Scientists

Someone printed this off and put it up our notice board.
Hilarious.

7 weeks in being a full-time scientist.

I left school with the aim of being a lecturer.
I got into uni with the aim of doing a PhD.
And I applied for the summer research project with the aim to get an insight of being a researcher.

I'm on a 10-weeks project so I'm just a couple of weeks away to being done now. The experiments are now tougher with frustrations being witnessed at every corner. After 7 weeks being in an office full of postgraduates and sharing a huge lab with a lot of people, I can safely say that all of the words mentioned in the picture is heard almost every day. I thought scientists are sensible intellectual people that don't curse but haha, they do. Very rarely do experiments work that when they do, you're in cloud nine.

Today was probably one of the worst days. One of our equipment wasn't behaving nicely today and after various efforts from very early morning till noon fixing it, with little to no effect, our mentor broke down. A lot of people were trying to help resolve the issue but my friend and I, being project students, just sat there minding out own business quietly, trying to not add to the tension. In the midst of the mess, one of the postdocs exclaimed to us "this is why you should never do a PhD in solid-state NMR" and a moment later another said the same. Funny, because one of them had been in the group for most of his career life.

I get entirely what they mean, and I can truly relate to the statement. Often do I find myself being brain-drained at the end of the day, doing the work that I'm assigned to do. But after looking at the end result that I obtained, I get this really high sense of satisfaction, and the frustrations and exhaustion all went away. I must say that I quite like doing what I do now.

I don't know. It seems like I'm doomed to be like this. Loving things that would definitely make my life a catastrophe, that I would definitely not excel in, that everyone else would tell me to avoid. Like physics, or Chinese, or perhaps solid-state NMR. Al-kisah orang sentiasa bertepuk sebelah tangan *insert awkward laughter*

But my heart is as stubborn as it can get, no matter how much the matter drives me to the wall. I cannot just tell myself to stop doing physics - I'm dead serious about furthering my studies after my degree. And I can't seem to tell myself to not do Chinese for another academic year - must be one of the stupidest decisions I would ever make in my academic life but I'm doing it anyway. I guess this is how Allah is teaching me of His love. Whilst I seem to be rejected by almost everything that I love to do, if I seek His love, He would definitely never fail me. It would never be one way. He promised that if I come closer by an inch, He'll come by a yard (figuratively), and if I come to Him walking, He'll come to me running.

So, if your heart is stubborn enough to chase those things that won't "love" you back, how strong is it to chase after the love that would guarantee you a better return?