A friend along the way

I have been warned from the first day of my PhD that it is going to be one long isolated journey, and I have to be aware of it in order not to "disappear". 

This post is mainly about feeling gratitude, to be part of a university that first pushes the boundaries of academic research (PhD is not as boring as people might think!), and second offers a great deal of activities and programs to enrich any student's experience. One program is of "Mentoring scheme" for PhD candidates. You apply, you get matched with a partner (or mentee), and then you start a relationship that at its worst is a formal one that mainly dedicated to give guide throughout a year with free coffee vouchers, or at its best is a friendship that will change your life. 

I have been blessed to be matched with Yakub, though our topics of research are very contradicting, but we are of rebellious souls, we can't join the flow so we aspire to have one of our own! 

We aim to meet once a month, talk about life, life with PhD, art with PhD and everything in between! He has been a source of inspiration ever since we started, not to mention the empowering positive energy that he gives me every time we share good-coffee-talk! 

When we were asked of a word that describes our relationship so far; we couldn't find one in the dictionary, so we created one: 

 

metapalibelious! (you can see the Mary Poppins effect!) 

meta/ from metaphysics (subjects that I am into)

pali/ from palimpsest (subject Yakub is into) 

elious/ from rebellious (our personality approach for research problem)