I am literally enslaved in my office trying to finish writing my thesis. It seems like an unending exercise. The moment you feel that it’s enough, a new idea pops up in your mind and you embark on a journey of improvement.
Thesis writing is no laughing matter. As my readers are aware that I am a little more under pressure to finish my work due to a bad experience with my previous supervisor. I just want to make up for the lost time.
After this endless writing exercise, I reached a point where I found myself at a loss for words. I tried to write the acknowledgment and other similar initial parts of the thesis and I felt paralyzed. I was unable to focus to come up with something strong enough to match the rest of the document. Whatever I came up with only added to my frustration. It looked as if a primary-level student had written those lines.
It was not just writing, I also felt difficult to utter a single world. I was having a conversation with my supervisor who suddenly burst out laughing upon hearing me blabbering. Well, we both laughed because I knew that I was facing a mental block.
Despite all the challenges, this phase of the Ph.D. has its own charm. In simple words, we can say that in this phase we are required to put all our research work into proper perspective. It’s like watching one’s child growing up.
Lots of people are helping me during this phase. I am usually a person who does not like to burden anyone with my demands and problems, but this phase revealed how I am surrounded with great people. My brother helped me a lot and is still helping me a lot with the boys. He picks them up from school everyday and takes care of them till my return. My friends ensure that my boys don’t get bored on weekends, so they take them out for entertainment.
It is really priceless to have people who are willing to help without waiting for you to ask.
I was once working on one of my chapters, and I took a picture of one of my figures and I posted it on Snapchat saying that I am really challenged when it comes to visuals. I was not complaining or asking for any help, my figures were informative but very ill designed, but I could not have cared less about them. I was focusing on my discussion during that time and was planning to leave the figures as they were. Suddenly I received a call from a friend with a very generous offer. She offered to redo all my figures using some sophisticated software. I was very reluctant to accept the offer. But she assured me that doing my work for me would not cost her much in terms of time and efforts. I was speechless.
I would like to clarify one thing here that this is not considered by any mean an ill or dishonest academic practice. I had worked on all the statistics. My friend only helped them look presentable. So, it is very much acceptable and not at all a crime.
The help that I received from people around me made me feel very blessed. It really changed my perspective toward receiving and accepting help from others. It is really fine to accept help; we deserve it. There is a big difference between accepting help and between burdening others on a regular basis. As humans, we need to cooperate with each other.
