2025, and it's February

I have just finished binge-watching Not Dead Yet on Hotstar, a TV sitcom about a writer in a press firm. This show reignited my own writing goals. I still have so much writing to do. Thesis writing, article writing and whatnot. Oh my, overloaded.

It's hard to believe it's already February 2025. Time has flown by so quickly. Looking back, I did not write anything here last year. I confess I was incredibly nervous about 2024, I had this looming fear that the year would crush me, especially when it came to my PhD progress. 

Ironically, it wasn't my studies that challenged me in 2024; it was the workplace. Disappointing colleagues, feelings of confusion, and betrayal—all of these emotions (and the workload)—exhausted me and made me feel too weak to continue until the end of the session.

Thankfully over time, I've managed to regain my footing and started to realize that there must be a reason for all of this hikmah, as Allah has permitted what happened to happen. I tried to see the positive side of these experiences and try to learn from it.

Now, after all these events, one of its hikmah is it makes it easier to decide to take a long break from work (read: I am planning to take unpaid leaves) and focus on finishing my PhD. I don't know if this is a clever decision, but I had to take the risk. I've already exceeded my maximum candidature and I really want to finish what I have started. May Allah guide me.

I think that is all for now.

post-script note: I take this as one exercise of writing, with help from some AI+Grammaly to improve my writing. I hope I can learn fast, and apply it to my research writing. Pray for me, peeps!

First Degree

Master Degree

to be continued...