It is now 4.18p.m on Monday, and I am sitting in the office while waiting for my PCR to finish running. I cannot help myself but I am completely low in spirits, as well as being terribly anxious, restless, and irritable. This is the second time today that I am running a PCR, since the first failed so spectacularly.
I am listening to “I Started A Joke” by the Bee Gees, and it certainly isn’t helping my mood, but I am not in the mood to listen to any cheerful or upbeat music either. I do not feel positive at all today, and my mood is foul beyond words. I am not sure if this moodiness has followed me from the weekends, but I do know that I have been rather glum since yesterday night.
Yesterday was Sunday, and like most Sundays, I spent my entire afternoon meal-prepping for the week ahead. I bulk prepared 14 meals for Q and myself, which would last us for approximately 3.5 days’ worth of lunches and dinners (the remaining 1.5 days’ lack of meals is to allow for some flexibility throughout the week). I would admit that I do feel some level of accomplishment after preparing 14 meals—unlike my sad beige meals of last week, these don’t look half bad either.
Drowning the feelings of accomplishment, however, was the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and anxiety. My Sunday was completely spent on meal preparation. I did not get to rest. I did not get to get some Graduate Study work done. It felt wasted. Utterly wasted.
I know very well that the act of meal-prep is an inherent act of self-care that exists in a category that constitutes caring for oneself while remaining unenjoyable. It would help me to save time during the week because I would not have to prepare my meals or eat the nasty cafeteria food which I have eaten so many times that I could no longer bear the sight of them. But this does not change the feeling of loss. I still feel as though I have lost my weekend, with no returns as of now.
Meal-prep as an act of self-care is of an investment nature. I invest a certain amount of time to prepare a big batch of food which would then save me the time of preparing individual meals during the week, which would in turn, presumably, allow me to boost my own productivity. That sounds all well and good, but as we see, it is of an investment nature. I have already invested this certain amount of time, but there is no guarantee of any returns. In fact, we are getting off to a bad start to the week, what with my failed PCR and all.
It is turning out to be as great as—well, there is really no nice way to say this—using a wicker basket to transport the fermented shit of someone who has not consumed a vegetable in 3 months.
1.42 p.m, Tuesday
Well. Both PCRs failed yesterday. Bummer. I am now running PCRs for more samples, hoping that I will finally get ONE that has what I need. I just need one win today, please.
But anyway, I came into office earlier today, and did a whole bunch of work. Honestly, I am not sure what to feel right now, since the work only counts if my experiments work. I am still existing in limbo.
9.05 p.m, Wednesday
I am redoing the entire thing. Whatever.
I am feeling less rotten about myself now that I have gotten to the 5th stage of grief—acceptance. Oh well. Anyway. Back to my contemplation of the paradoxical nature of self-care.
See, that is the thing, isn’t it? I know that the act of self-care is one that cares for oneself in some manner. I also know that some instances of self-care involves doing things that are not so very pleasant, but would eventually yield results that are better for oneself in the long run. For example, if one chooses to quit smoking, I would bet that the process of doing so would be rather unpleasant. But ultimately it is good for one’s health, isn’t it? Or say, taking the extra time to floss one’s teeth, or to wash one’s makeup off before bed—in both cases it leads to better hygiene and better oral health or a healthier complexion.
But see here, in these instances, the returns on these actions are all but a definite. You know that you would benefit. There is an assurance in knowing that the effort you put in would pay off.
Prepping meals for the week ahead…well I am not so sure. Alright, at least it keeps me from having to worry about my individual meals during the week. I don’t have to think about what to eat, so that is a relief. But if I were to consider it from my primary motivation behind meal-prep…well it all goes back to productivity. Right now, I do not have guarantee that my effort into preparing all the meals would really translate to an increase in productivity. Even though it would definitely free up more time during which I could work on my experiments, there is no guarantee that my experiments would work. If they end up not working, then it does not matter how hard I worked on them, because that would have been all for naught.
3.32 p.m, Thursday
I am once again typing out my thoughts in the half an hour that I have before the office meeting. Anyway, back to my musings.
If I were to be honest with myself, I would be sure that the source of my unhappiness over the exhaustion of meal-prep likely stems from my anxiety and stress from my postgraduate life. In reality, my unhappiness relating to my meals reflect my unhappiness with my graduate studies—in both cases, there is always the possibility that my effort and suffering does not translate to any reward. And that is a very painful possibility.
That is the core of it, isn’t it? The fear that the suffering that I went through—and am going through—is for nothing. That all the effort I have put in and am currently putting in would be for nothing. I am not afraid of suffering. I am afraid of meaningless suffering. There is a quote from Dostoevsky that I really loved, and an excerpt of it goes “I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.”
But I don’t. And that is the problem.
See, I do not know if the sun is there. I do not know if there is a point to this suffering, I do not know if there is any light at the end of this tunnel, or if I am doomed to continue wandering about in this dark and lightless tunnel. There is no guarantee that I will manage to successfully complete my graduate studies, because that is the nature of research. All I can do is continue hurling myself at this wall of research until it gives—or until I give—and there is not a thing I can do to guarantee success. I exist in a space where I do not know if I will eventually be alright, and I am frightened and anxious in equal measures all the bloody time. I could bear almost anything if I could just know that my suffering would be for something at the end of the day, but I do not know.
There is no resolution to this post, and I do not have much deep philosophical conclusion to this because I myself do not know if everything will turn out fine in the end. Time for the meeting now, I guess.
I have been sleeping an average of 5 hours for the past week, and I do not think I can keep holding out like this. Perhaps I will try to get more sleep tonight—maybe that will help me endure everything better.
Bealie
Series of Ordinary Days 
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