed conversation with my dad about love and emotions in a very different capacity, where I found this side of him that I knew existed, but something that never came through before now. That was interesting and a lot easier than I had imagined.

Majorly, I realized I am now in that phase of my life where I see my parents once a year and otherwise, we continue to live individual lives, hoping the other is fine.*sigh* Maybe that slightly hurts.

3. I am home
I won't deny. Coming back home was scary. I know it has only been around a year since I left and I should have been dumb to think that I would remember nothing. But the truth is when you adjust to an extremely foreign place, creating an alternative reality for yourself as a coping mechanism, you often don't remember where you belong, if you belong at all. It was an eye-opener when the typical American politeness in an Indian shop returned embarrassed responses from the employees who felt they were just doing their job. Either way, being welcomed with the smell of bhaturas, being rejected by the autowallahs, and just driving around with my family, was therapeutic, to say the least. I think I had forgotten how good home can actually feel. My sister and I spent time with our parents, and that is pretty much all that we did; making family trips out of tasks to be completed, playing music and eating food.

I came home with ideas about being extremely logical, especially about love and other such emotions. But just being around my family, I realized that maybe, I need to let the feeling of safety and the calmness that is home just sink in, not seek to define or articulate these feelings. Trust that if someone feels like home, maybe that is a relationship to uphold, that is a person to trust. These are very redundant thoughts maybe, but to me, it feels like a lesson I am relearning finally getting out of a few constructs I had built around myself.

4. I now have a U.S. drivers license #good-news-week

   (which is apparently a big deal, I hear)

  

5. I am now a Ph.D. student #good-news-week

I don't even know what to say. I was mostly stupefied, even though it was kinda expected given how things worked out. I know I did work hard for it, it didn't just land in my hands. But I know I got extremely lucky in terms of the work I am getting to do and the people I am getting to work with, from what it seems right now. I think it is finally sinking in, that I am in fact doing what I have wanted to do, for almost 10 years now. Right now, that can actually overwhelm me given my personal expectations of myself, so I am trying to take it as it comes, just focus on work like I always have, and hopefully, that results in good things. I am happy. I jump between extreme calm and extreme excitement for most parts, but I guess it is gonna be a satisfactory 4 years, at least I hope it will be.

I happened to meet Sanaya ( my first ever friend) on New Year's Eve and I think I could not have began 2017 in a better way. Based on our conversation, I think I am done being so serious about everything, I know a lot of my light heartedness came from being home, but I really think I need to start enjoying the good times I have in order to be able to brave through the difficult ones. Maybe something to consider seriously.

My year definitely started out fuzzy and happy. A blissful content happiness I haven't felt in a long while. And the two resolutions, if at all, that I have for myself, is to have faith in the good times and in the good actions of people and to truly be happy when I can. Simple to advise about, difficult to implement. :)

Wishing you a productive and hope-filled new year as well. :)

And here's the happy song I want to share. A song I loved when I could hardly talk and I recently realized, it is definitely a guitar song I have to learn. Big plans for the future, indeed. 

(Mr. Big - To be with you)

P.S. Technically, this post is 10 whole days late. But given that this is the first post of the year, I haven't really missed a "deadline" now, have I? :D

Phew!

There comes a time in your life when you finally discover that one thing that means the world, no, your life to you. It comes from somewhere so deep inside, it's intrinsic and you cannot imagine life without it. I'm at the cross-roads of such a feeling.

This application process can be a self-discovering/rediscovering process if you want it to be one. Rather, it invariably becomes one of that. For those of you to whom this is news, either you don't know me or you haven't met me in the last 6 months. 6 months. This is all I have thought about. Self doubt. Times of unruly excitement. Times of excessive panic.

It started off as a small thought. M.S. was always the plan, I entered this place thinking of it. But a Ph.D.? There was always the desire but then wishes generally remain just that, right? I assumed it must be the way I wanted to become a doctor. Just how I would say all my life, that I so wanted to become a neurosurgeon but I didn't think it was meant for me.

But apparently not. The dream of discovering something, had always been there. It wasn't meant to be a forgotten dream. I went ahead and took the step. Though I still do not dare say it, because I just can't get myself to believe it. And when I do, the look I get is usually this.

   or         

But then again, came the good wishes too. Every time I told them that it's a little scary because it means so much to me, they would say that they really believe it will turn out well. It's not so much about them saying as much as it is about how much they meant what they said.

I don't know if I have done enough. It's that obvious feeling, the one when you are done, you wonder, if there was a better way of doing it all. But then I think, I gave it everything I had, everything that I could give. And I have a few people to thank who never let me give in or let it be. Those people who made sure I never went down the sad spiral. Those who bore each and every mail, edited my documents and essays more than what the time they devoted would justify. You know who you are and just how much I love you!

The past week has been so happy. The amount of happy I haven't been in the past 18 months, I think. I have already finished a book, played on the guitar every single day, sang a lot and told everyone who would listen to me that "I AM DONE!"

I don't know if it is because I think it will all work out. That it is always meant for the best. That I have finally taken the step that I have waited for, for the last 5 years almost, to study as much as I can. :)

The last 6 months have made me believe that I meant to do a Ph.D. Like I told a friend of mine, 10 years from now, I want to be in research. I don't care when I start. But that's what I wish to do in life. I don't know how long this fierceness will last. This determination. If it is just the age factor or something more.

I know that writing this makes it so much more real. People keep these things so hushed up. This is real. But again, if you don't jump, how would you learn to fly, right?

So I guess I am just going to have to wait and watch. :)