Monday, January 18, 2010
Enjoy the Uncomfortable Challenge
One of Adam Khoo's post said that we should do something that is uncomfortable to us everyday, this is how we break barriers, and this is how we expand and grow our capabilities.
The Thesis I'm doing now is really challenging my comfort zone, day by day. My comfort zone is having the teacher to define the parameters of exactly what to do, what he/she expects of us, for me to second-guess that expectation, study hard within that fence, and get good results in that comfortable boundary.
The thing about doing Thesis is that the boundaries are endless. There are no prescribed readings, and you can no longer second-guess what so many other professors want, as opposed to only one professor's expectations. So, what is the dominant strategy? Cover your ass by reading as much as possible, as there is simply no gazetted reading list.
And people who know my method of studying will definitely know how much I HATE reading texts. I usually stare at the lecture notes until they 'come alive', and reading a textbook is pretty much the last resort - when I have a sucky lecturer with sucky notes.
Getting out of this comfort zone isn't easy. I literally have to take a deep breath when I delve on a economics paper, trying to dig out the theoractical foundation, literature review, mind-boggling econometrical methodology, and the applicability of them all to my paper. For a notes-based, mathematics-based economics major, this is something we have never been taught in economics modules, and ironically I learnt them in "Methods of Social Research" and some political science modules.
I have to tell myself to be positive about this. Enjoy the challenge, enjoy the challenging of my comfort zone, enjoy the expansion of capabilities. Thinking back, for the first week in school, I've already managed to
1) Download most of the pre-1999 relevant studies
2) Find data from 2002-2008 and converted the relevant parts to excel
3) Read 3-4 papers
Not too bad, but I can always speed things up. I want to clear it at least 1 week before the deadline. I suck at last minute work, that is why I always like to pay first, and play later.
Just do it, and enjoy every bit of it.
lowtide blogged @
10:57 am
