Thoughts, challenges, musings of an expat scientist and psychologist
When I started this blog in 2016, the focus was on how research, particularly doing a PhD, requires a certain tolerance to ambiguity. In the years since, and a thank you to those of you who stood by me in this journey, my role has changed and diversified. I’ve changed[…]
Read moreSchools, colleges and universities are shut, most people are working from home, multiple countries are in lockdown, only essential services are working. The world as we knew it two months ago has changed drastically, thanks to the COVID-19 virus. Everyone is concerned – for their safety, for their loved ones,[…]
Read moreI am in the final stages of my PhD work. This, for me, means unstructured work hours, writing multiple articles parallelly, and job hunting. I knew it would be a hectic, chaotic 2019; and I pride myself at being organized and well-prepared for such a feat. As 2018 was coming[…]
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Research is a global field and involves a ton of travel – collaborations, conferences, talks, sabbaticals, training, its endless. If you are someone who, like me, enjoys travel, you may want to actively seek out such opportunities and turn them into mini vacations. Add to this vacations you take alone[…]
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Change happens whether you realize it or not, whether you want it or not. Most people go through life not realizing what their everyday situations are doing to them, how they interact with their environment and with themselves day after day. Some other people, however, are a lot more in control of their direction of change. These are the kind of people who can reflect best on their growth process. This post is an interview with one such person, my dear friend and (until recently) colleague Gayatri Salunkhe.
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Have you had a fight with a loved one that left you feeling like you’ve run a mental marathon? Have you had days where you’ve needed to solve a relatively simple problem, but found yourself incapable of doing so? Have you worked long hours without regular breaks, only to give up and overeat at the end of the day? All of these are cases of ego depletion where our mental resources are almost running dry.
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“Most people sleep about seven or eight hours a night. That leaves 16 or 17 hours awake each day. Or about 1,000 minutes. Let’s think about those 1,000 minutes as 100 10-minute blocks. That’s what you wake up with every day….It’s always good to step back and think about how we’re using those 100 blocks we get each day. How many of them are put towards making your future better, and how many of them are just there to be enjoyed? How many of them are spent with other people, and how many are for time by yourself? How many are used to create something, and how many are used to consume something? How many of the blocks are focused on your body, how many on your mind, and how many on neither one in particular? Which are your favorite blocks of the day, and which are your least favorite?”
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Its the ‘resolutions’ time of year! The first two years of my PhD were pretty challenging; full of technical roadblocks and the toils that come with setting up a lab and research design from scratch. As a result, I was mainly just reading work related things and towards the end[…]
Read moreSo first, an update for my readers – After a long absence from my blog, for which I send across my heart-felt apologies, I have decided to post more often, and even post shorter articles when I’m on the go. I hope you still like this form of more uninhibited[…]
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Before we start, my apologies for not having written in over 2 months. Another apology in advance for this post being really short. It has a simple message that doesn’t need too many words. Since my last post 2 months back, I’ve been swarmed with work, then I had a[…]
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