#phd astronomy

[whimsyandscience]

Guess who submitted her first research paper 🫣

[whimsyandscience]

On Losing the Spark

I think I have been burnt out for years.

Not the dramatic kind of burnout. Not the kind where everything collapses all at once. Just a slow, quiet disconnection from things I once loved very deeply.

I used to be excited about Physics. About research. About solving problems just for the joy of understanding something new. Even when things were difficult, there was curiosity underneath it all.

Now, more often than not, I feel detached from it.

Disenchanted. Jaded at best, careless at worst.

Lately, I have been trying to understand why.

Part of that process has involved trying to understand myself better too — from looking into my neurodivergence symptoms, to trying to take breaks more seriously, to putting less pressure on myself to be perfect all the time.

And over the past few days, I think I may have realised where at least part of this exhaustion comes from.

I keep thinking about the years I spent preparing for entrance exams in India.

Eight-hour lecture days. Seven days a week. Endless coaching classes. Endless tests. Endless pressure to optimise every waking moment into productivity.

At the time, I thought that was what passion looked like.

Now I think that may have been where I slowly lost my love for learning.

Not all at once. Quietly. Gradually.

Somewhere along the way, learning stopped being about wonder and became about performance. About survival. About proving that I was “good enough” to deserve being there.

And I think I spent the next several years trying to undo that damage without even fully realising where it had come from.

I still do not know how to fix it.

I do not even know if it can be fully fixed.

But understanding why I feel this way has made me feel slightly less lost.

I also cannot help but wonder how many other people quietly lost that same spark because of systems that treat exhaustion as dedication and perfectionism as ambition.

How many people who once genuinely loved science now associate learning with stress, guilt, and fear.

Sometimes I wish I had tried less hard to be perfect all the time.

Maybe then my brain would not feel so permanently tired.

Maybe then I would still know how to love things without turning them into something I needed to succeed at.

[whimsyandscience]

14.11.25/Friday

Here we go again. It's cold and rainy here, so perfect weather to stay indoors and get some work done. However the heating in our flat is non-existent so I will brave the weather and head to work today. The disadvantage is that I really need to declutter my desk at work and get some space. It's very cluttered at the moment. So I will be adding that to my todo list.

Clean desk at work

Address comments on paper

Add autocorrelation bit

Recheck all the figures

Send paper out to collaborators

I really want to close the week on a high because I haven't been the most productive this week. Also will feel nice to send my paper out at the end of a Friday haha. Here's to hoping!

[whimsyandscience]

13.12.2025/Thursday

Well this was more productive than yesterday but everything took longer than I expected. I am honestly happy with how things went so I am treating myself with some late night wine. Here's the todo tick-off list:

Write the section on auto-correlations

Address comments on paper

Recheck all the plots for consistency

Clean up the plotting code and archive

Check the correlation on other test cases

We continue on to a next day lol. I want to go to a third space tomorrow. I don't want to be in office or at home because I think I have gotten too comfortable at both places. If I wake up early enough, I will treat myself to a cafe date for a few hours. Let's see how it goes. Wish me luck fam!

The goal is to send out the paper for comments by EOD tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

[whimsyandscience]

13.11.25/Thursday

I got some preliminary comments from my supervisor on my paper last night. He says "it looks good" and it's "ready for collaborators' comments" and honestly that makes me unreasonably happy. I have been working on this project for 2 years! So I am looking forward to having a productive day today fuelled by approval lmao. This is what's on my list today:

Write the section on auto-correlations

Address comments on paper

Recheck all the plots for consistency

Clean up the plotting code and archive

Check the correlation on other test cases

I don't have any meetings or lectures today so I really hope my brain behaves and I am able to get most of this done. The only possible additional workload is the batch cooking and cleaning that I need to do.

[whimsyandscience]

Life Update: Moving to the UK, starting a PhD, and learning about work-life balance

So, 2023 turned out to be the year I ditched my comfy corporate gig to chase my childhood dream of being an astrophysicist. Join me on this wild ride—from snagging dream PhD spots to wrestling with a nasty bout of Dengue right before my move to

View On WordPress