Week(s) in advance: 21 December-3 Janurary

With school closed and the holidays among us, it's time to take a break.  While I hope to work on some small projects over the next couple weeks, my focus will be on having some time away from the lab.  Instead of giving constant updates that I am not working, I've decided to suspend regular posts on the blog for the next two weeks.  If matters arise I'll pass the comments along otherwise, see you in new year!

Week in review: 14-20 December

On Saturday night our lab group got together from a Christmas BBQ.  It was a nice way to wind down the week, month and year. After such an intense week a social gathering with my colleagues and friends was appropriate.

Yesterday I gave an early review of the week's activities and I don't really have too much to add.  I had a list of work I wanted to finish and I focused on these tasks.  I didn't allow myself to get distracted to sidetracked and by the end of the week I was able to attend to all my scheduled jobs.

Finish Line

A bit after my post last night I went home for a couple hour break and then headed back to school.  There's been a flurry of work and excitement in the lab the last couple of days as months of effort and planning have started to come together.  I've mentioned numerous times that I've been developing new hardware and software for soft matter experiments.  Things have been progressing nicely, but it was only this week that I started to use these tools for actual physics investigations.  And even with the best plans and preparation, there's still so much to learn from "doing".

This week I was determined to complete the experiments (or at least the first round of samples) for a journal article.  I am pleased to say I got to everything on my list.  Of course there's great potential I'll run follow-up tests next year, but I have data to look at and start slotting into a draft.  Additionally, these measurements are the first significant pieces of my thesis, which I will also start writing in the next month.

The end of today signals the start of a two week holiday period in which our university is closed.  I look forward to taking some time off, but I also hope to work from home.  In addition to the writing I mentioned above, I have data to analyse, plenty of code to fix up and I even brought a tray of electronics pieces home to keep me company at my satellite desk.  In the immediate future, it's time to rest, recover and plan out my next moves.

Late night

Today's late night post comes from my desk at school.  With less than 24 hours until the holiday break, I am trying to complete my work for the week.  Despite the hour, notice I've still rated the day a "3".  I am not upset I am still at work and in reality it's a choice to be here.  I could easy run these experiments after the break (and I might need to), but right now I have the advantage of momentum. For now I plan to take a few hour break and come back early in the morning.

Momentum

Today was full of energy.  I bounced around throughout the day as I ran samples in the lab and with an instrument on another floor in our building.  So far things are still moving forward, and I haven't fit any major bumps in the road this week.  Things don't always run this smoothly, especially with a looming deadline (such as the upcoming campus shut down).

I have a clear idea of what experiments to run tomorrow and there's a chance I might finish up my list of jobs I hoped to complete this week.  Even if I don't I still have Friday as a back up.

Moving right along

Today I loaded and ran experiments on one of the samples I prepared last week.  So far the data looks good, but I'll need to keep diving in tomorrow.  Additionally, I'll check the readings from my device with a commercial instrument tomorrow.  At the same time I'll start to look at the second sample I prepared and this is where I start to get nervous... not only should the measurements on my instrument match with the "gold standard" purchased machine, but both samples I prepared so also give the same results.  I am already prepared to remake one or both of these samples in the new year, but for now this is a great opportunity to shake out major bugs from my system.

Blur

Things moved fast today.  I spent a couple hours in the lab before heading off to volunteer.  I worked on a number of small tasks in the lab, mostly around preparing to load and test a sample tomorrow.  It was a pretty busy day and I didn't feel like I really took hold of a job before having to move on to the next one.

Week in advance: 14-20 December

With the upcoming holidays, school will be closed for two weeks and thus the next couple days in the lab are actually the last of the year.  Even though I will not have access to the university during the shut down, I will continue to work from home.  Amongst everything I have at least two manuscripts to write, a thesis to start, a talk for a conference (AMN-7) to prepare and still plenty of hardware and software jobs, but that's for next week.  This week I need to focus on tasks that can only be finished in the lab.  I have two samples I prepared last Friday that I would like to run on a couple instruments.  Additionally, any bits and pieces I want to bring home over the break I need to organise.  I know come Friday at noon we'll start to be herded off campus and tomorrow afternoon I have my regular volunteer shift.  That doesn't give me too much time so I'll need to get right into work and make the most of my days.

