Releasing Tension

This weekend, I met one of my best friends to see a Greek tragedy called Medea in the theater. Where I live, high school pupils are obliged to experience culture. After the show with great performances and of course a tragic ending, we went to the wardrobe where one high school pupil asked his friend to join him in the MacDonald’s. So much for ‘higher’ culture!

Afterwards, we went to a bar and we talked about life as usual. My friend has been working on his master thesis for 3 years and for a couple of months now he has this great girlfriend. She is a warm empathic person and really connects with my friend. As you can imagine, working on your master thesis for 3 years without any significant results creates a very negative attitude towards your thesis. Other than disappointing supervisors and possibly your family, you’re mostly disappointed in yourself. This creates an enormous tension. For the last two years, every once in a while I have tried to help him with his thesis, but somehow he was totally stuck. Nothing helped. He did not want to give up since he was so close and he would have to pay back a lot of lent money. His new girlfriend was not so much interested in his rationale about the situation, but how he felt about it. And he felt like shit. At a certain point, she asked him why he simply didn’t give up. That thought never really crossed his mind, but once he allowed himself to really consider it, a calm relaxed feeling entered his mind. This feeling released all the tension built up over the years and a huge load fell off his shoulders. Last week, my friend decided to not finish his master thesis.

I really admire his choice, even though I still think he could have finished. Sometimes there are these choices you’d rather not make, and his choice was one of those. To make such a choice requires guts and is never easy. But when you do, you can finally go on with your life.

Today, I have been trying to apply this ‘tension-theory’ on myself, which by the way was inspired by the awesome tv series Dexter. My research question of today: where do I have tension, and how can I release it? One area immediately came to mind: relationships. Somehow, I have this idea that I should be in a good relationship and that has been creating tension since it is not working out. Solution: drop the idea. Fuck relationships. The next area was also easy since I woke up worrying about the whole mess with my supervisors. Here however, the solution is not clear. The release of tension I envision is getting angry with my supervisors and telling them to clear up their mess. However, I’m afraid this only creates more tension afterwards. So, how can I release the tension in a positive way? Someday in the future, I will find a way…

Ignorance

Today’s meeting went well. Three out of four supervisors were present and they had good constructive criticism. Yes, my formalisation was a step in the right direction, but contained some big errors. I should use and extend an existing logic rather than constructing a new one. The meeting even had a proper ending, where I summarized what we agreed on and what course of actions I will take.

However, at the end of the meeting, one my supervisors, who is usually pretty quiet, asked me if I still wanted him to be part of the meetings… Eh? Where did that come from? Apparantly, I look at the other supervisors when answering (his) questions. This meeting he counted how often I looked at him while answering his questions: zero times. Whoops… A shitty thing of me to do of which I wasn’t aware. Apologized and mailed another apology this evening.

Moral: even phd students are not perfect…

Ignorance is bliss?

Before meeting your supervisors

Every couple of weeks, I have a meeting with all four of my supervisors (yes ladies and gentlemen, I have four). Several days before such a meeting, I send them a document describing the progress I have made. Tomorrow, I will have one. After spending most of my weekend on the document, I finally sent them a document with (semi?) formal definitions. This is something most of them have been requesting like forever, but which I have been postponing because I lack experience and because I don’t like the simplifications that always need to be made (filed under naive ambition). Surprisingly, I think I did a pretty good job, so I’m actually looking forward to the meeting and all their happy responses filled with respect and pride.

However… I have had this feeling regularly before a meeting and most (if not all) of the times, the meetings were, well… quite negative. So, on the one hand, I’m wisely preparing myself for truckloads of criticism, but on the other hand, I do not want to take that proud feeling away! Let me enjoy every once in a while! I guess more PhD students have proudly sent their work to supervisors or conferences, and got only criticism in return.

But hey, let’s remember how easy it is to give criticism and how hard it can be to give constructive criticism or possibly even a compliment! So, I will forgive my supervisors in advance for their struggle in tackling this challenge and therefore I will contintue to feel good about my document (at least till the meeting). Hooray!

Proud and ready to take over the world