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).