New Passion - Needle Felting!

I haven't written a post in a while. It seems I always start my blog with the same line lately, life has been so busy! It's good busy though, I think I have been quite productive lately and trying to get back to doing more creative things. I still need to work in evenings or weekends, but I make sure to take one day fully off and do fun stuff to de-stress.

Talking about creative things, I recently started needle felting and I'm SO hooked! This is how it started - I have always dreamed to have a little Etsy store with my designs and printed out two products - a bag and a mug - with the bee design (which I gifted to my favorite people). I was looking for some fluffy bumblebees to hang from the bag and thought why not I try making them by myself? So, I ordered a starter kit two weeks ago and since then I can't stop making cute wooly creatures! I also started my Etsy store, NushStudio to give myself a push to create more and share my love with others - https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/NushStudio

Here are some of the things I have made so far - Henry the hedgehog, bees, mushrooms, Pacman and ghosts.

Henry

Pacman and ghosts

Bumblebees

If you never heard of needle felting before (I didn't when I started), it's like making scultures with wool. There are special needles for felting that have barbs. All you have to do is keep poking the wool with needles and it starts attaching the fibers to give the wool ball a shape. There are many cool tutorials and books on needle felting. I think it started in Japan, like most cute things do, and most popular books are by Japanese authors. I bought the book Cute Needle Felted Animals by Sachiko Susa.

I do recommend starting with simpler objects like mushroom before going into animals or more complex structures. I have only started to learn making animals (Henry is the first one) and got so many projects on my list! I will keep posting more of my creations as I make them. I do recommend giving it a go if you're looking for a fun hobby :)

Life Updates (Yes, I'm Still Alive!)

I thought last year was the worst productive year for me in terms of blog writing and I did plan to write more this year, but turns out PhD life and traveling doesn't leave me enough extra time to write. Funny that I'm writing after whole 8 months!! 

So, good news is I'm still alive and doing fine but what happened during last 8 months? I have been travelling A LOT! Though most of the times these are weekend trips plus a day or two extra, I have to always play catch up game with work everytime I am back. Then there are friends, personal life, and so on. Looking back a year ago, I couldn't feel more grateful for where I am today. I feel really lucky to meet all the people I've met in the past year and all the traveling opportunities I had so far.

Here is the list of places I've been to this year - the year started with celebrating the New Year in Edinburgh, Scotland, and then I went to Hungary in February, back home in March, Netherlands in April, Denmark in June, Italy in September and just got back from Greece. Within the UK I've visited Isle of Wight in February and two new places in my favorite Cornwall - Perranporth in May and Falmouth in July. Falmouth was on my list for a while, so happy that I managed to visit this year. Two more countries to visit this year in November and December. So, I've been going somewhere pretty much every month and my travel stories have been piling up. I do promised myself to write everything up in separate posts because many of these trips were dream-come-true, lifetime achievement for me.

White washed buildings surrounded by blue ocean in Santorini

However, I think it's time I move to a separate platform with my travel stories. I will still keep this blog and post personal stories from time to time. I kept this space mostly for myself, more as a diary rather than to share with the world (other than some learning posts). 6 years later it makes me feel nostalgic going through all the posts. But I do want to write about my travels more broadly, for bigger audience, for the less privileged, non-white, women of color who dream to travel independently. Also, I do realize that it's more difficult to browse the stories in this platform, having to go through the total list or clicking for older posts. So, I'm wrapping up this post with some of my favorite photos from recent trips before I write about them separately on a different platform.

The Colloseum, Rome, Italy

Copenhagen, Denmark

Budapest, Hungary

Tulip festival in Keukenhof

Santorini, Greece

Hiking on Dartmoor

Spending another traveling. Quite a bit of journey, more than four hours with three changes. I don't mind long journeys if I don't need to change trains too many times, then I can focus on something and get some work done. This isn't happening today, so I figured I'd rather write a pending blog post. The weekend before last one I went to hike on Dartmoor with a group of people. It's a national park, part of the moorland and popular hiking place in Devon. I had heard about it before, so was looking forward to going there.

On the way up

Everyone who is familiar with British weather knows what a difference sunshine can make here! The day it's sunny outside it's like a freaking festival (!), but probably because everything does look very pretty in the sun here. We got lucky on our hiking day as there was some sunshine in the morning and wasn't very cold. Dartmoor weather has its own mind people say, so wasn't really sure what to expect. We got some drizzles but was lucky that it didn't pour down.

