How To Focus, which is of great advice to me. Guess I'll try training.
While we're in the mood for goals, here are mine for today:
go quick grocery shopping
Pack up 1/2 living room
Pack up all of den
Sort bedroom into books and clothes
Pack bedroom books
Not more laundry tonight, but I'd say start packing the clean clothes into the suitcase.
boil eggs
boil corn
bake potatoes
eat peaches
do 2 or 3 quick dishes
watch Star Wars episode 6
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Monday, July 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Ambitions
Drowning in work, as usual. Not going to see the Twin this weekend as a result :( but Midterms are next week and if I am lucky, I will be in a good state after that.
Twin and I talked a bit about how my program seems front-loaded--right now, everything is quite difficult and time-essential; but once I'm done with classes, I set my own schedule and have flexibility and so it gets easier. I always work better when I can focus on one thing at a time, very thoroughly, for a few hours straight every day for a week. Which is difficult to due when homework is due M through Th, leaving me 3 or 4 days only to do all my learning. In contrast, her program is very back-loaded; it only gets harder and more intense as time passes. Which to me seems crazily ridiculous.
I am almost interested in finding out how spinning works--I think perhaps mostly because when I become a professor, I'd like to keep a spinning wheel in my office and use it when I'm on tele-cons and holding office hours.
It would be fun. But for now it's outside my time frame. I get knitting done in class and in colloquium, but I don't have time or space or money for a new hobby.
Twin and I talked a bit about how my program seems front-loaded--right now, everything is quite difficult and time-essential; but once I'm done with classes, I set my own schedule and have flexibility and so it gets easier. I always work better when I can focus on one thing at a time, very thoroughly, for a few hours straight every day for a week. Which is difficult to due when homework is due M through Th, leaving me 3 or 4 days only to do all my learning. In contrast, her program is very back-loaded; it only gets harder and more intense as time passes. Which to me seems crazily ridiculous.
I am almost interested in finding out how spinning works--I think perhaps mostly because when I become a professor, I'd like to keep a spinning wheel in my office and use it when I'm on tele-cons and holding office hours.
It would be fun. But for now it's outside my time frame. I get knitting done in class and in colloquium, but I don't have time or space or money for a new hobby.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Speckle-tacular!
Even for me the level of stress has been high at work lately. I ended up visiting The Twin a few weeks ago for a weekend, and when I got back on Sunday I discovered that one of my profs had decided to surprise us with a lab. So on the following Monday and Tuesday I was up at the local observatory trying to figure out why the camera suddenly stopped taking images and hauling on a giant 100 year old telescope and praying that the tracking gears didn't turn off by the time we finally got things in focus. I stayed up there until 3am both nights, and we had so much trouble with some of the data that we had to trim some of the parts off the lab, but on the plus side we got some sweet images of Jupiter and resolved a lovely binary despite it being smaller than the seeing would allow.
Scientific aside:
(What I mean by that is that the atmosphere is full of fluctuations that keep you from distinguishing really small things, like two stars that are very very close together. Ie, binaries. Basically the atmosphere bumps your image around so much that you can't distinguish between a point of light that might've come from one star or a point that'd come from the other. But... there are secret methods! Speckle interferometry, specifically. You see the atmosphere is lumpy and tangled and turbulent, but it acts kind of like a whole bunch of lenses (like from your glasses) spread fairly evenly across the sky. So you can use those lenses and some statistical methods to pick out which points of light belong to which of the two stars in a binary and thus figure out how far apart they are! fun!)
Anyway, the Wednesday after that was the day before a large homework set was due so I stayed up until 4am finishing it. Thursday night I started working on the huge set due on Monday, but I also had to plan the picnic, which took up all of Friday and Saturday. Sunday I came in and worked until 3am, Monday until 4am. Tuesday I got home by 2am, and last night (this morning) by 4am.
So basically, sleep deprivation is prevalent, and now I have to start a new lab, a proposal, and a homework set.
It's very strange, though. Once I finish a homework set (especially a big one like I just turned in), a great calm envelopes me. It's cathartic--just letting go and being free. Even if I have a ton of other stuff piling up around me, for a few minutes anyway I feel rested and relaxed.
This weekend I am going to buy a cheap, small laptop from someplace like walmart or AT&T or something. we're talking $200, for reals now.
