Oxford 2012

Doing research can be exhausting and frustrating (!) at times.


Last year was a crazy year, with never ending experiments and no clear results. Halfway I felt like I lost my motivation, and just kind of did everything because it was already running on autopilot mode. 


Then I thought perhaps I need to set some immediate goals, to make the routine more meaningful. So that when I woke up in the morning, I would feel the spark again having the feeling that I worked towards something. 


As the goal to actually do something to contribute to mankind sounds very idealistic and abstract, at that time, the goal was to submit an abstract for a conference. The conference was in Oxford held last June. I went to the same conference in 2009 in Italy at the start of my PhD, but barely understood everything presented. I even said to myself back then, I probably wouldn't made it back to the same conference. Probably I'd better off to some other conferences. But having worked on the field for 3 years, the program actually looked very appealing and relevant! Especially now that it was held in Oxford, whose local organizer was a group working using similar techniques as what we do in our lab here. 


Really exciting, I thought. And it is Oxford!
With venue like in the Harry Potter, etc, etc! ;-) 


I didn't dare to say anything to my supervisor yet, because I couldn't afford having her turn it down. I was on my final two weeks of the experiments. I have worked so much and felt so tired from having unexpected results. I needed this to keep me going. 


So two weeks passed. Some data were obtained.
I asked my supervisor and she agreed on my request to submit an abstract (or actually she suggested I could submit two, but we only submitted one in the end). Yeay!


I'm still stuck in the middle of my PhD, now, by the way. No light in the end of the tunnel yet (oh, well, maybe a little). But I made it to Oxford last June. Very grateful to have been able to go there, and more importantly, to have been able to follow the talks and the discussion (unlike 3 years ago!!). Had stimulating discussion with other PhD students and some professors about my work (it was impressive how many people stopped by my poster, actually, unlike my experience in another conference!). So in short, it was all worth it! 

The venue: Merton college

The quad where we stayed and went for the talks

The dining hall (am I right about the Harry Potter thing?) 

Blenheim Palace, an hour drive from Oxford -- the place for the gala dinner

Finally, the reason why I was there.. to do some science, of course!  :-) 

It still a looong way to go, but maybe it's time for me to set other "Oxford" for the time being... :-)