The most interesting part of Dartmoor landscape is granite hilltops. Later I learned that this place includes the largest area of granite in Britain. On our way up we saw Dartmoor ponies wandering around freely. They were super adorable!

This photo was taken by Joey. I really like it, couldn't help posting!

Ponies!

I wasn't sure how difficult the hike would be and which shoes to wear. It wasn't too steep or difficult actually, only need supportive shoes for the rocks - LOTS of them there! Other than that it was quite fun to chat with people while hiking. We had a little lunch/ picnic after we hiked up. The weather started to look more dramatic by then.

From the top

When we hiked down (we did a loop) it felt much shorter than the first half. We definitely hiked more than half of the total path (8 miles) on our way up. Some people grabbed a drink at the pub where we started, most were quite tired. Overall it was a good day. I look forward to more hikes in different seasons. I wonder how the scenario will change.

Dream Trip to Cornwall

This post is long overdue. Last last weekend I went for a short trip to St Ives in Cornwall. Visiting Cornwall has been my dream for many years and I wasn't disappointed a single bit! The place was absolutely dreamy and I'm really glad I took the time for myself to explore and relax little bit. Of course, it took me few days to come back to reality (wish I didn't have to!) and catch up with my research. And like all PhD students I've reached the point of frustration while trying to solve something that seems apparently unsolvable (why do we do this to ourselves really?!). So, I decided to take a little break and write this post instead.

St Ives is a cute little town, one that has been a popular tourist destination and inspiration to artists for ages. Usually most places in Cornwall require driving like most beach towns, but they built a tiny train station from St Erth (four stops, takes 12mins) that drops you right in front of the Porthminster beach (how convenient)! The train journey from from St Erth is very scenic as well. My AirBnb host suggested me to sit on the right side, front-faced for the best view and he was absolutely right!

So, this is the first picture I took of the Porthminster beach after getting off from the train. It was cloudy and windy on Friday afternoon, so I wasn't expecting much, but that view took my breath away! This one is the calm beach, more suitable for families with little kids. The turquoise blue is stunning and as the sun peeps in and out, the ocean changes its colour in various shades of blue too. I felt I could just sit there and watch it all day!

Porthminster Beach

The Porthmeor beach is about 15mins walk from there. There's also Harbour beach in between. I was lucky that my AirBnb was conveniently located right in between the beaches and everything was in walking distance. The place itself was very nicely decorated too and the couple was very kind and friendly. Soon after I realized you start seeing the same people again and again as you wander around because it's so small! However, I didn't get bored at all. There are also plenty of art galleries and museums to explore. Later in the afternoon I made a quick trip to Porthmeor beach. This part is more of surfer's zone with gorgeous waves. The Tate Museum is right next to this beach too. There's a cliff named Man's Head that offers breathtaking views of the beach. I decided I'd spend more time on that beach next day.

Porthmeor Beach

On Saturday morning I pushed myself to get out of bed before sunrise so that I could watch sunrise on the beach. I'm not a morning person and it was little chilly in morning, but that romanticism (!) was totally worth it! It was cloudy at first but then I got a beautiful view as I was about to leave for Porthmeor. Also, pro-tip - I learned the evening before that Porthminster is perfect to watch sunrise and Porthmeor for sunset. I didn't realize it and missed the lovely sunset on Friday as I was waiting for it by Porthminster :-/ Anyway, here's a picture of the sunrise :)

After that I headed to Porthmeor beach and walked on the quiet beach by myself. It felt like a dream and I couldn't help humming "Don't Break the Spell"! The surfers started to gather too. It was lots of fun to walk on the beautiful, clear water even though it was quite freezing. I collected lots of pretty shells and started to head back for breakfast and little shopping as they neared the opening hour. Most shops open there around 10am, which makes sense for tourist towns but also I started to get hungry. 

I had tasty Cornish pasty, hot chocolate and brownie and went home for little rest. Later that day I went up to Man's Head. We were blessed with gorgeous sunshine that day and I took plenty of pretty pictures. I mean it looked so beautiful already that I didn't have to make much effort!

I loved that they placed benches beautifully on that cliff. What a simple nice idea to let people watch those blue waves! I walked to the top, took more photos, had fish & chips for dinner and came home with a happy heart.

