2024 Reflections

If there was one word I’d use to describe my 2024, it’d be: “Upheaval”.

I don’t think past me (within the last few years) would’ve thought that I’d be uprooting myself from suburban Melbourne and moving interstate to take the next step towards a career that I was pretty much about to give up on. I thought I was comfortable enough where I was:

• I had bought my own apartment (a couple of years ago) and getting more comfortable with making modifications: I had drilled holes in places where I placed hooks to hang more pictures, tapestries, and covers for certain windows that were letting a bit too much sunlight in.
• I was familiarising myself with the neighbourhood and its restaurants, and was already comfortable just walking down to the local Coles or grocer for a quick shop. The local Chinese grocer also had a section that sold about-to-expire fruits and vegetables for cheap for $2 a bag, even if I ended up discarding some food waste sorting through it, it was also an opportunity to concurrently figure out how to minimise food waste through dehydration and other means (although my first few attempts at composting utterly failed).
• I was chipping away at personal life goals and making progress on being a better rounded human being. Environment really does play a major factor, at least for me: I had control over my environment, I knew what to expect when coming home, and any mistakes or mishaps were purely my responsibility so it meant fixing them also meant I’d have to acquire new skills and knowledge along the way.
• I believe last year I started seeing a psychologist, but basically every now and then I was hitting him up when I needed a hand in figuring things out. He’s really good, worth paying $240 per hour/session. There were sessions where I could go “Okay, I’m stuck here. I’ve figured <this, this, this> out. What am I missing?” and he’d nail it. I was making progress on my emotional development and unpacking whatever garbage had accumulated in my brain.

So when I was notified late last year that my (now past) workplace wouldn’t be renewing my contract (which would’ve expired at the end of this year, end of 2024), I was reasonably optimistic at first. After all, a year to job hunt, and I’d still at least be working all of this year? Can’t complain, right?

Reader, a few weeks later there was a very ominous feeling that struck me and my brain was yelling “Things are going to go to shit if you stick around. Try to get out ASAP.” I don’t recall if there was a particular moment or event that triggered it, but it was very rare for me to have that kind of instinct, and it has never been wrong for me in the handful of times it’s happened.

Around the same time there was a PhD advertisement posted by someone I knew through my network. At a university that seemed completely outside my radar. “Wait, I know this person. They know of my existence too! Hold on, there doesn’t seem to be any hard requirements barring me from doing this PhD…I should just…apply? It’s not my preferred specialty, much rather my second, but it’s not impossible for me to do.”

I did not expect to get an interview. I still know nothing about the other applicants and would prefer not to. Like with all interviews for jobs/roles I cared about it felt like I was a rambling mess, but I knew I at least answered all the questions earnestly.

I really did not expect to be offered the PhD position.

Meanwhile the situation at work was slowly getting worse and worse. Following a rough summer semester I was placed to teach three subjects that I hadn’t taught in a while, so I was very rusty. One of the subjects had a revamped curriculum than when I last taught it, so it also took me a while to get my head around the intended pedagogy and intention of the questions.

But the politics. Oh god the politics. And the events that transpired at work. I was emotionally clamming up a lot, and there were moments that made me feel physically ill from the emotional upheaval. Towards the end of the first semester, I was in survival mode and keeping my head down.
(As an aside, I have no desire to write down details nor comment on what happened on any publicly available nor digital media. The only scenario where I’d comfortably talk about what happened would be in person.)

So I finished up the first semester, marked my exams, tendered my resignation and wrapped up loose ends. I was quite happy to put it all behind me.

Needless to say, because I had assumed I’d be staying in my place for longer I had started collecting stuff. And I had accumulated a lot of stuff. I actually didn’t get everything packed up sufficiently by the time I had to start my PhD, and one other thing that caught me out was that I couldn’t sign a lease without inspecting apartments in person, which meant I had to fly out temporarily. Good god no wonder people say moving places is one of the most stressful human experiences to ever do.
What ended up happening was that I left my apartment half packed to start my PhD, and waited a couple of months until all the starting festivities and training were out of the way, then took a week off to come back and wrap things up. Many lessons learnt.

At the same time I had trouble finding a place to live and was living out of a motel for two weeks. I was picky, I had reservations. I was fairly certain I wanted to live alone again, but for $500+ a week? That was a bit reaching. Then a lovely Italian mother & landlady reached out, she had a large family home with two male housemates that were just as reserved as I am. There was enough space for all of us to chill and do our own thing. In the end, in this age, we were all busy adults who wanted to live our lives, and had no natural inclination to want to bother others in this same place.

What is interesting to reflect on throughout this period is that even though I’m a neurotic planner by nature this whole experience has really helped propel the mentality of just focusing on the next step and moving forward. Because slowing down or stopping wasn’t an option. I just had to just get out there, make mistakes and learn from my experiences for next time.

And all of this has resulted in my doing a PhD at a quiet and spacious campus, in a suburb where the council actively runs events for the community and posts on social media, and it just seems like people can live out the ideal (boring) suburban life. There was no constructions nearby, no temporarily aggravating noise, and no annoying people nearby that were kicking up a stink, for whatever reason. At the time back in Melbourne there was a lot of construction happening, a major freeway plus a new apartment block on the opposite side of the street. Combined with the increasing cost of living and Melbourne in general being fairly overpopulated made it feel like there was a degree of tension in the air, not helped by the fairly noticeable local shop/restaurant turnover.

