Scuffy, the Tug Boat.... I was meant for greater things!

When I turned 5, my brother's godmother (one of our neighbours) gave me a stack of books. I still remember it as one of my happiest memories. The covers were hard on all of the books except one. In that moment I realized that I preferred hard covers to soft covers. The books were mostly nursery rhymes and other children stories. They were not fairy tales. The book covers were so pretty and the pictures that were strewn over all the pages inside the books were even more enticing. You couldn't find a happier 5 year old than me at the time. I read all the hard cover books in no time, maybe a day or two then I re read them. The soft cover book was not so enticing as it was about Jesus and his 12 disciples. Even at five I found it strange that 12 grown men dropped their previous lives and decided to walk around behind or beside this guy who was preaching a message incongruent with the popular beliefs at the time. They didn't paint an industrious picture to me, therefore, I did not properly read that book until years later when I became more interested in religion.

Childfree Women

Nobody understands when a woman says she doesn't want children. It is passed over as her not finding the right man as yet, her biological clock just isn't ticking yet, or she's just going through a phase. It seems most people believe that women should have babies simply because god gave them the plumbing to do it. It is also seen as a strange thing for a woman to be married and still not desire a child. Some women, however, just don't want to have children. Children are a major responsibility with questionable benefits, so some person choose not to burden themselves with this responsibility. Some women may not even think of it as a burden, but simply have no desire towards making babies.

People assume that there is only one path to life, education, job, marriage, children, die. When I was only a wee teenager I realized just how boring that sequence could be and decided to take another route on my way to death (since we're all living to die). That path has come to be about travelling, learning about different cultures, working and living in various countries, writing and researching, among others. That plan has no room for family house mortgage, mini van or expelling large objects from my body that make me ill during and after pregnancy.

Now, it may not be easy to see how a baby would poop on my seemingly flexibly plans, but let me provide some enlightenment. A 2014 Huffington post article by Emily Thomas stated that raising a child in the US from age zero to 17 costs approximately US$304,000 . Consider the delivery of a child alone, that's easily US$10,000. That's over a million Japanese yen. That would significantly cut into my budget for eating, drinking tea and travelling to two three countries per year. In fact, it may eliminate any such plans whatsoever. This is just a monetary issue though, so if you are rich, that won't be an issue. The thing is though, how many people are rich enough to take three vacations per year to exotic places like greenland, Palau, South Africa and still maintain a child? Even without a child in the picture, I would have to work really hard to achieve my travel dreams, so imagine, having an extra plane seat to pay for and other child related expenses. 

Consider my desire to work in various countries. Again, I would need to consider international schools that are usually expensive. Think of the child's well being. Would a child be happy going from school to school just because of her mother's busy life? I don't think so. That may lead to mental problems in a child, learning problems, mental disorders due to not enough family times and no close network of friends, since he/she never spends enough time in one location to make any real friends.

Another thing, if a woman doesn't want children, she probably isn't overflowing with maternal instincts. She would probably suffer serious depression if she were forced into a situation where she had to have a child. Given the hardships experienced by pregnant women and mothers, a woman should be mentally ready to sacrifice her body, money and time for the child. Otherwise, she will probably be miserable and lose interest in her own life. That kind of thing is what leads to crazy mothers killing their babies and sometimes killing themselves too.

Source of the cost of raising a child: Huffington Post article by Emily Thomas: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/18/cost-of-raising-a-child_n_5688179.html

Don't end up hating your life at 40 because you pursued the career path you chose as a teenager!

I've been thinking a lot lately about my life and the choices that I've made. I read a quote recently that essentially said don't end up hating your life at 40 because you pursued the career path you chose as a teenager. This got me thinking about change and all the unforeseen things that accompany it. In order to ensure that I don't end up hating my life at 40, I need to actually pursue the things that interest me now. Of course, my career path is still important to me and I will continue pursuing it fervently, but I also have other dreams that do not include academics. To get on with those dreams though, I need to set aside 'dream accomplishment' time. Otherwise, I will just drum away at my academics and wake up one day utterly disappointed in me.

Before making my journey into this land of the unknown, I was excited and a bit apprehensive. Upon getting here, those feelings remained for a long time. Recently however, I've begun to feel a sense of 'me'. I know myself more today than I did 3 years ago. I'm more willing to sacrifice and do what is important to me but I keep wishing I had more time and using lack of time as an excuse to not pursue other things of importance to me. This month I will change that though. Notice, this month ends today, so today is my day of progress!

Two weeks ago I woke up feeling quite unaccomplished. I thought about the fact that my graduate school journey was not going according to plan at all. In fact, I'm about a year behind schedule. How did that happen? I wasn't sleeping for a whole year, I'm certain. But what exactly happened? I procrastinated, researched things that turned out to be inconsistent with my professor's goals for me and ended up with a year of nothing. I learnt that this journey is not entirely about me. In a year, I've learnt how to read my professor more accurately, I've learnt the importance of saving towards conferences, and I've realised that my research in grad school is 30% about my interests and 70% about my professor's :) I guess it's a good thing I learnt those things in one year. Sometimes we take years to learn lessons that are not explicitly taught.

So now it's time to focus on things that will help me to finish my thesis and graduate next year. Lord help me if I know what those things are!