As a researcher

As a six-month researcher to be more exact, I am reflecting on my self.

Regarding a professional me, I am doing quite well my job in the pattern of the sin diagram, with waves of up and down. The feeling of approaching some destination and then growing apart from some others is quite exciting. Is it true that the more you swim, the nearer to the "finish" you get? It is not true for me at this time, because the ocean of knowledge is "finish"-less. Yes, the more I swim, the farther I get. More confidence, more strength, and more motivation, these good things, however, do not come along naturally with more swimming. The opposite, on the contrary, somehow easily kicks off those ideals. What I mean here is the support I need for the development of my autonomy. A six-month researcher with very little experience in the field of my study as well as research culture and practice is really in need of guidance, and inspiration too I think. Despite of some autonomy that may have been established in me before, it has very little to do with a new research context this time. Therefore, I find myself now struggling not only in a wider ocean of knowledge but also with a new professional me of both experience and challenge, competence and incompetence, strength and weakness, maturity and immaturity.

A personal me is never in separation of a professional me, but it should be in a separate paragraph for an ease of reflection. Being a researcher is being a human doing reseach. Of what a human, a wife, a mother is, I find myself so much like a shopper in front of a shopping mall with a flat pocket. What to spend and what to ignore, oh my budget is always tight. At the end of the day, I should live for my son, my family, and my personal me, and by no means sensible for my research. It sounds a bit pessimistic. OK, make it more possitive. Being a married woman with a son adds more values to my research than what I have made it sound like above. I find myself more mature in thinking and making decisions, and more aduring. I am not like what I used to be ten years or so ago, when I was doing research with a different personal me. At the end of the day, I should thank my son and those in my family life, who have taken from my professional me lots of time, thinking and concern and brought back far much more maturity and motivation in return.