On Sunday it was time to head back. It felt too soon! I really wished I could be there longer. I left AirBnb with all my luggage and it was drizzling, so thought I'd just walk around little bit. I went to the gift shops and had more Cornish pasty, but after a while I couldn't resist climbing Man's Head again. I spent some more time there watching beautiful waves, the wind made them extra gorgeous! After that I headed back to Porthminster beach and hopped on my train back.

I'm really glad I made this trip and can't wait to go back in June. Already started to think where else to visit in Cornwall! :p Till then I've got plenty of photos and videos to cherish those beautiful memories. 

Now back to my research (-_-).

On Dixit and Tech Talks

After long Easter break people are slowly getting back to work here, though most schools are still on vacation. Just learned yesterday Easter break is 3 weeks long here! What the hell! Summer, Christmas, Easter - students in this country get so much time off! It may also be I feel weird getting used to full-time student again. Everyday I think I need to push myself more to do my research. Technically no public holidays apply on me. I can't tell I'm doing well with time management yet but hopefully will get there slowly. 

Anyway, this post is a short and quick update. I met a fun group of people yesterday. We played Dixit and had dinner together. It was the first time to meet them and also first time to play the game, but I almost won! I started slow, was the very last one but it started to become more fun as we played couple of rounds. The purple bunny below is mine :D (half-way through the game). The black one eventually won.

If you never played Dixit before, it's a storytelling card game where everyone has a set of cards. The storyteller picks one card and says a word or phrase or sentence that may describe the picture on that card. Then the rest of the players pick one card from their sets that may tell that story. When everyone is done selecting their cards, all players (except the storyteller) try to guess which one was the storyteller's card. If someone gets the right answer then both the storyteller and the person who could guess get points. It's actually quite fun game as it makes you analyze participants' psychology - whether they think in literal way or in creative way. 

Dinner was good. Joey made vegetarian pizza and Marcus made Scottish Haggis, which is usually non-veg but the veggie version was yummy as well. We had good conversation too.  

Today I went to tech talk series and it was actually quite interesting. It was nice to hear about practitioners working on real projects. I found the talk by a Data Scientist from Sparx particularly interesting. They are a educational research group creating personalized math lessons in collaboration with schools. Also, got to connect with the Digital Exeter Meetup organizer. I think there'll be potential opportunities to collaborate in future. 

Even though I'm not a social person in general or go to such events solely for networking, it's been a good experience. Looking forward to attending more events like this and hopefully will come across more nice people too!

Brighton Days

Brighton is a beach town and quite popular tourist destination (figured from AirBnb price!) in the south of the UK. Apparently it's the third most expensive city to live in this country, but I had the chance to stay here for a while because of my sister. I visited her 3 months ago and been staying with her until I move to my own place. 

This city reminds me of my childhood a lot as I grew up in a coastal city and going to the beach was a regular fun activity for our family. People living here are lucky to have a beautiful beach right in the heart of the city. Surrounding city centre is buzzing with all sorts of shops and makes all amenities easily accessible. You walk through the lanes and can hear the waves calling you (well, not quite as romantic until you cross the street as traffic and human noise masks it quite a bit). 

Water always pulls me because I've always had close connection with rivers and ocean. Sitting there alone listening to the waves soothes my mind and makes me feel I could wash away all my pains. Most importantly, the vastness and depth of the ocean remind me that we're all so small. I should learn to be more humble and tolerant from the ocean. 

I love sunsets, and a beautiful sunset by the beach is all I need to be happy or at least heal my soul. I was lucky to spend some time alone there watching pretty sunsets when I needed it the most. Given that it's still pretty cold for spring, both days I came back frozen! Hopefully I'll get to spend longer time when it gets warmer.

Brighton Central Beach

I also like the view from the house. You can see this hilly area that goes down to Stanmer Park. On a beautiful day, clouds rise above the hill in a blue sky making this background even more beautiful. The weather has been funny since I got here - a lot of rain and snow. But got to see some beautiful sunsets in last couple of days. 

I am also trying to get back to running routine slowly. When I moved here I put my running gear in my main luggage so that I don't have to live without running for too long, but it became overweight, so had to get rid of them :( Happy to be finally going back on track even though I gained a lot of weight in about a month >.<

View from living room

 

Last time when I came here we went to visit the Brighton Pavilion, which is very gorgeous. I still haven't gotten the chance to explore the museum, hopefully soon. We planned to visit the aquarium with Arnan (my little nephew) but couldn't find a good day for it yet. The weather has been bizarre most weekends. 

