Absent…

This is for the benefit of my non-existing readership: sorry for not updating for almost a week now. Will admit, got lazy – was hoping I could use “being busy” as an excuse, but that’s definitely not been the case. However, the exciting news is that I will soon be upgrading this blog with all the “cool” features I have been cooking up in my brain – might have to port this site to another blogging website, namely Wordpress. But, that will all happen only after I wrap up this one report I’m writing up for my supervisor… so be patient!

At the desk…

Today’s photograph is less of a metaphor and more of a direct picture of what I was upto all day. Once I got into the flow of work last night (Thursday night), I figured I might as well ride the focus and energy for all its worth. In other words, I pulled an all-nighter working on research.

Yes, I was at my desk all night, and later this morning moved to a table in the SUB to work alongside Hasnain. The index cards you see on the desk is pretty much what I was working away at –breaking up current research journals and articles (there’s a paper peeking out in the picture too) into small chunks that I can then rearrange and organize to interpret in a manner more relevant to my own research.

Having said that, I should probably crash now! Have an early morning tomorrow – work at the SUB, and it’s early registration, so the building’s going to be packed and it’s critical I open it up in time. Can’t promise a post for tomorrow, but work at the SUB is pretty much all that’s on the agenda anyway!

TODAY’S DIET: Daal and rice for lunch (thanks Hasnain!), donair for dinner (yes, I caved – was too lazy to prepare something for myself, so I ordered in!).

Branches…

During one of my walks today (I get around everywhere walking around here), I had an idea that I’d like to experiment with on this blog. Rather than a mundane recollection of the day’s events and activities, I will take a random photograph on that very day, and attempt to make a metaphor from it in order to relate my day to you all. Not sure if it’s sustainable, or even makes for an interesting approach, but let’s give it a shot – comments are welcome (lol – that’s assuming I have a readership!).

Today was all about branches… more specifically, the social branches in my life. The social creatures that we are, our social contacts and networks are extensions of our lives. It wasn’t a highly productive or highly unproductive day, but I tended to some of my branches. Met up with a friend of mine who came down from Moncton, Sarah Singh. Had lunch together and caught up since we last met (over a month ago)… good lunch, great conversation! After that, it was off to Kumaran’s lab for an interview we had for SmartSkin (will explain that in another post someday). Met up with the rest of the team, shared some laughs, talked about ideas and the next steps we’re all working on. And last but not least, walked downtown for a coffee with Praveen – good friend of mine also doing his Master’s in Electrical Engineering here. A good long 2 hours of random chit chat, and made some plans for the rest of the summer as well.

Overall, a wonderfully enriching day – important to tend to these branches, or else they start withering away. Speaking of which, saw two of my friends while walking back after coffee – two people who I used to hang out with all the time during my early undergrad years, but now have lost touch for so long that it’s just “Hi – how are you? I’m fine, thanks. See you later".” now. Sad, but it happens I guess.

That’s all for today :). Hope the metaphor worked. What’s tomorrow going to be? Hopefully packed tight with hyper-productivity – need to really get in the flow of research work and get this thing going!

TODAY’S DIET: Fajitas (quite healthy actually), iced tea (sugar!!), black coffee, chicken salad sandwich (6” sub) and clam chowder soup. Bit expensive today, since it was all outside food… will have to make up for it on another day.

All Work…

Like I warned in my previous post, not much to report for today… worked from 2:30pm till 12 midnight at Sodexho serving tables for a conference dinner hosted by IAGS. I already work in the Student Union Building (venue) as Sub Staff, so now I was on the other side – the annoying caterers! It was easy though – just refill glasses, take away plates, move dirty dishes, etc.

Did learn two interesting things about my interests in the opposite sex though… I’ve already suspected this for a while, but now it’s confirmed – I definitely have a thing for older women! There was a mix of both young and older members of the opposite sex, but only the older ones could interest me at all! And the next thing I learned is – I love tattoos on women on the leg (around calf/ankle area)! Really sexy in my opinion.

While walking yesterday, I had some great ideas about what to do with this blog, and make it more interesting than just another online journal… it will still be that, but presented in a much more entertaining fashion. Just let me get into the groove of things properly, so I can spend some more time on the blog. Just give me around 2 weeks, and this Project’s going to be lots of fun to follow! (and will also make it more visually appealing – this definitely does not look like a web designer’s blog)

TODAY’S DIET: Chicken caesar salad roll, steak, stir fried vegetables, stuffed zucchini, baby potatoes… and best of all, this was all compliments of Sodexho! In other words, absolutely no money spent today!

