This year has been hard but this past month? The hardest yet. That’s why I’ve been quiet here. I didn’t have the energy or the headspace to write. But tonight, I’m writing to feel a little more sane, to let some of it out. This won’t be a dog-focused post, just a heads-up!

My PhD journey is finally nearing the end. I’m excited about my research. I really am. But the bureaucracy, the constant financial stress, they’ve drained my motivation. Recently, I found out I won’t be teaching this summer, which means I won’t be paid for four months. FOUR ENTIRE MONTHS WITHOUT ANY INCOME for our household…

My husband is still job hunting. He applies every day. He has a PhD, multiple certifications, and he’s still upskilling. And yet, we’re met with rejection after rejection. It wears you down. We both work so hard, and still it feels like we’re not allowed to move forward.

I’m finishing my PhD, pet-sitting to pay the bills, and constantly on the move—on foot, by bus, carrying supplies across town, often outdoors all day. By the time I get home, I’m too exhausted to even glance at my dissertation. Let alone keep up with the blog or social media. I love what I do but loving it doesn’t make it easy.

Amid all this, I’m so proud of Cookie. She’s been a calm, patient presence through all the chaos. She’s learning to stay grounded in new environments, getting braver around other dogs. We never miss a training session. We walk every day. We play every day. Even when I’m too tired, she seems to understand. She just curls up beside me and waits.

Spring brought a moment of hope, flowers blooming, trees waking up. For a while, I stayed positive. But lately, the fear is louder again. The fear of not finding work. The looming possibility of having to leave this country and go back home. It’s complicated. We miss our family and friends. In some ways, we want to be close to them. But we also know there’s no future for us there, professionally or personally. The job market is even worse. And politically, it’s a dead end.

Immigrating, living in limbo—it’s brutal. You feel guilty for leaving. Then you feel guilty for enjoying even a sliver of your new life, knowing your loved ones can’t share it with you. So, you work, stay home, deny yourself joy. You don’t live fully here, and yet you haven’t saved enough to support anyone back home either. And then reality hits: You might have to leave now, and you haven’t lived… This is a world that’s increasingly hostile to immigrants. We’re stuck, floating between places, not truly belonging anywhere.

Five years ago, I arrived here on a prestigious scholarship. People envied it, congratulated me. I believed I’d stay, build an academic career, maybe move into NGO work. Now, that same scholarship program has been shut down. Many universities have frozen hiring, especially for internationals.

There’s a war happening and the world barely blinks. People are dying and we carry on with our lives. It’s surreal.

Everything can change in an instant. Lives can end in an instant…

Most mornings now, I just grab my coffee, step outside, and sit on the balcony to listen to the birds. I don’t know how long I’ll have this, this peaceful little ritual. So, I hold on to it while I still can.

I’m grateful to be here with my husband and my dog. We’re healthy. We’re still standing. And we’ll keep standing, no matter what’s next. We love deeply and we try, in every way we can, to help others, people, animals, the planet. That’s what we’ll keep doing for as long as we can.