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Showing posts with the label The PhD diaries

Joyful June

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I had one of the most adventurous months, ever. As some of you would already know, I was away for most of June. I flew to Canada to present my first ever oral at an international conference. I had been to an international conference in Melbourne last year; however, it didn’t quite feel as international for me (flying there from Sydney). But I knew this conference was going to be an entirely different experience. One of the biggest challenges I faced before leaving was having to pack for a range of weather conditions and ticking off the tasks I urgently needed to finish before I left. As usual, I ended up leaving my packing until the very last day (this always happens). It felt a little strange to be leaving home for almost three weeks which is a long time for me because I rarely go anywhere without family. Nonetheless, I was also super excited for the adventure that awaited on the other side of the world. The International Society of Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) c...

Memorable May

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My health hasn’t been in the best shape this month, so it has been a hell of a hard month for me. The main highlight I had for this month was the DAA conference, but I found myself getting sick right before my travel. Luckily, it was only a domestic flight, so I was able to drag myself out to Hobart. Unfortunately, travel and sickness don't make a good match; it was challenging. But it still ended up being a wonderful trip, mainly because Tasmania is such a beautiful land! I would love to go back again someday (Hobart blog will be up soon). Getting sick this month has made me realise the blessing of good health, once again! It's something we don't appreciate enough until something hits us. The past few weeks have been quite stressful; I could almost tell that I had reached my breaking point and was going to get sick. Honestly, I'm so grateful to my mum for flying home this month. Her presence in the house makes a big difference in my life. To the world, it may have ...

Active April

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Gosh, I honestly don’t know where the month has gone! Yes, I know you’re going to say that I say that literally every month. But I suppose time does fly quicker as you are getting older. Speaking of which, I turned 24 this month. My dad insisted on celebrating, but I think I am just getting to the age where I prefer to keep my birthday a quiet business and hide away. I got spoilt with some great presents and cake, of course! I had a lot of cake this month. I have had a few moments of hibernation this month, it does help with my internal struggle sometimes which is still ongoing, but I’m trying to deal with it in a different way (some of you would probably know about this from my previous monthly blogs ). In terms of work, I have been juggling endless things this month. The student projects have been quite time-consuming, particularly because I needed to obtain ethics approval for one of them which needed a lot of work. The good news is that we were recently approved and currently r...

Manageable March

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I started this month feeling overwhelmed and out of control, both emotionally and physically (playing the catch-up game with my workload). As I have said, I have had a lot going in my life in the past couple of months. While the majority of it has left a very positive influence in my life, there are some areas of it where negativity continues to tingle. I have told myself I will focus on the sunny side of it, work around this to normalise it as much as possible. The good news is that I have succeeded; I have managed to focus my shift back to work, and it has been working so far. However, there are occasions when my mind starts drifting away into the other land. But happy to say, I have been pretty productive this month, managed to get through ethics applications, two paper revisions (almost) and a few other things. In other news, I have finally started working on our wedding day blog. It took me a while to start because I wanted to wait until my ‘mental load’ reduced a little. We h...