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Dear 2020

Dear 2020, you were definitely not the year most of us wanted or asked for as we were bidding 2019 farewell, but here you are. I’m grateful though, very grateful. I really wouldn’t have learned any of the things I know now if it weren’t for the curveballs this year has thrown my way. As the saying goes, ‘fine weather never made a skilled sailor’. It’s true, as cliché as it sounds. (Although I still sometimes wish none of us needed stormy weather to become savvy sailors.) Below are some of the critical things I learned from this year, but also some of the key takeaways from a recent workshop I attended with my HDR peers and new graduates. It was also fortunate that two senior academics, who were also PhD supervisors, were able to join us to share their postgraduate journeys and the different forms of ‘disruption’ that they had to navigate through. Why am I sharing this now, at the end of the year? It’s because although most students have finished their semester and exams are slowly concluding too, a lot of HDR students like me will need to be mindful that we give ourselves a chance to have a proper break during the summer break even though we can be silently plugging away with our writing and work.

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