Sad

Today marks the day that I have been in the US for a total of 3 months. Sometimes it is good to do a reflection on what has happened. Considering a considerable amount of events have occurred. 

Before September, I made the decision to pursue my career as a research and undertake a position at MUSC. My initial decision was to pursue a PhD under the supervision of the PI in the lab. The total time that I would be overseas away from family and friends would be around 3-4 years depending on how things went. So on the 21st of September, after saying farewell to several people, I took a flight with two connecting flights to Charleston. 

It only took a few days for me to adjust to the timezone of the state. However, there was a huge difference between Australia and the US. Initially, it was 12 hours. However, it was further increased to 14 hours due to daylight savings in both countries. 

This meant that connecting and maintaining friendships was much harder, and there was such a shorter timeframe where both people can respond simultaneously. It is honestly very hard for me, as there would be little to no social interaction during the day. There would only be interaction during the very early mornings or late at night. Like no lie, it would be downright lonely during the day and when I have my one day off. No matter how many hobbies I would have to pass the timed. It is really unbearable to not have a face to face conversation. It sort of feels like a self-alienation from the rest of my friends, where I view from the outside and I am not part of their lives nor are they part of my life. That is one of the factors that I face in my troubles of living in the US. It feels awful to put all of my personal life on hold to further pursue my career. These feelings have increased gradually little by little in the past few months. 

Well, apart from that, there have been various other things happening such as moving apartments and receiving my salary late. Both of which were really stressful since I planned on moving when my pay was supposed to arrive. However, after moving into the apartment was very releasing. My initial apartment was very far from the uni. The commute time took a total of 1.5 hours. It was not sustainable over a year. Due to this reason, I left and moved into a different one which is only currently a 2-minute walk. Things have become more flexible for my schedule, meaning there is more time to relax. 

Compared to other labs, the work ethics of the lab that I work with is insane. There are currently two post-docs and two research scholars, including myself, who are working at the lab. The work hours are typically 11-12 hours per day for 6 days a week. There are no such things as public holidays. There is a lot of stress placed upon me as well, to perfect surgery skills in craniotomy to allow excellent quality in 2 photon imaging. There are a lot of things about the lab, but I will probably write this down for another time.

A lot happened this last year and there isn’t too much to elaborate on. There were moments where I felt it was too hard to survive, by survive I mean mentally. Physically, everything is okay. Mentally, nothing was fine. There was too much down rather than up, it just felt like I was flung off a cliff to free fall until I hit the bottom.  

2017 marks the end of my bachelor, advancement into adulthood, and realisations of the future of what I want to achieve. Just kidding on the last part, I still have no idea of what I want to do. I just know that I will be doing honours this year and hopefully this will give me a rough idea of I want to do in my life.