Day 103: A day off…
I’ve got a lot going on, but today is a day off. It’s important to take time for yourself so when you need to do the work, you actually do the work. I’m sure we’ve all felt that way, where you force yourself to do something and spend 4+ hours doing something that you could do in less than an hour. Sometimes you need a break.
Day 102: Finals ahead!
Well it’s that time of year again, finals! On one hand I’m excited at the prospect of being done with the term, on the other I’m a notoriously bad test taker. I deal with a lot of anxiety you see and even when I know how to solve the problem, come test day I end up drawing a blank or making very stupid mistakes. Standardized tests are the bane of my existence!!
Day 101: Holiday
Well today is thanksgiving, not a holiday I celebrate, but I’m happy to have the day off at least. I’ll be taking the day to get some work done and relax some. Deadlines are coming so I can’t take the whole day to myself, but at least it’s a low stress day.
Until next time, don’t stop learning!
Day 100: Graduating lab members
Image from: xkcd.com
Wow, time flies, we’re already on day 100. Still not half way done, but it certainly doesn’t feel like 100 days of writing. Today has been a busy day, which is why I’m writing so late. With the end of the term comes other projects that need to be addressed, namely my qualifying exam, final exams, and other lab members having their Ph.D defense. Yep, we have not one, not two, but three people defending their Ph.D this term.
Day 99: Data request, a update
Sometimes emails can still be exciting!
I’ve got news! In my last post on the subject I said that I wasn’t expecting a response from the lab I was requesting data from until Monday, if at all. Well would you believe I got a response! It wasn’t a “here’s the data response,” but it is progress. Let me explain why.
Day 98: Laptop troubles
Well it finally happened. My laptop looks pretty dead. Right now I have it in pieces while I try to figure out what went wrong with it. Thankfully I have a desktop computer that I use for all my heavy computing as a back up. Just one more expense I guess, I should be grateful that it wasn’t something more serious like the hard drive going out.
So short post, I know, but I have to get this fixed or find some sort of resolution since my laptop is an important part of how I get work done. I’ll have a longer post tomorrow, but for now I think that is it.
Until next time, don’t stop learning!
Day 97: Neural network models
Today should be an interesting day for me. I plan to do a deep dive into the world of neural networks to better understand how they work and the best type to apply to my data. There are a few, quite a few in fact that I could use and really it depends on how I want to frame my problem, so let’s look at what I’ve got planned.
Day 96: The art of requesting data
I have some data. This shouldn’t be news, I’ve been talking about how I’m trying to train a model to predict an output using this data and all the woes that have come from the training process. Turns out I have a problem, well more like questions that need answers and for that I need help.
Day 95: Housework day
If only it was super effective!!!!!!
So far things have been non-stop and today is no exception. I have a lot of housework to do and balancing that work with my school work (all while still trying to find time to relax some) is difficult. Nevertheless today is housework day (mostly).
Day 94: Paper formatting
Ugh!! After over six weeks my paper was rejected becuase it didn’t fall in line with what the editor wanted. This is frustrating because each journal has different formatting requirements and you cannot submit to multiple journals at once so we need to sit and wait.
Day 93: QE date is set… again!
Exciting news!!!!! Well as you can tell from the title, my qualifying exam date is set. After some time emailing back and forth I finally just sent out a doodle poll to get everyone to vote on what time would work best for them. Last night, my last committee member added their availability to the poll and with that, I have a new time and date!
Day 92: Missed meetings…
As you may be aware, I am planning an experiment! Cue upbeat music Unfortunately record scratch I’m nowhere near ready. It’s been a process for sure and we are (maybe?) back on track to get started soon. Today I had a meeting scheduled with my PI to discuss the details, but…
Day 91: Did that really just happen?
Screw you auto update
For those of you following along, I’ve been trying to crack a predictive model using some novel (read: super secret PhD work) neural data. It’s been a journey and I’ve trained and tested about a dozen or so models, with varying success. Things have been flying pretty smooth the past few weeks as I try to create the best model I could possibly create. Unfortunately, technology had other plans for me.
Day 90: Memory
I have a lot of memorization to do these days. Things that are important , steps to set things up, new biology, new techniques, new, new, new… well you get the point. Memorization is the bain of my existence. It’s not even a matter of not wanting to memorize something, it’s just old war wounds, no really.