But here? No external bullshit whatsoever. Except the merger, I guess, but it doesn’t affect me. It means that the only bullshit happening is the internal bullshit in my head that I’ve been seeing my psychologist for. And the usual stresses of the PhD. But no external bullshit means I have the space to figure it out myself. One of my major hurdles at the moment is opening the email and reading supervisor feedback, even though they’re all lovely people. Their feedback is quality, makes me think, and points out blind spots. But my brain struggles so much to open the email and actually read it. And that’s my bullshit to deal with, and I don’t think it’s fair to ask them to change anything they do.

A lot more could’ve gone wrong, honestly. And I’m still amazed at how lucky I’ve been, and still continue to feel. I feel happier, I feel more free, and for all the crap that people complain about PhDs, I have the space and power to decide when I want to stress myself out and put in that little extra effort, and when I need to pull back and let my brain think for a bit. Sometimes I have good days, sometimes I have bad days, but with less external noise I’m getting a better grip on how to manage myself.

I’ve also returned to regularly practising cello, and recording videos to put on Youtube and social media. Granted given my current situation I can only feasibly practice once a week, but one thing that is certain is that playing the cello gives me a kind of creative release that is needed given how much of my mental energy otherwise has to be directed towards PhD work. It’s also really helped open my mind and reminded me of all the cello-related creative projects I’ve wanted to do for a really long time, and am now in a feasible position to do so.

I know I’m stable for the next two and a half years, but like I’ve done in the past I have no desire to take this position for granted. There are many side projects I want to get going on, some consistent with preparing myself for other job options (e.g. getting more polished programming projects on my Github in case I have to transition into a software engineering job, some stuff in the realm of improving accessibility), and others are creative outlets (e.g. I’ve commissioned a VTuber model, it was completed earlier this year, and I’ve been intending to rig it myself and get into streaming casually).

At 35 years old now, honestly, it seems like life continues to get better so long as I keep working towards my life goals. One of them is to have a nice and big enough house or standalone property where I can invite people over to play board games, where I’ll always have a guest bedroom available for anyone going through a shitty time.

And that’s not unreasonable, is it?

On wiping the slate (mostly) clean and building relationships

It feels embarrassing to admit but there’s always been (at least for the last 5-10 years) a low humming feeling of “It would be nice if I could just…restart somewhere”. And in some essence this was exactly the break I needed.

At the same time it’s a scary prospect because…how the heck do I consciously build up relationships and meet new people?! Being a school and university student was convenient because the arrangements were done for me, I could just rock up and jibe with people I’d see regularly. But now in the real world it’s something I have to make a conscious effort on.

Hearing loss + mild neurodivergence doesn’t make this easy. I’m lucky to have upgraded my hearing aid to a more powerful model that actually makes it easier to hear others in noisy environments, but all the same I’d still rather avoid them.

What I’ve been doing since commencing my PhD is that most Friday evenings I eat a (comfort) parma at the local pub and invite others to join me. And it’s worked a little bit? I still have to keep inviting people (and it’s really starting to get a bit tiring), and other times I might go somewhere else, or prefer to eat quietly and read a book, but it’s a start, right?

Meeting new people is fun, and I’ve had lots of good conversations with other PhD students. But I keep forgetting to ask more of my “get to know you questions” and not knowing where to progress from there: do I invite them out for coffee, a meal, or do we go do something? What is it that people unlike me (who otherwise spends all their time on the internet + social media) do?!

At least with the reserved and awkward types like me, board games (and also DnD, but a bit put off by the learning curve + long game times) seem to be the two main things that bring similar people together. And I’ve been musing about a few other ideas that maybe I could start, or find similar like minded groups to join as well.

It’s embarrassing to admit, at 35, “how do I socialise?”, but I can at least acknowledge it’s a skill that I can get better at and the new environment means more new opportunities to do so. There’s like a survival instinct in me that doesn’t seem fazed or anxious at having to do so. It feels necessary. And it’s definitely helping me come out of my shell a little more.

As much as it pains me to admit, I’ve been single my whole life. I don’t think I’ve been on what I’d consider a date since high school. And there are moments where the loneliness does hit hard, but it doesn’t feel right to complain since I’m not actively looking either. The weirder thing now is that whether I stay here or not depends on what happens after my PhD, and there’s really no knowing, so at the same time it feels unreasonable to invest in any kind of closer long-term relationship.
For the matchmakers, I’m straight, not actively looking, but would happily make time for the right person.

No resolutions, just continual improvement

Like before I’ll refrain from announcing any plans or intentions for 2025. I’ve generally found announcing things has the inverse effect on my motivation to do them, so it’s easier to just keep quietly working away at the things that I want to do.

But there will always be an ongoing theme of upskilling something, being better at something, and acquiring new knowledge. And I guess that’s probably the secret to ensuring that each year continuing to get better, as it has been in my experience.

So, here’s to 2025!