Good Morning, Hope

3 min readApr 5, 2022

On March 24th, 2022 I unexpectedly received a generous donation in amount of USD 1.5K from an unknown donor who wrote his name as Prilixov Alexander to my PhD-dream crowdfunding campaign on LaunchGood: launchgood.com/phddream.

Then, about a week ago I got notified by LaunchGood to renew my payment information by uploading another new bank statements which actually I have done on January when I created the campaign. My heart was not in peace. In 2018 when I made my first crowdfunding campaign to fund my conference to East-West Center in Hawaii, I received approximately USD 5K-6K without further re-valudation.

I cried and prayed this morning after Sahur of the 4th day of Ramadan telling myself and my Creator, Ar Rahim, to let go. If the donation is meant to be for funding my PhD, it will be. Que sera sera, no? But if not, then let go.

A few days before I received that unexpected donation, actually I checked GRE and TOEFL schedule on November 2022. Beneath my heart I still have dream to apply to both Brandeis University and Kroc Institute of University of Notre Dame, so yes, GRE and TOEFL that I mentioned were for those 2 universities.

After my fajr prayer, I took my GRE and Word Power books which I have been thinking about since last night. Actually I have begun to study the math part of GRE last year and it’s almost done, but I stopped. I think I want to continue and even re-study. Plus, I need to study the other two parts: verbal test and essay writing. After that, I can review and practice TOEFL.

Whatever it takes, however difficult it is, I think I will take this path for my PhD dream. If this PhD dream is not for me, why my heart strongly believes it?

So, good morning hope…

I am sitting in my balcony to be hugged by warmhearted beautiful sunrise to wipe out my tears. It’s after I phoned my grandma…

And it’s my second sunrise for this week though I know I’m not an early riser.