Master Defense

So, it's been a couple of days since I "defended" my Master thesis. I'm gradually gaining back a measure of my equilibrium to believe that it did happen and that I won't have my Master questioned anymore (at least not formally). I couldn't believe how much nervous I was that day until I saw the video and realized I don't want to go through with it a second time. The pictures were nice because mostly they captured happy snapshots, not the "real-time" sweat and tattering. Altogether, I'm immensely happy it's over although I'd like to go back in time and fix all the mistakes I made. But I guess a part of the past's beauty is that it's not fixable and it stands there behind your back kicking you in the "posterior" every once in a while. Well, I did not come all this way through life without learning to live with my "blaming self" and shutting it whenever it gets loud enough to interrupt my peace of mind. And I have to enjoy the freedom - temporary as it is - of not having a homework to feel guilty about when neglected.
Speaking of "real-time", one of the referees commented that he didn't see where the real time detection is in my proposed framework, well, I didn't know how to respond to that. If he was asking about how my system works in real time then it was pretty obvious that data is captured and analyzed as soon as it is formatted. If he was talking about my experiments, well, they were real time but on a miniature level, since the data was not "real" but was replayed to look like it. Maybe I didn't make my work clear enough :(
Bottom line is I'm free to shake all this out of my system and move on to new frontiers, hopefully relax a little bit and regain my focus and purpose, and see what I can do to improve myself personally and professionally.
It's not the end of road as the song says, it's a turn in the road that's still ahead.

Solitude

"When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude."

William Wordsworth, "The Prelude"

Defense

Today I learnt that my Master defense date is the 20th this month, and I wasn't sure what to feel. A part of me wanted to say "Woppa!!" and yet I couldn't completely feel thrilled. I hate to defend my statements; I suck at defense, mostly because I don't believe in a lot of the things I say and I'm only saying them out of necessity or out of experience (usually unpleasant!), and partly because I don't resort to reason and instead go all emotional about what I think. What makes this worse is that I don't really think that I'm entitled to have a say or a suggestion in the scientific arena, who am I to do it?! I look up to people like Newton and Einstein and say "Wow how the human mind can work in the most brilliant ways!!" I believe that a comprehensive guidance from a true scientist can make us "good and methodological thinkers," and because I feel that I don't have that then I should sit at home and learn from scratch how to think like a scientist; how to be cool, logical, and calculating instead of passionate and nervous.
This will go to trash of course because I'll go and "defend" my so-called Master work, hopefully I won't miss things up, and more hopefully, I'm just undermining my potential in advance as a precautionary action so I wouldn't be so upset if others thought my work isn't that good.

Vertigo

I hate to stand on the verge of things or situations, when I'm dealing with them, I always want to have a central view, not look at what's outside it. I don't know if this means anything, but I love to be AT the center without "being the center", because the center is where you get to see all the action and act based on what happens in the core. Standing on the verge means two things to me: number one, I'll unconsciously look outward and not toward the inside, then instead of focusing on what really happens I'm watching out so as not to fall. Number two, it's besides the main point; why would I go and stand on the verge when there is a secure ground available? Why would I keep suffering from a situation when instead I can take action to resolve it?
Some people would say that standing on the verge is in fact a way to gain a new perspective and extend possibilities (well, at least that's what I'm saying sometimes!) and that standing on the verge is a sign of a daring personality. Well, I'm not daring and I'm sure not into enloying the beauty of uncertainty, but I find myself sometimes in a position of "I'm not sure what's gonna happen and I can't help but live it all the same," so I learn to either cope with the situation bravely or throw myself in a state of denial until the situation is resolved by a "magical power" that's often not mine.
Should any of this make sense at all? I don't know, but I hate edges and shaky situations, especially when I know I have no power to change them or get away from them.

Zzzzzzzz!

It's almost 2 in the morning, I can barely open my eyes, and I'm fully aware that i have to rise and shine tomorrow (or is it today?) at 7 am to head for Cairo and get some kind of certificate. I just finished taking two TOEFL tests in preparation for the grand test coming up in a week or so, and as the lecturers talk and talk in the listening section all I can think of is that it would be cool really if the day is extended to 48 hours and I can sleep 10 hours every 24 hours instead of 4 or 5 every day. But I guess it's just summer insomnia that drives me nuts every year.
Good luck trying to get up at 7!