Source: https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/uq2E2V4LhCY<\/p>
The immense stress and the butterflies in my stomach I got from my first experience on IELTS had somehow made a path for the date to reach my hippocampus. I can imagine how right now it\u2019s working hand in hand with the Amygdala going through my long term memory library looking for \u201c15\/Mar\/14\u201d. But that\u2019s all I can recall from IELTS \u2013 the stress and the date. As if the day started with a remote control in my hand, I was slowly switching between TV channels. \u201c[\u2026] but look what happens as I walk toward that guy\u201d. From the TV screen, I could see the tick tock slowing down. I got hooked immediately. And the next thing I knew I was staring at the ceiling in the middle of the day questioning common sense and my whole existence. What a fool to think that watching Brian Greene\u2019s \u201cThe Illusion of Time\u201d is going to relax the brain. But the existential crisis didn\u2019t last very long until the TV program became the beginning of my new perception of our world and myself.<\/p>
No, it\u2019s not about how I\u2019ve become more of\na nerd by seeing the world through a physicist\u2019s eyes. Sort of. But that\nwouldn\u2019t be a good news since it happened to be around the time when I felt\nleft out because I couldn\u2019t find a common ground with everybody else. Talking\nabout what I just learnt would only drive people further away from me. Imagine\nfriends giving me the dead look, the what are u talking about look. That\u2019s all\nI need, a little imagination, to stop myself from bringing this up during a\nconversation. <\/p>
Growing up, I was told that if you want to\nbe successful in life you have to have a good academic record. Friends? Nah!\nThey\u2019re such a waste of time and effort. Communication skill? What for? As long\nas you\u2019re good, people will come to you. Teamwork? Nope, I can handle all the\nwork alone. You guys don\u2019t have to do anything. Back then, my skill was\nstudying. My comfort zone was studying. <\/p>
As I grow older, I started to feel like\nacademic performance alone is not enough. It no longer satisfied me and that\nwas when I tried to live life like a normal teenage girl. I failed. I ended up\nwith a lot of criticisms and misjudgments about how rude, selfish, and too\ncompetitive I was. Well, what do you expect from someone who just got let out\nof a cage? Survival instinct perhaps? And before I even realized it, I was\nbeating myself up with self-blame and eventually shut myself from the world\nagain.<\/p>
So, with a bad past experience and a TV\nprogram nobody interested in, it would only make sense if I kept everything to\nmyself and continued exploring on my own. As I go further in depth, by watching\nrelated videos on YouTube and reading \u201cA Brief History of Time\u201d by Stephen\nHawking, I\u2019ve come to realize that my passion lies in science. From ember to inferno,\nI couldn\u2019t keep it to myself anymore. \u201cThe illusion of time\u201d became a\npresentation topic. To my surprise, I received a fair number of positive\nfeedbacks. <\/p>
All I needed was a passion and a little\npush. It didn\u2019t happen overnight. But with time, I was able to sacrifice my\ncomfort zone for something I love and actually put myself out there to help\npromote STEM in Cambodia. Not only that, I\u2019ve also come to accept myself along\nthe way. It\u2019s only when I\u2019m at peace with myself that I can turn criticisms\ninto constructive messages. It\u2019s only when I\u2019m at peace with myself that I can\nappreciate other people for who they are. <\/p>
Looking up at the sky at night always reminds\nme of how small we all are and that none of what we do is going to affect our\nuniverse as a whole. So, take a deep breath of courage and take risk. We are\ngiven consciousness only for a short while. It\u2019s up to us whether to use the\nmajority of time we have to feel pain or joy. I choose joy.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Source: https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/uq2E2V4LhCY The immense stress and the butterflies in my stomach I got from my first experience on IELTS had somehow made a path for the date to reach my hippocampus. I can imagine how right now it\u2019s working hand in hand with the Amygdala going through my long term memory library looking for \u201c15\/Mar\/14\u201d. But that\u2019s all I can recall from IELTS \u2013 the stress and the date. As if the day started with a remote control in my hand, I was slowly switching between TV channels. \u201c[\u2026] but look what happens as I walk toward that guy\u201d. From the TV screen, I could see the tick tock slowing […]","protected":false},"author":751,"featured_media":27401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growthhacking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/fabio-comparelli-uq2E2V4LhCY-unsplash.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27402,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23497\/revisions\/27402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}