The Other Side of Failure

Over 5 weeks ago, I cheered on Hasebe and his team while they fought themselves out of relegation zone.  (For those still unfamiliar with relegation, it would be like moving from the Major Leagues to the Minor Leagues - a huge setback for the team collectively and individually.)  With their 3-1 win over 1899 Hoffenheim, they were safe.  It was a relief and the whole of Wolfsburg celebrated.  They even likened the feeling to that of winning the League Championship (Deustcher Meister) which went this year to Kagawa's (長谷部さんの後輩) BVB.

Source: Vfl Wolfsburg Webseite

Source: Vfl Wolfsburg Webseite

The dust settled.  The elation from that victory wore off.  Sadly, I realized that, when all was said and done, they were still losers - just not the biggest ones.

The fight for next season and its success was just beginning.

For the past 11 weeks, I have been fighting my own relegation battle. Already having to pull out of one conference due to lack of data and results, I was determined not to ruin my career by now pulling out of the second one.  After I missed my first self-imposed deadline, 5 weeks before the real deadline, I started putting in longer and longer days.  I pulled back from other activities in my life...until my life was veritably all tied up in research until I couldn't think anymore and so went home to sleep.

I just knew the sacrifices I was making would be worth it when I made my deadline.  I envisioned that after I avoided relegation, I would rejoice, rest, and then get back into the fight - knowing that even though the fight to graduation was still ahead of me, that I could do it.  (Then, even if I was still not quite a winner, at least I wasn't the biggest loser.)

The deadline was last night at 11:59 pm EDT.

Result?  I missed it.  I failed.  I'm a relegated graduate student.

After all my work, after all my effort.  All those long days and nights in the lab, the tears I've shed, the back pains and neck pains I've developed and the sleeplessness that's accompanied it all amount to?  Well, not success.  Not even one glimmer of it.  By the time I went home last night, not even my data was compiling correctly and our analysis program was fitting a curve with a straight line.  (Don't think that sounds bad?  Try driving a winding country road without turning the wheel and tell me how far you get.)

Hasebe-san told the reporters in Japan that his relegation battle was one of the hardest trials of his career but that he became a better person for it.  (This from the man who has J-League, Asian Champions League, Bundesliga, and Asian Cup champion titles under his belt) I would echo that sentiment.

In those 11 weeks, I have been overwhelmed by the quiet kindnesses of so many around me -  from people who taught me to cut glass, helped me get my nitrogen, took time to optimize my code to those who gave me support and pep talks as well as took walks with me and patiently listened to me babble on about nonsense simply because I needed to talk to someone after long hours in the lab by myself.  I cannot express my gratitude enough.  And one day, I hope to put that into an acknowledgments section of a paper, a dissertation, anything really but until then, this blog will have to suffice:

From the very bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you.  ありがとうございます、非常感謝您, vielen dank.

I sacrificed a lot for this failure.  But I can honestly say I don't regret it.  I have a lot of putting my life back together after this period.  But it's nice to decide that it's worth putting back together.  The road ahead of me is long and hard and more than ever, I don't know the end result.  But if the last 11 weeks is any indication, I won't go down without a fight.  And even if a failure, I can't say that it's all a failure.  Because I'm still moving; life keeps going; and you just never know how things will ultimately end up.