13th August 2017

I’m officially finished with all my research fieldwork! It’s a bittersweet feeling. Fieldwork was tough mentally: all that traveling to-and-fro South Australia and Tasmania, camping in the wilderness for 6 weeks, and the anxiety and stress of deploying and recovering my data loggers from seals (wondering if I’m ever doing enough?). Sometimes I had to step back and think: man, the world has lots of big problems, and I’m stressing out about seals. I’ll stressing out about you gals! I think as I stare down at them from the cliff, watching pups play in the rock pools. Silly seals… Anyway, now, I can enjoy #desklyfe, it’s analyses and writing from now on, I don’t mind getting back some routine after 2 years of fieldwork, but I’ll sure miss those cheeky seals… They are pretty cute.

12th September 2017
So sitting at my desk one day, I was approached by a senior researcher in my lab group, who offered me to take her place in a New Zealand Sea Lion fieldwork at Campbell Island – a NZ subantarctic island. What more fieldwork…? Of course I responded:

So looks like I’m gonna be trudging through and camping in muddy terrain this coming summer! I’ve always wanted to go to Antarctica. Subantarctic – almost Antarctica. I’m happy with that.

30th September 2017
I’m back in Singapore for 6 weeks to attend 2 of my teammates’ (softball) weddings. One was on the 1st October, and the other on the 12th November. I feel a bit guilty coming back to Singapore twice this year – what you think PhD is a holiday?! – so I probably won’t be back next year, which I’m ok with – the finish line is close and I want to get this thesis done by the June 2018 (despite going away for extra fieldwork) to make the 3 year mark. Even though most PhDs get a 6 month extension, I’m gonna aim high (and attempt the seemingly impossible) and treat the 6 months as a bonus. It’s crunch time, and I’m in the dip, and according to Seth Godin, only fools quit when you’re in the dip.

22nd October 2017
I’ve been revising and reading up on stats (how to do diagnostics on generalised linear mixed models in particular) again as I’m at that stage of my data analyses and it was slow to start but I’ve made some progress.

I’ve also started doing yoga at a studio opposite my house (almost everyday) and drilling/rolling BJJ once a week with my brother or some BJJ friends. I’m enjoying the regular yoga practice and I feel it might be undoing some of the bad postures and inflexibility I’ve incurred over my athletic life (and from sleeping on a mat for weeks during fieldwork) i.e. shoulder inflexibility (my right throwing arm in softball), occasional neck aches (bad sleeping positions) and of course slouching in front of the computer (can never get comfortable).

What else I’m doing now:

• Still intermittent fasting. I’m enjoying it.
• learning Spanish and Japanese on Duolingo – trying to maintain a streak
• Meditating with Insight timer for at least 11 minutes

Books:

• Dune audiobook – great as an audiobook!
• The Daily Stoic – some stoic wisdom errrday

Listening: 

• Tim Ferriss, Rich Roll and Joe Rogan podcasts

Pondering on:

The law of attraction. Not wanting things but rather focusing on what I already have. Or feeling like I already have those things I current don’t have but will have in a matter of time. Conor McGregor stuff.

Life happens for you, not to you.

Last update was 22 October 2017

This is part of the nownownow project by Derek Sivers.