Brighton Pavilion

Brighton Museum & Gallery

My Brighton days are almost over. I'm moving to my place this weekend and then will be visiting occasionally. I'm looking forward to being settled and getting back to my regular lifestyle, but it'll always be a pleasure to come back to this city.

Snowy Welcome to the UK

It was about 2 months ago that I wrote my last post. At that time I had one month left until my big move and it'll soon be a month that I've moved to the UK. Crazy how time flies! This move was very stressful (as a continental move like this is supposed to be) and I promised myself I'm never doing this ever again in my life! In one week I travelled from Raleigh to New York, landed in London from NY, came to Brighton from London, travelled to Birmingham and from there to Exeter! 

Even though I thought I won't see more snow this year after that big snowfall in Raleigh, soon after I arrived the Beast of the East hit the UK and literally dumped the country under snow. I was stuck in Exeter for 3 more days for snow as the train system went down. After making three attempts at getting back and major delays, I was finally able to get back to Brighton. 

Yesterday was the sequel of the Beast of the East and we got more snow. It snowed more in some other parts of the country. It doesn't snow this much in the UK usually. I also read later that it's rarely once in 8 years it snows like this in Raleigh. Seems like wherever I go snow follows! Usually I love snow but it feels I had enough of it this year (especially after catching severe cold).

First day of snow was very pretty though. I didn't have my proper snow boots with me as I wasn't expecting that much snow. I still went out to play with snow and take some photos. End result was coughing for one week straight, but it was totally worth it! Here are some photos from first and second snowfall -

Looking forward to warmer spring days now. Also, looking forward to finally get settled in my own place. It's been the longest ever in my life that I've been in a transitional state. It's been 3 weeks but feels like prolonged vacation to me! Time to get back to my usual lifestyle and focus on what I came here for. Making slow progress, but surely getting there. 

Hopefully will start writing more regular posts from now on :) A lot of trips coming up in next few months, so more travel posts coming soon!

Rare Snowfall in North Carolina

It's almost the end of January, this whole month went by fast but it's been full of stress and anxiety for me so far. So much going on right now that I can barely get a grip of life. The year started with my dental surgery. After almost 1.5 years of dealing with this dental treatment mishap I finally took the courage to get it done. Given the cost of dental implant, it would be impossible for me to do if I were a grad student now. So, lucky to be done with this and I hope I won't have to deal with something like this in near future. Anyway, one good thing of this year was we had first snowfall of the season. On January 4th I was supposed to be on leave after my treatment. I woke up slowly to find out it was all white and pretty outside. In the South snowfall is a rare phenomena! Even if it snows an inch or two, everything shuts down here because they are not used to handling such situation. I didn't go out that day as I was supposed to rest anyway and enjoyed being at home. 

I thought that would be the first and last snowfall of this season (that's how it usually is here), but to our surprise we had a proper snowfall two weeks later. Raleigh had about 5-6 inches of snow, which is very unusual. Apparently it snows like this only once in 8 years! The whole area covered in white snow looked like a dreamy wonderland! I walked up to the Art Museum in that afternoon as it's one of my favorite places and it looked so beautiful! I'm sure that was the first and last time to see such view of the Art Museum park. Usually snow melts away the very next day here, but the next morning it was all white outside. So, we had two snow days and most public services were closed. Luckily it was bright and sunny, so it started to clear up the trees by the afternoon. I went for a walk again to the museum to take more photos. Posting some of my favorite photos here. Enjoy!

Pool in my apartment complex

Finally Holidays!

Three months have gone since I wrote my last post! It's mainly because last two months were really intense with a lot of traveling and the time in between I had to spend catching up with regular life and work. Finally it's time for winter holidays and I can spend some time with myself. I found this quote yesterday and that accurately says what I mostly need in my life right now -- a quiet break and time to reflect on myself. 

Happy Holidays!!!

I've been down with cold for last few days, so I spent the weekend resting up, cooking, baking, watching lots of shows and movies, reading books and catching up with friends and family. I also decorated my house with the holiday Lego set and got myself pretty flowers to add more coziness to the home. I really love my apartment and it truly makes me happy to be able to spend time here. I don't think I'll miss the city itself when I leave but I'll miss my apartment for sure. 

#tistheseason! 

