When the Going gets Tough...

sesungguhnya realiti itu tidak indah;

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Dear Ms Zaharuddin,

In regards to your submission entitled "I Need To Get This Published to Graduate", the committee has come to a decision as stated below. 

Result: Decline Submission

Please find the comments by reviewers attached. Thank you.

I nod my head a couple of times. Sure, sure. This was expected. First time submitting to a journal and already expecting to get published. Like wow. Who did I think I was? Spiderman? (No, but that would have been cool anyways.) 

I'm a second year PhD student trying to make ends meet by scraping through any opportunity possible to carry out my research, but unfortunately it's not really working the way that I want it to. 

That's who I am. 

It took me two weeks to finally get the courage to even start looking at the comments. My soft toys surrounded me as my insides were being teared apart as I went line by line. This instantaneously led to plenty of different assuming and negative thoughts. 

My paper is not good enough.

My method is crap.

Is this even worth pursuing?

Maybe I should change my topic to something more safe.

I could see this big boulder drop in front of my path, and just as anyone who has encountered a roadblock before, I start trying to find alternative routes. 

Maybe I'll focus on teachers! Yes I'll just interview them and summarize their opinions!

Or maybe we can stick to students, but we don't need a control group. I mean it can still work right?

Think I can just find someone's study and replicate it. That's easy enough.

I got busy digging into my new ideas. Yes, this will be the REAL pathway to success. I could pull this off no problem.

It only took 3 Handbook Guides to Research in Applied Linguistics to get me to come back to my senses. I've already had all these thoughts in the past, but I've never gone through with any of them anyway. Why?

Because that wasn't what I wanted to do research about. 

That wasn't what I, Azalia Zaharuddin am passionate and interested about. 

At the end of this brain storming spree that lasted for two days, I find myself back at the roadblock, facing the huge boulder blocking my way again. 

"Pushing through the fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness"

 - Susan Jeffers

Perhaps I'll start chipping off bits and pieces of this boulder, bit by bit until it falls apart. Or maybe I'll build muscles and gain the strength to knock it down. Either way, work needs to be done. 

"Great things never come easy" 

In the end, I decided to rewrite the famous saying.

When the going gets tough, the tough...

gets frustrated and look for different alternatives but will soon come to realize that there is no easy way to greatness and then finally

.....gets going.

Gambatte.