Its been a tough ride going through a Master’s program. Its nearing the end after almost 2 years now. 2 years since I left the comfort (or rather!) of corporate life convenience, where time and pay is more structured with the compromise of flexibility. But hey, I enjoyed totally the learning and experience corporate life had to offer, and I took all that I can to steer me forward, professionally and otherwise. I was in a great team where we were critical on each work we delivered, and ensured we had the necessary team backing when needed.
Fast forward June 2019, I am on the last bend in completing my master’s program journey. A complete different ball game compared to working, and way notches up from a bachelor’s degree. The experience of a being a postgraduate student is a learning process on its own, and obviously has its own set of challenges. The advantage of being a ‘returning’ student/alumni of the institution is that, I get to leverage on ties and relationships formed from my bachelor degree years. Never severed as I kept constant contact with both my lecturers and the university staff. Pleasant people with a unique feel of ‘sayang’ towards the university. Academia is different from the business industry, in a way. There is collegiality, sense of loyalty and accountability, where passion and love of teaching forms the whole framework. A framework which sometimes even the administration fail to understand.
I am right now cranking my effort up to finish writing my research paper. My supervisor and dean have been way supportive at times I feel I don’t deserve it. It is a tough life as I try to balance it with everything else on my plate. Lotsa things. Like how I understood that some of my other colleagues had to prolong or delay their study process due to complicated circumstance, professionally or otherwise. Going through a postgraduate experience is not a walk in the park. More like running through a thick forest of mixed terrain, limited sources, and your movement depends on time of the day, or whether you have a pack of animals after you or not. You try to thread your steps careful overwhelmed that slowing things down will only diminish your hope of reaching the river banks by sunset.
On the bright side, I found a breath of fresh hope, hence starting the process of writing again.. I submitted another paper just days ago, 2 days post a dental surgery. Crazy how time and other factors push you to the limit, you’re still at edge. You don’t stumble. Just that you have that chin up (swollen in my case now!), and head cleared. Met both my dean and supervisor recently and I was positively overwhelmed with their support. I feel blessed and thankful with how they are managing a late 30s postgraduate student who is struggling to even start writing, yet they did not give up on me. Writing is my niche, said one of them, hence the act of ‘crafting’ and ‘thinking’ on the content and context should be second to nature, for me. So here I am. In between sink full of dish, laundry, and solving sisterly quarrels via negotiation and dungeon time for repeated offenders, trying to pull this through. Its shy of one full month before I finally draw the curtain, and I do need to take that bow. No matter what it takes.
Forgive me if this post sound too self-talkish. Well, it is and if you have not noticed, my posts are either conversations with myself, or conversations with you. I can’t resist but to connect through my writing and I hope with each, at least 1 line of that message gets across.
Adios guys. Gotta get on with feeding kids now !
just me,
missJeweLz
23 June 2019
Kuala Lumpur
missJewelz 
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