Flowers never fail to brighten up my day! :)

My Lego minifigure cake turned out mostly okay! :D

I'm slowly recovering, at least it feels better today than yesterday after sleeping a lot. Last year I was home at this time of the year. It was good to see family but since then the whole year had been full of traveling and I never had enough time to myself. Summer vacation is not a thing anymore as I'm not a student now. So, I've decided to spend the rest of the vacation doing the things I can't usually accomplish during usual workdays. One of which is writing my blog as a part of my self-reflection. I don't do those new year, new me shit, but as we mark a new beginning, I need to revisit my failures and focus on what I need to do to better myself. I'll try to read a lot during this holiday - both academic and pleasure reading. Also, need to get back to healthy lifestyle and fix my immune system.

I feel I'm kind of lucky to be in this situation right now where I can sit down, relax and focus on myself. This whole year has been full of struggle and stress. We often forget or don't have the opportunity to prioritize self-care and personal happiness -- it's very important. It's also necessary to find a block of quiet time just to focus on yourself. Confusion, self-doubt, anxiety, stress - these are all part of adulthood. If we don't know properly where we stand and what we want in life then it's very easy to drown in fear. It's not that you won't be scared but it's about being scared and still facing all the fears. I'm scared to death to face all the things coming up in my life. I know that friends and family will listen and say supportive words when I need them, but only I have to give myself the support to stand straight in the battle of life. My dad taught us a very important lesson since we were young - never depend on anyone, and I'd always be grateful to him for instilling that sense of self-dependence. I hope this never changes in the future and I can be in the position to lend a help to others. 

Power of Choices and the Pursuit of Happiness

I should be writing now - research proposal, not a blogpost! But I guess writing my blog is still a somewhat better way of procrastination than spending hours on other social media. I was feeling little lost, restless and stressed lately. So, I wanted to pause for a bit and thought about the things that are unique about me, things that make me happy and help me convert my restlessness into positive energy. 

I'm trying to cut down my time on social media. I haven't used Facebook for a year (which feels great) and deleted the Twitter app from my phone. Instead I'm trying to read more - both academic and leisure reading. Also, since the rough summer is soon to be over, I'm trying to get back to my running habit. Still running indoors but soon I can run outside in the evening and breathe fresh air. I'm also trying to find some time to paint and planning on writing regular blogposts. Most importantly I want to live in the moment and feel happy in my heart. I realized that I'm constantly worrying about future and often forgetting to focus on the present. While planning for the future is definitely very important, overthinking is harmful. Soon I'll be introducing two TED talks that tell us about the importance of staying in the moment and the secret of happiness. 

As I was saying, emotional well-being is THE most important thing for any human being, yet so many people in this world are lacking it. Probably that's why pursuing happiness is such a hot research topic these days. Not that people didn't focus on happiness in the past, but the modern world is making it more complicated by adding millions of external factors. That's why I like reading about behavioral economics. It's very interesting to see how people make decisions and how external factors can cause bias in our decision making process without us even realizing. 

I've been reading the Art of Choosing book by Sheena Iyengar, who is a professor at Columbia University. By combining her personal life experiences with scientific experiments, the author shows us how the act of making choices can depend on different factors including the society we belong to and cultural background. I'll mention few of my favorite quotes from the book -

"Ask yourself: When making a choice, do you first and foremost consider what you want, what will make you happy, or do you consider what is best for you and the people around you. This seemingly simple question lies at the heart of major differences between cultures and individuals, both within and between nations."

Turns out those who grow up in Western society learn to prioritize themselves, whereas culturally the ones from Asia tend to consider other people's happiness more. Whichever route we choose, turns out theoretical formulas can't always be applied when it comes to personal happiness. The author mentioned about one of her colleagues who was offered a position at Harvard but Columbia then proposed three times higher salary to keep him. Both are great options, yet he had a difficult time making the decision even though he's an expert of telling people how to make choices. Also, pros vs cons approach isn't always helpful because it focuses on concrete, measurable criteria, often to the exclusion of emotional happiness. 

"Personal happiness is always a very serious matter. It's all well and good to propose formulas and strategies to other people, but we're not sure we should trust them when our own long-term happiness is clearly at stake." 

One of the important take-aways for me was to understand how the automatic and reflective system work in our brain (You can read this article on Of Two Minds When Making a Decision). In general the automatic system is always active in our subconscious mind but to we need to practice more to use our controlled system for making better and logical decisions. I like the lines below the most and probably should remind myself again and again when I'm upset with my own decisions.

"Near the end of Oh, the Places You'll Go!, Dr. Seuss warns that we are sometimes our own opponents in the game of life. When we're struggling against temptation, or when we feel let down by our own decisions, we may wonder how we can possibly win against ourselves. It's enough to make us want to wave the white flag of surrender, but we have to resist the impulse."

