Mid Year Review

Happy Belated Birthday, Singapore! Yes, yesterday I watched the NDP but it was on TV not at Marina Bay. I never have the luck to win any NDP tickets, irregardless of how many entries my family has sent out. Sigh... Anyway, for NDP parade, I'm usually more interested in the march pass & fireworks segments, not so much on the in-between performances. Yah, another segment which I like most is the school band formation, but think they have scraped off the segment some years ago. So sad.. Well, it just reminded me of the my secondary school band's participation in the NDP when I was in Sec 2 then. I missed the chance to participate as they picked mostly sec 3 & 4 members for it.

Anyway, other than having resolutions for our country, Singapore, it's time for my mid year review for my job & to rethink about my resolutions. Yup, I've just done my mid year review with my boss on Wednesday, talked about my past 1/2 year performance, my long term plans, etc. There he asked again if I'm still keen to further my studies. With a bit of hesitation here & there thou, my reply to him was still a "yes". He then went on to talk about what are the things I should consider carefully before I embarked on the plan. How I should get started off to look for Uni & good supervisors, etc, before we can bring this up to my big boss. Hopefully I can get some help, especially financially then. ahaha!

Hesitation. I still have some reservation about the whole idea of going back to study/research. My goal? To get a PhD? Well, that would probably take a good 4-5 years followed by 2-3 years of postdoc before I can officially "graduate". Let's see. With at least a year of preparation starting from now, the earliest I'll start grad school next year when I'm 26. 5 years down I'll be 31 plus another 3 years, I'll be 34! When I did the calculation & told my boss, he said I'm so cute. Erhh.... Besides counting the years, I also understand that there gonna be lots of sacrifices I need to make. Like long hrs in lab, weekendless (which means lifeless too), a big drop in income, less time for family, friends & him. Well, the decision I make now is not just going to affect myself only, it'll affect alot of people so I can't be selfish too. That's 1 of the reasons why I've been procrastinating it, until it's mentioned again during the mid year review.

Like what I've said before, I'm feeling stagnant in my R&D job already. In terms of career aspiration, I doubt it'll bring me anywhere further with just a BSc. So I got to think of alternatives for myself now. Thought of 2 other plans besides going for a PhD. Heez...

1. Move into manufacturing. More political but likely to have more career prospects.
2. Do a Masters 1st, then probably go into tertiary teaching.
3. Get married & be a tai tai.

Oppz! Didn't I only mention 2 plans? Well, 3rd plan is just an impossible dream in Singapore lor. Wahaha....