Day 89: The stress of life
Today I get to play catch up. I’m running on not a lot of sleep, but there is so much to be done it isn’t funny. Ironically enough, it’s not all school either. I have life things catching up with me, car repairs that I need to do, house things, you know the usual day to day things that pile up despite our best efforts.
Day 88: Experimental Headaches
EEG cap
I’ve talked about my impending deadlines a lot lately. I also mentioned that I had an experiment that I needed to do to meet a deadline, well it looks like we may or may not meet this goal. Let’s talk about the latest headaches.
Day 87: Classifier progress
Well it’s been an interesting experience. I’ve been working hard to train a binary classifier to predict the two classes in my data. There has been a lot of ups and downs and more importantly, there has been some progress. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a start, so let’s look at what I’ve got so far and where I’m headed.
Day 86: Or maybe not…
Even my cat doesn’t like the news.
Last post I had triumphantly declared that I had scheduled my QE date…. wellllllll maybe not. I had a last minute email from one of my committee members saying they had another obligation that day that they had forgotten about. So today let’s talk about why that is okay, even though it isn’t really.
Day 85: My QE date is set
Sometimes you need to get… a head. See what I did there?
Well it happened, the date for my qualifying exam has been set. I’m nervous, I’m excited, I’m mostly just anxious to get it done. Quite frankly I’m exhausted, so it will be nice to get one thing off my to-do list. Let’s look at how I need to get ready.
Day 84: Model training progress
Two dimensional data is easier to visualize than 202 dimensional data.
I don’t normally leave my computer on 24 hours a day, but it has been hard a work, so it hasn’t been off in days. Training a model can take some time, as I am finding out and while I’ve made progress on the resulting model, it’s still not where I want it. Let’s talk about what has been going on.
Day 83: An unexpected gift
I’ll let you in on a secret, I’ve been doing science outreach on a regular basis for the past 3-4 years now. Specifically with Skype a scientist I’ve volunteered every term since it was pretty much first started. My secret, if not horribly kept, is this… I am ALWAYS nervous to give my talk. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it and let me explain why.
Day 82: Congrats, it’s an overfit model
There I was patiently waiting for my data to finish being processed, an hour, two, time kept moving as did the little animation letting me know that the algorithm was still doing its thing. Then it was done, I had a new, more complete model and it was glorious… until it wasn’t.
Day 81: Creating a Model
Today is going to be a long day. I’m training a model using some data I’ve collected. Now, depending on your background that sentence either meant something to you or was complete gibberish. In either case, let’s talk about what I’m doing, even though I can’t get into specifics about my data.
Day 80: Experimental Design
I have funding for an experiment. Well let me rephrase, I’ve had funding for an experiment. It’s new, it’s exciting, it’s everything I wanted it to be… but there is a catch. My PI and I don’t see eye to eye regarding the experimental protocol. It’s not a matter of a fledgling PhD student thinking he knows better, he is well know for losing sight of the big picture in favor of collecting as much data as he possibly can.
Day 79: QE update
As promised from last post, I have an update regarding my QE. This will be brief, but there are a few final things I need to get done before I can do my presentation so let’s talk about that!
Day 78: The Qualifying Exam
It never occurred to me that this was unique to the American higher education system. However, when I was having a conversation with an overseas collaborator at the Bristol Robotics Lab in the UK, I got a confused response when I mentioned I was getting ready to do my qualifier.
Day 77: Sometimes life gets in the way
Well it looks like it’s another day without a post, don’t worry I’m not making it a habit, but I’ve had some personal issues come up today that I needed to deal with. Not to worry though, I’ll be back at it tomorrow.
Until next time, don’t stop learning!
Day 76: Organization
Today is going to be a busy one. Not for me exactly, but my computer will be busy cracking away at the code I wrote. Unfortunately it takes FOREVER to run, but it got me thinking about MATLAB and how we write code for everything. More to the point, it got me thinking about how I organize my files.
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Day 75: Deadlines in Academia
Getting a PhD is a weird process. Sometimes it seems like everything is falling apart and somehow (hopefully) it comes together in the end. To that point, in an academic setting, deadlines tend to group together. For instance I have not one, not two, not three, not even four, but five deadlines coming up back to back. Today, let’s talk about why that is in my case.
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Day 74: Finding your motivation
You don’t want to do it. I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t want to do it either. So what do you do when the work is piling up and the weight of things in your to do box is so massive that you feel like you can’t move? Well first, remember you’re not alone. Next, …well that depends on you.
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Lunatic Laboratories 