All of a sudden, there is everything and nothing ahead of me…

A year ago today, I arrived in Canberra, Australia to begin a PhD programme. I spent all year reviewing various literature in a broad area of interest in search of a research topic. I identified and worked on a couple that I had to drop before hitting on my third and now final topic. This “divine inspiration” didn’t appear until October 2005. For about three solid months, I did work that others generally do in six to nine months (at a leisurely pace). I produced an 8,500 word paper that was finally presented today to the Department. I passed. Apparently very well too.

All of a sudden there is a huge sigh of relief - a pregnant pause has suddenly given way to …. nothing!

I spent all year, hard at work on one thing and one thing alone - this paper. It was the focus of my life, my mind, my energies and most of my time. But now, all of a sudden, that purpose of life is gone! Taken away by its success. And it is replaced by nothingness… I have all evening and I’m wondering… what do I do with it?

However, there is everything ahead of me…

Now that the paper, which was a detailed research proposal, is done, I actually have to do the research! There is all this reading to do - canvassing yet more secondary literature, learning about the countries that I will be studying (Malaysia and Thailand), surveying related material and going over material that I had missed or didn’t have time for in the previous round - a new language (Thai) to learn, having more detailed discussions about my research and of course, the fieldwork itself! There is so much ahead of me - almost an avalanche of things to do. All very exciting but also very onerous… This is what will keep me occupied for the next two to three years of my life, financial resources permitting of course… ah yes, that is still an unresolved issue…

But for now, for this evening, there is nothing…

Posted on February 14th, 2006 by jl
Filed under: Life!, work