I went into a suicide mission
today.
That suicide mission
was…seeing my supervisor.
Much has been said about him.
Some described him as complicated. Some said he is strict. Others thought of him
to be funny. One of my friends said he is “immature”.
For me, he is the combination
of all of that.
One of his red-flagged
comments to my proposal was that he will kill me. This was because I made a
very stupid technical mistake. I accidentally mistook something for something
else, and for that reason alone, for him I deserved to be executed.
Another of his colourful
comments was that I was like a disk-jockey…spinning words here and there just
to describe the same thing. When Giha read that comment, she just couldn’t stop
herself from laughing.
She and Nithya burst into
another laughter when they read another of his brief comment that I “like to
slap my own face” with my contradicting elaboration.
I didn’t contradict myself,
it was just a case of interpretation. Your mind sees only what you want to see.
Your perception and mind-set guide your interpretation of the world. Maybe I
see things differently.
But scientific thinking now
endorses us to conform to popular notion. It doesn’t encourage outliers.
Deviation from popular thinking or fact would be whipped to maintain order.
Just a simple example, up
until today, most of us thinks that physics dictates an object cannot be in two
places at the same time. Is it?
Actually, it is the opposite.
In quantum physics, at any given time, an object couldn’t be at the same place.
Nothing has definite position. Or in simpler word, nothing can be in the same
place at the same time. This is called Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Back to my proposal, together
with my supervisor, we rigorously inspected my proposal words by words. Every sentences
were scrutinized for mistakes. He felt that my writing was “too beautiful” for a
scientific writing. I was like a novelist, with a plethora of flowery words
accompanying my every sentences.
Yes…scientific writing shouldn't be beautiful. It shouldn't be readable. It should be ugly…the more
unreadable and understandable the better. Is this the case?
The explanation was that
scientific writing is more slanted towards precision. Sharp and direct to the
point are the order. All the beautiful phrases are for the arts stream. While I
was not fully in agreement with this line of argument, I think I need to abide
by this, for the time being.
When the clock was
approaching 5 p.m…I asked for the meeting to be postponed, because I needed to
adhere to my practice session. This was when he went into a rage…he bluntly
stated that squash doesn't have any bearing on my future. He accused me of putting more emphasis on squash over academics.
I was not emphasizing squash over
academics, it never was. It was just that I was very tired mentally and needed a
rest. I didn't think I could give full attention anymore. I couldn't continue any longer...I had reached my limit. It is always better
to have something of everything than everything of nothing, no?
But he insisted that we
finished everything today. We scrolled to the end of my proposal and tightened
up all the loose screws. By the time it ended, I was thoroughly exhausted,
mentally and physically.
All in all, it was not so bad…because
I came out of his office alive. But he did tear me apart emotionally. Some of
his words pierced right through my heart. But I took all that as a challenge…I
think he just wanted to extract the best out of me.
I will rise to the challenge,
hopefully.
