Today will the 60th day I'm here in Melbourne, the 54th day I started (sitting at my desk cum office) my Phd and the 23rd day of my first Ramadhan in a foreign land. As of today, there are already 6 eid open house invitations, which is an alarmingly amazing rate compared to the number of pages of my research proposal.

Which brings me to the next question? Why am I actually here?? For the past few months I have been sidelining my PhD creative thinking in order to deal with artificial matters. And the way I see it, there's no way some of the "matters" actually matter when it comes to completing this monumental task basically (most of the time) on my own.

Some people argue for the journey and experience you face while attempting it, while others opined that the end result is the upmost important. Well, when you failed to finish in time with the excellence required from you, you'll always argue along the line of the former. Let's just face it, it's not there, nada. You've failed, pullstop! And nobody wants to be in that situation.

Well everybody wants both; the experience and the success. Only a hypocrite will say otherwise. Worst, you are on borrowed time and expenses; directly and indirectly. So where do you draw the line? Time and clever maneuvering will certainly play a role. Family support is also very important, the stress of it all, managing both at the same time and trying to strike a balance. Another skill is the ability to actually "public relation" yourselves out of situations that you'd rather not be in, in the first place.

I see a long road ahead of me, with ups and downs. Knowing myself, I am not very good at keeping my thoughts to myself, which I think sometimes (most of the time back in Malaysia) gets me into a whole lot of trouble. But I am actually being truthful to myself, so why must I care what others thought of me. But then again...from past experiences, I have learnt that you must carefully choose your words and ways of communication, or else you'll caught yourself an unlikely adversary. That will be an impediment to my PhD journey, which I'd rather not encounter. I am also very bad at ignoring things, which I must learn to master, for fear of yet again dealing with things that matter the least, after all things considered.

So where is my PhD..I think the most important DECIDER is Allah swt. So I'm praying very hard that HE's on my side.

P/S: Hari ni teringin nak makan sambal udang petai...isk..isk