I was watching few TED talks last night. The Surprising Science of Happiness is definitely one of the most interesting ones out there. The speaker wraps up with the core message that "our longings and our worries are both to some degree overblown, because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we choose experience."

Another talk is Want to be Happier? Stay in the Moment where the speaker demonstrates study result that the ones who can focus on the present are the happier ones. Even though I think the study can be further elaborated by differentiating the activity types and the level of mental effort necessary. For example, he says that it's probably better to focus on your commute time even though it's one of the most annoying tasks to do but I think we also need to consider productivity and time.

In the end I'd say that defining happiness is both simple and difficult. We can't generalize and apply the same theory to everyone because every single person has his/her own definition of happiness (we can write a whole essay on those different criteria!). For me the most important thing is to figure out what makes me happy and share that with others through compassion and empathy. After all, if we can't assure personal happiness, it's almost impossible to make anyone else around us happy.

Life will Happen but Resilience is the Key

Last two weeks or so have been extremely tumultuous, too much happened. I wonder whether it works the same way for everyone else, but my life has always been like this - it's either a series of positive events or negative events in a row. However, this time it's slightly different, my good and bad days took turn alternatively, making it look like a sine curve. 

I don't think I properly slept for a month with so much stress and anxiety resulting from uncertainty. After so much happened over two weeks, I feel everything - happy and sad, excited but stressed, relieved but anxious - all at the same time. I've always had this issue that my brain doesn't rest, it's constantly thinking and active. I was reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage today, and one quote about Lovelace's life sounded like it could be me too (of course she was WAY more genius!).  Lovelace died of cancer at an early age of 36. Florence Nightingale wrote to her friend of her death - 

"They said she couldn't possibly have lived long, were it not for the tremendous vitality of the brain, that would not die."

The way my brain stays restless, it might make it difficult for me when I'm in death bed. Anyway, I learned quite a bit about Lovelace and Babbage today. I got the book as a goodbye present from the Oxford e-Research Centre folks and reading all the lovely messages inside warmed up my heart again, especially the one from Terhi. I really admire her, such an amazing person!

I wanted to have some relaxed time this weekend so that I could possibly start the next week feeling less overwhelmed. I painted last weekend, couldn't make it this time, but I exercised, read book, baked, socialized with some old friends (!! it's rare I know!) and listened to music. Sounds pretty great but unfortunately as life goes, there were unhappy events too that left me feeling stressed even after doing all those fun activities. However, just to focus on the good part for now - I was notified about two awards two weeks in a row! I wasn't really expecting anything as they're quite competitive, so that made me quite happy and boosted up my confidence level little bit. I was feeling low lately, so I needed that. The awards are ASIS&T New Leaders Award and DLF Forum New Professionals Fellowship. Anyway, since I don't get to share my happy news with dad anymore, I don't really express my emotions much. It's always a mixed feeling that makes me happy and depressed. My friend David Tully was funny when I shared the news. He couldn't believe that I had a straight face while giving an excited news (but I think he's learning that that's how I mostly am! :p). 

Last three years have been pretty difficult for me, especially last one year since I left UIUC campus and friends. Getting settled in a new place, dental treatment mishap, losing all my belongings in Canada, having to go home twice, visa stuff, having to move twice in less than a year, remaining friends' leave - so many stressful events happened one after another that I felt like I'm stuck in a cursed cycle. On top of that, countless failures were only gravitating me towards depression and low self-confidence. 

The struggle isn't over yet and I know it'll never be. But I've learned not to give up even though everything else seem to go wrong. I believe if we want something with our whole heart and if it's the right fit, nothing can stop us from achieving it. Well, when I say nothing it still means considering other external factors that we've no control over. For example, as an international student/employee my life is 150% more difficult than any U.S. citizen or PR. We can't avoid the reality but we're also here because we're some of the very bests in our country, which means we just have to find the right option and prove we're the best fit. It's easy being said but much difficult in reality. However, I won't stop fighting for my dreams and as much as rejection hurts, I'm trying to be more receptive, because when we dream big failure will be a part of it and we should take it as a push to improve ourselves and overcome all the barriers. 

I met a grandpa yesterday and he called me a piece of diamond and despite his seniority he didn't hesitate to tell me how much he admires the people who are ambitious and work hard. I know I still have to go long way to actually prove my worth but his words gave me courage. Guess I just need to keep trying.