Week 4
Yes, the year has started. I guess I survived the blue monday without much damage, but I had to do a lot of thinking not to get worked up about things, nor disenchanted about yet another year where things seem to follow their natural flow. Since expecting different results when doing the same things may be considered a sign of madness, I decided to take a step back and change a few things – realizing this will need to be done constantly, and not in one shot.
Academically speaking the week started with a somewhat disappointing news from a conference – although, yes, it was a long shot, and more promising news on the article that I am working on regarding prejudice. Reviewed the last version and we seem to have something solid for submission – let’s see how it goes! The thesis work is ongoing now, and the first scripts in Python are running and I guess I have somewhat of an idea of where to go next. Much optimization ahead… but fun nonetheless.
Work-wise things are fine, and taking a step back and focusing on the basics is helping. Some high-powered, intense meetings towards the end of the week may not have helped me start a relaxed weekend, but gave me enough food for thought to try and see whether I want to show that I am always right, or whether being more tactical is at times better. Let’s see how the next week goes. And the week showed me that, while I love to work on a focused manner, I still enjoy a lot workshops and presenting or discussing with several people – and we could get to quite good results this week with that.
Moreover:
- Got some new fishes and plants for the aquarium, after a long hiatus. Never mind that one of the fishes already died, it’s nice to do something outside of the PC (or of the walking the dog) routine from time to time;
- Several ideas for decoration, but little time to get them executed. In any case more DYI coming soon;
- Impressed by this video about the iPhone Economy and its impact on the job market (and social divide) in the US. It’s easy to try and disregard this, but the stats are quite clear (as the dataviz aspect of it).
Week 3
Third week already in full steam, and Outlook work calendar looking as busy as ever. Amazing how just one more week is sufficient for one already to start doubting some new year’s resolutions. But in any case I’ve kept mine, for the most part 
Academically speaking, having a class twice a week is indeed too much, especially when considering assignments from a week to the same week. Easy to conciliate with work, eh, excuse me? Nonetheless the first deadline – review of an academic article – has been met and somehow it is comforting to see someone else’s draft prior to publication. Talk about a rough gem.
Saturday wasn’t at all that productive, but Sunday was good for some thesis planning, and getting started with AWS and Python using boto. Yet far and far away from where I need to be (SSH connection refused anyone?) but at least is a start. And a game plan is ready for the upcoming week(s).
Work-wise all is getting busier and busier, and time to prioritize has come. Great projects going on, nonetheless, and it is an exciting time to be where I am. Lots of talking, lots of training, lots of creating new things. The only reason to complain, I guess, is not having enough hours on a 36-hour week.
Other than that:
- My oven now decided to short-circuit the entire house (fun!) and needed to be checked by a technician. Solution is… in the air for now. Still need to find a a specific part – and I am in need for non-oven recipes!
- Started – and somehow kept the rhythm – to do 10 sun salutations a day. Goooo Yoga. Would have just been better not to do them at 3 am in the morning, but what can one do when one has insomnia?
- Tested a few project management tools for the thesis and concluded that… I will use Evernote anyway.
Week 2
Second week of the year has already gone by, and activity is starting to pick up again.
Work related activities have resumed in their always fast pace, but I’ve been managing to keep at least a good balance and step back from things. Some planning has been completed, and lots of meetings scheduled. Let’s see for how long I can keep the commitment of no more than 5 meetings a day. By looking at the calendar, it may not last long, but…
Academically speaking it was quite a productive week. Final paper with research design was delivered, and at the same time the effort helped me refine the hypotheses and literature review. Whereas the result is a far cry from what my thesis should be, at least I start having a general idea of what I don’t know and what I need to go after. The upcoming Research Workshop about academic articles is opening up a new realm of possibilities – and showing me new paths for things I have done differently in the past when submitting articles (and struggling while doing it).
And…
- Started with the 30 day cleaning routine suggested by Apartment Therapy. Looking good so far.
- Loved this article on how to have the best year of your life (stolen from Dani’s Twitter stream)
- A little bit bummed out that my yoga books by Iyengar were left in Brazil, but started reading something along the same lines via Kindle. And hopefully I can get back on track.
Week 1
Trying to start a new tradition. Let’s see where I end up.
New Years Eve - third year going to Loveland – very close to our place, which is convenient. This time, however, the music quality started to make me wonder if the focus on convenience hasn’t been exaggerated this time.
Research – the thesis proposal, aligned with a final paper I need to deliver on research designs is going well although yet unfinished. The topic will definitely be diffusion of information on social network sites, which opens a great door to sharpen (or rather develop from scratch?) my skills on data mining and data analysis. Definitely more to come on that.
And…
- Started the year with some level of house cleanup – not yet at the level I want. But several things are (or have been) donated. Declutterization process started!
- Amazed by the utility of Zotero, particularly when combined to Chrome and WebDAV backup. Definitely a keeper, and more stable than Mendeley (let’s of course not even mention EndNote)
- Agenda for January is defined. Even with pt days the rhythm will be intense. Let’s hope for the best.
and now… testing a cron job
Posted by theo in rants & notes on 09/08/2009
this is turning out to be quite a geeky sunday!
ultraintegration test 4
Posted by theo in rants & notes on 09/08/2009
testing a routine that would post to blog via email, and then to
twitter via plugin, and then to facebook via twitter app.
2.1v9
Posted by flickr in rants & notes on 09/08/2009
You know you’ve reached 29 (or, being more accurate, the 9th version of your 21 years) when, from a ‘ technical perspective’, you:
- When people started talking about blogs, all you could remember was your geocities page (in the Paris neighborhood) and could not really understand what was all that fuss about HTML being difficult (granted now you don’t even bother to look into code anymore – it’s just too low level detail and you have better things to do).
- When people now talk about social media, all you can think of is that you cannot really remember all the accounts you’ve created in so many services (most of them now extinct). Though now you have your social media morning routine (check twitter, then a quick look at facebook, then email and once a week orkut – well, brazilians…)
- At a given point of your life, the amount of colors (counted by the hundreds, not the milions) that your monitor had was something really important to be aware of
- At that same given point of your life, all you wanted is to know how to create a file. In Wordstar. In a PC XT.
- As a matter of fact, you’ve seen an Amiga, more than one MSX and worked on PC-XT’s, and not as part of an assignment on a museum somewhere for old computers.
- Programming databases was fun. In DBase IV (Plus!). Now you’re pretty sure someone in elance can help you out should you decide not to live with out of the box solutions
- You’re absolutely unimpressed with the discussions that surround new versions of operating systems. Anyone that could do something in DOS can find their way in other OS’ (ok, for Linux you may need some help from a few tech-savvier friends)
- You’ve been wanting the ultimate PDA for so long that you give in and start thinking an iPhone may be good enough for the time being. And maybe all this talk about tablets will bring something actually useful somewhere in the future.
And finally, you regard yourself as someone from Generation Y/Next from the 80′s, but, from a technical perspective, you were born in the 70s, you old GenXer.
for the love of gardening
i don’t know if i actually like gardening, or like the idea of liking gardening. but nonetheless the house is now full of plants, and a few more will come during the next few weeks.
seems like another one of the hobbies or things i did with my family during childhood that i am picking up again. other than that i am back to my “nature explorer” phase, walking in woods and parks with my dog, and taking a stab at playing the piano – though this last one is really a very long shot.