Day 139: 8/17/2018
I cannot believe that I have been writing for over 100 days straight. This is quite an accomplishment for me who has never thought would be able to have done such thing.
As a Thai student in Thai traditional education system, I remember not being taught or encouraged to write and to express my ideas in writing as much.
As a foreign language learner of English, writing has been the most challenging in all aspects from writing for IELTS and all academic assignments, let alone writing for pleasure or just for fun.
Interestingly, one day a thought occurred to me that I should document my PhD journey by me and for me. The sole purpose of writing every day is to document the ups and downs and how I feel throughout this once in a lifetime journey. Plus, I am curious to see how myself in terms of academic, life, maturity and other aspects grow through working towards this degree. And that is how this series, Towards a PhD, started in the first place.
So far, I have gone through some thick and thin moments for the past 130 days into the program and 100 days of writing entries. There have been days I felt energetic to write and, unfortunately, there have been days I was desperate to quit this project. Thankfully, this project is still alive and ongoing. Here are what I have learned for the past 100 days or so.
1. There is always something to write about.
Before I started writing, I used to believe that my life was mundane and even extremely boring. What could be interesting about doing a PhD that requires me to read and write repetitively over and over again? Further, I firmly believed that there would be days I had nothing to write about.
However, in fact, there is always something for me to write about. My life may not change drastically, turn upside down, or be filled with emotional moments every day but there are other things in life I want to document. So far, I have reported my boring days, work progress, emotional breakdowns, and many more through writing. I have never struggled to come up with a topic even once.
2. Discipline is key.
Of course, there have been days that I felt not into writing at all like days I was up from early morning or those I was extremely tired from work. Through those days, nevertheless, my willingness to keep this project going has slowly risen. I realized later that perhaps I have gradually developed discipline.
Every night around 10 pm., I find myself start thinking and asking myself, what should I write about today? This would be peculiar and never happened to me before this project. Admittedly, there were days I wanted to quit but the thought of ruining everything I have written and compiled day by day by not writing for a day has always kept me going. Each day this feeling grows stronger and stronger.
Currently, I find myself automatically into thinking and planning while I am in shower. All the thoughts are then transferred into words afterwards.
I believe that is so-called discipline.
3. The best time to start is NOW.
I used to believe that it took a certain time and I need to be in a certain mood to start something meaningful and significant. As a result, I always waited for the right moment to start something and sadly that moment never came.
Then I remember the day I started writing this series, many thoughts, fear, and whatif’s came to mind. With all those at the back of my mind, I finally decided to start anyway.
Day by day, this project has grown. My reflections towards the journey have been documented from days to weeks and from weeks to months. In a written tangible format, I have accumulated 100+ days of my feelings that I can go back to refresh my memories, remind myself of how far I have come, or just to brighten up my dark days. No matter how short or lengthy my entries are, they reflect me as for what happen each day.
Again, I have to re-emphasize, there is no better time to start writing or doing something than now. Start now, start small and build.
In fact, I have learned many more things about myself such as feelings and thinking. I have also gradually developed my writing skills through this project. These are some benefits I have found of keeping daily journal.
Certainly, I will continue writing every day not this time because I have to but because I have fallen in love with this new habit real hard.
8/18/2018 12.05 am.