Scientific aside:
(What I mean by that is that the atmosphere is full of fluctuations that keep you from distinguishing really small things, like two stars that are very very close together. Ie, binaries. Basically the atmosphere bumps your image around so much that you can't distinguish between a point of light that might've come from one star or a point that'd come from the other. But... there are secret methods! Speckle interferometry, specifically. You see the atmosphere is lumpy and tangled and turbulent, but it acts kind of like a whole bunch of lenses (like from your glasses) spread fairly evenly across the sky. So you can use those lenses and some statistical methods to pick out which points of light belong to which of the two stars in a binary and thus figure out how far apart they are! fun!)
Anyway, the Wednesday after that was the day before a large homework set was due so I stayed up until 4am finishing it. Thursday night I started working on the huge set due on Monday, but I also had to plan the picnic, which took up all of Friday and Saturday. Sunday I came in and worked until 3am, Monday until 4am. Tuesday I got home by 2am, and last night (this morning) by 4am.
So basically, sleep deprivation is prevalent, and now I have to start a new lab, a proposal, and a homework set.
It's very strange, though. Once I finish a homework set (especially a big one like I just turned in), a great calm envelopes me. It's cathartic--just letting go and being free. Even if I have a ton of other stuff piling up around me, for a few minutes anyway I feel rested and relaxed.
This weekend I am going to buy a cheap, small laptop from someplace like walmart or AT&T or something. we're talking $200, for reals now.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Fall
Autumn has come at last. The fall air closes its crisp mouth over the auburn and cinnamon leaves. Outside, decades of pine needles lay gathered like straw colored hair, sweetening in the sun. The air without sun has a bite to it, and the air full of sun is yellow as sunset, waiting for winter to gather.
Last week at my food coop I got apple cider, more broccoli than you can shake a stick at, honey, 2 lbs of apples, 2 lbs of potatoes, sprouts, and bibb lettuce. oh, and a pumpkin!
too bad I can't make pie out of it--it's too big. But I will carve it and roast its seeds and love it and call it George.
In other news: homework eats me alive. I have to finish a huuuuge lab report for Tuesday, and a huuuuge homework set for Monday. And then there's the weekly medium-huge homework set for Thursday, and meetings galore, my flu shot this week, I need to reduce data from my thesis, I should write letters and call people, mail packages, get kittens, go shopping, go to the halloween party, clean and organize my apartment, study, learn, study some more.... oh, did I mention I started my research? It looks pretty neat! But you know, more time.
(I think my head may explode. If so, remember that I love you all and I am made of candy)
Last week at my food coop I got apple cider, more broccoli than you can shake a stick at, honey, 2 lbs of apples, 2 lbs of potatoes, sprouts, and bibb lettuce. oh, and a pumpkin!
too bad I can't make pie out of it--it's too big. But I will carve it and roast its seeds and love it and call it George.
In other news: homework eats me alive. I have to finish a huuuuge lab report for Tuesday, and a huuuuge homework set for Monday. And then there's the weekly medium-huge homework set for Thursday, and meetings galore, my flu shot this week, I need to reduce data from my thesis, I should write letters and call people, mail packages, get kittens, go shopping, go to the halloween party, clean and organize my apartment, study, learn, study some more.... oh, did I mention I started my research? It looks pretty neat! But you know, more time.
(I think my head may explode. If so, remember that I love you all and I am made of candy)
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Adventurous
I think goals and dreams are both important things to have. And I want to learn to push my boundaries, to challenge myself. So heretofore, before I leave for Graduate School, I am going to try something new:
Knitting Goal for Summer 2009: I want to try double-pointed needles to knit in the round. Probably a hat in that lovely paprika color, or maybe some socks.
Cooking Goal for Summer 2009: I want to find and bake one recipe off of TasteSpotting, that most delicious of websites. Maybe with lemon curd. Lemon curd sounds delicious.
Writing Goal for Summer 2009: I want to submit my poetry with intent to publish. R. says it's ready--it would be nice to see it show up somewhere.
Astronomy Goal for Summer 2009: I want to buy and read The Physical Universe by Shu.
and, for fun, Nerdy Goal for Summer 2009: finish either Okami or Final Fantasy X.
There. I feel productive.
Knitting Goal for Summer 2009: I want to try double-pointed needles to knit in the round. Probably a hat in that lovely paprika color, or maybe some socks.
Cooking Goal for Summer 2009: I want to find and bake one recipe off of TasteSpotting, that most delicious of websites. Maybe with lemon curd. Lemon curd sounds delicious.
Writing Goal for Summer 2009: I want to submit my poetry with intent to publish. R. says it's ready--it would be nice to see it show up somewhere.
Astronomy Goal for Summer 2009: I want to buy and read The Physical Universe by Shu.
and, for fun, Nerdy Goal for Summer 2009: finish either Okami or Final Fantasy X.
There. I feel productive.
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