Salam, we went to parents info session for Farhan's next year pre-primary. In the briefing about maths, the teacher mentioned the importance of the PP kids to know, about more and less, big and bigger, long and longest and she jokingly said, the kids always want to have the biggest, the largest, wanted to be the tallest and the smartest etc.
That is common among primary kids to be always good, want to be the best but doing PhD also shows the 'true color' of competitive nature of so called "malay" people. We like to challenge and we always want to show that we "enduring" the hardest things while doing our research as if no one feel the same hardship. Then, we like to compare, but what is there to compare, PhD is totally unique to a person's project, we don't have exam, so called standard exam to compare how much do we score compare to A, B and C...yet a friend was telling me, bila dah abis sangat tak ada benda nak compare, to the extend, those who have the same supervisor, boleh compare lagi, dahi supervisor lebih berkerut masa jumpa si a or masa jumpa si b, hahahaah that is so funny!!!! we should be proud of our friend who do better than us, and push them more to be much better and not trying to pull them down. Then only can we proudly say that we have the mentality of developed country with first class attitude. InsyaAllah, this is a reminder for myself too, who sometimes 'alpa' and 'terlepas pandang' on certain thing. In conclusion, PhD is so unique, it is not for us to judge and compare an apple with an orange, it is totally fifferent thing !
If I were to compare my situation with other PhD students or couple...My husband is also studying, we only have one scholarship and we have 2 small kids aged 6 and 4. With limited finance, both are busy thinking about PhD, I still have to cook for hubby and the kids. We could not afford to eat outside. If I were too lazy, I can simply cook nasi goreng for hubby, but what abt my kids, they demands macam2, sometimes they want soup, sometimes, they want eggs, sometimes they want bla, bla, bla.....so, small kids and big kids are different. The grown up kids, they can eat what you eat. We also can't afford to send the kids to child care. So we struggle with peo having to take care of the kids as we are both studying unlike those with spouse who can concentrate taking care of the kids and the house chores.Going back to financial issue, having small kids, we are relieve, school fees is way too cheap compared to those who have a grown up, high school kids, they have to pay double, triple, quadruple quintuple or triple double you called it. Another thing is if your husband smoke, that will suck up yr allowance money just like no one business babe...so, moral of the story, every person is having his or her own challenges and every family is struggling with different things in life, therefore, it is not fair to judge and compare, to condemn and finger pointing or even to 'blame' peo if they can't endure the PhD journey towards the end, people have different level of resiliency and again different dugaan and cabaran, but one thing for sure, everything is in Allah's hand hence pray for the best of yourself and your family.
