Back in March, I had a really terrible week. My paper got rejected and I realized I wasn't going to be able to finish this semester, and the following day, my boyfriend and I broke up. It's not uncommon for a paper to be rejected, however, frustratingly, the comments I got were mostly aspects of it ...
On Monday, I took what will be my last exam for the foreseeable future. I remember things best when I write them down, so I went through the course notes and typed all the key points into a document. I was going to hand-write it (better retention) but I started and my hand started cramping up ...
My friend called me earlier today, to tell me he'd got 19/20 for a presentation he gave last week. He called me because I'd spent an evening going over it with him, helping him work out what his message was. I'm pleased with what we did - we took something that I knew very little ...
I think how you choose to spend your free time says a lot about you. Some people train for a triathlon, some people play video games, some people watch excessive amounts of TV. I knew a guy who seemed to think he could live life vicariously through the characters of TV shows. That made me ...
There's an exercise in 7 Habits where you have to list your different "roles" and things you need to do for each of them. Here are mine (in no particular order): Grad student Teaching Assistant Ski instructor President of WISE Job seeker Girlfriend Daughter Friend Skier Kickboxer Workshop creator Programmer Nice (i.e. helping other people) Blogger Information diffuser Member of tech community And I look at this list, and think, no wonder ...
I read this great article on Study Hacks recently, it's called Beyond Passion: The Science of Loving What You Do and is part of a series he's doing. In one, he was looking for people who love what they do and I marked it to come back to because that's me - I love what ...
How do you define progress? As a grad student, the weeks I spend reading papers and thinking don't feel like progress - it's the week, or day, or hour, when things start to come together that does. In going back to training, it's not the gradual improvements in fitness and energy. It's when I can train ...
I don't think I'm cut out for graduate school. I say this as someone who just spent half an hour hiding in the bathroom in tears, so take what follows with a pinch of salt. I'm not giving up quite yet. Today, my supervisor told me my work made no contribution. I admit, that I haven't exactly ...
Lately, things have been somewhat chaotic. I don't like it. It makes me stressed, overwhelmed, and unproductive. On Saturday, Treena and I headed out of town for breakfast and a chat. We caught up, and I was talking about how I had just hit this point where I was so overwhelmed I was having a hard ...
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