(Apologies for the terrible formatting of yesterday’s post – now fixed – when emailing the post from the Blackberry, it comes out looking terrible… will avoid that from now on)

Getting in the groove...

Today wasn't as productive as I'd hoped, but it was definitely more
productive than yesterday. It started with an early morning coffee
from Tim Horton's with Hasnain, and I got right down to my research work in the office.

After much consideration of how to organize my research, I came up with the following technique:

• Go through readings in reverse chronology
• Take notes on specified subtopics for each reading (since the kind of research I'm doing has sort of a specified template to follow in the related journal articles) on separate index cards [I did this using software instead since it makes it much easier to transfer the info to a typed document]
• Maintain a mindmap for each article read guiding how it references it other articles
• Once you've gone through each paper, you can arrange the topic by subtopic and study the different trends in current research from different sources
• Use the mindmaps of references to guide further reading in different branches

This worked out great, but the going was slow - barely got through one paper when my energy started waning. So after that I wasted some time surfing for different desktop clients for twittering and blogging (posts coming up on that soon). When I realized I wasn't going to get much more work done for the day, I decided to give up and went out for an hour's walk.

Once I got back home, took a shower and ate some food. Then, got to rearranging the room some more - made more space for myself, and even made my lazy boy usable again (currently writing on my Blackberry from there)!

Finally, met up with Shawn - bought a white shirt to work for Sodexho for a formal event tomorrow, and headed to his place to play some Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. And now I'm back here updating the blog from the Berry.

What's up for tomorrow? Continue work on the literature review for research and then working for Sodexho serving people @ a dinner. Not much planned for tomorrow, so don't expect much of an update - and my "Grocery Analysis" will have to be put off for just a bit.

TODAY'S DIET: 1 tomato + egg sandwich, glass of milk, bowl of cereal, 2 cups of black coffee (no sugar, no milk)

(NOTE: this post will be updated with links and better formatting once I'm back in the office in the morning and have access to a proper computer)

Preparations

So it's day one of the summer project... not a highly productive day, but some key preparations underway. First of, my room is finally livable again! There were clothes strewn all over the place (that too all clean - was in a hurry since I did laundry on the day I was leaving Fredericton for NY!), and garbage bags (full of garbage!) stashed in a corner. After folding and putting them away, I cleaned up the place just a bit... an organized environment goes a long way to making one productive.

Next up was groceries - since I've moved into this room, I've not cooked at all - just eggs so far. Hasnain and Elma took me to the Coop to buy groceries - I was literally bouncing off the walls looking at how cheap everything was! Nevertheless, in all my excitement, I bought more than what was on the grocery list, and landed a bill of about $200!!! But that should sustain me for the month, given that I plan to be on a diabetic's diet.

After much thought, I realized that I needed to remove access to the internet from my home for some of my "offline" activities planned for the summer... surfing the net or watching online TV is just too tempting a prospect at home! First, I was going to get rid of my computer altogether, but then I had a flash of genius... remove the VGA cable to my monitor and stash it in my office! So yes, now I only have internet connection from the office - which means that after work is done and I head home, I am forced to indulge myself in "offline" activities.

Not much done, but it's just the first day. What's on the agenda for tomorrow? Attempting to crack a very difficult problem in the arena of research: "How to efficiently and effectively track the research literature one has read?" I've already done a literature review, but it is now time to review that work and flesh out my review into a proper thesis proposal, so I need to figure out a way to organize all the ideas and facts presented in the literature without having to remember everything all at once. That will be the first order of the day... and after that is "Grocery Analysis" - stay tuned for that!

Oh yeah, a daily section in the post:
TODAY'S DIET: Instant noodles (hot & spicy), two tomato sandwiches (made of only tomato, and a very light splattering of mayonnaise). It would've been alright had it not been for the Faluda + Ice Cream @ Hasnain's at night!!! That was like death in a cup for me! But no worries, will redeem myself tomorrow.

Another occasional section:
TODAY'S QUOTABLE QUOTE: (about his gym instructor) "He doesn't touch gayishly, he touches like a man!"