Week in review: 7-13 December

In addition to giving the tradition wrap-up from the week past, today I also have the pleasure of describing my afternoon in the lab.  With school closing for the year at the end of next week, I have a slight urgency to complete some experiments.  Particularly that data I need for the paper I hope to write over the break.  Yeah, the one from November... actually this is an excellent opportunity to share one of my two realisations from the day.  I was thinking today of the time it's taken me to work through my punch list of items for publication.  While I have been simultaneously attended to other tasks, it's been almost 2 months now.  In that time I've made tremendous progress and I am very pleased with my results, but it's taken me two months.  Back when I started it was my supervisor who pushed me to focus my energy.  Left to my own devices, I might have left this work far too long.  The fact everything takes longer than you expect is a theme of the past few months, but it looks like my supervisor was already clued in; maybe there is wisdom in experience, but don't tell him I said that.  The second thought I had today was how much I am enjoying "using" my hardware.  By that I mean the instruments, software, bells and whistles and little bits that allow me to run these experiments.  Months ago I commented that I liked the challenge of designing and building these things, but the collection of data is too mundane.  What a ridiculous sentiment.  Now if I had turn-key devices that flawlessly collected, analysed and interpreted data at the push of the button, maybe I'd have a real beef.  The truth is that there's still an enormous amount of troubleshooting in getting a prototype system to work in a real world setting, not to mention combining the machines with other experimental techniques and sample preparation.  In the past I think I may have been a bit scared or intimidated by this type of work because I lacked experience.  I am still a newbie, but now I am building confidence tackling these challenges.  I am hoping I'll have a similar revelation regarding writing.  Right now it's easy to write the task off as boring, but the real issue might be insecurity.  As I am learning, I need to charge into my preparing my thesis and publications with enthusiasm and an open mind.  Maybe in the end it won't be my favourite job in the world, but I am sure there will be puzzles, challenges and new learning opportunities involved.

Order(s)

Today I was able to place a number of material orders.  With the holidays and upcoming break I have no expectation that I will receive these parts any time soon, but the goal is to return to the lab in January with momentum.  Essentially these are the bits and pieces for my final round of hardware which will be built in the first couple months of next year.

No back to my current hardware, I spent time setting up to run experiments tomorrow.  Also, I prepared two samples to use during tests next week.

Quiet

Today got off to a slow start as I arrived in the lab late.  Overall the day was pretty quiet.  I worked on some emails along with a couple odds and ends, before diving into some literature to understand the chemistry of some samples I want to make tomorrow.

Changing gears

As I've mentioned the past couple days, I am now switching gears at work and moving on to some new jobs.  Specifically today I tackled a design to modify one of our collaborators NMR systems so that we can try out some new experiments.  Not only did I have to draw up the parts in our CAD software, but I also had to write up an explanation of the plans to circulate amongst our collaborators and the manufacturer of the original hardware, who are kindly supporting our efforts.  This was a neat change of pace as it was essential to communicate my ideas for discussion before moving forward.  In science we frequently share ideas, but, ignoring conversations at our home institution, most of these interactions happen after the fact.  As opposed to my current situation where I am looking to solicit feedback before moving forward.  Interestingly there is a difference in how to present information in these two cases and I think my current exercise is fantastic practice prior to heading into the job market after my PhD.

Moving on

Today I brought closure to my latest project in the lab.  I had a lengthy chat with my supervisor regarding my work over the past week and the recent results.  We're both happy with the data and talked about moving forward.  As I mentioned yesterday, there's a couple remaining experiments I'd like to run before the break.  Additionally, I am ramping on preparations for a trip overseas; with my job being to design the necessary equipment, source the material and get the prints to the machine shop.  Now the last step, engaging with the workshop, will not take place until work resumes after the holidays (it's a matter of time).  While that makes for a tight schedule next year, it will give me a chance to review the plans over the break.

Half day, full fun

As always my Monday was a short day. 

To the keen reader you might ask what happened to the plan of taking Monday off or at least working from home?  (I mentioned these ideas last Monday)  Well I was just too excited to stay home today, plus as reasonable as it seems to not go into work for only about five hours it's tough to imagine waiting until Tuesday to start the week. 

Anyway, based on the programming from the past week I was able to set-up some actual experiments and the results are beautiful.  At this point, remember, I am only looking to generate proof of concept data sets to demonstrate a new methodology.  At the beginning of last week I was ready to move on to other work, but I wasn't content to leave work unfinished.  I am pleased that I now have solid results and I can look to tackle the remaining experiments needed for my current draft.  I'll probably spend one more day on this type of experiment before moving on.  That will give me a week and a half before school closes for the break and the goal is to collect all data for my draft so that I can focus on writing over the holidays.

Week in advance: 7-13 December

Today I had a quick few hours in the lab and I was able to make great progress with my programming.  My work over the last week made it much easier for me to troubleshoot my system.  As a result I've addressed two serious issues that prevented me from conducting experiments.  Now this has taken seven days to accomplish which I was not planning a week ago.  Interestingly, today I came across a philosophy that fits my situation appropriately.  On forum today I noticed one contributor's signature block quoted Hofstadter's Law:

It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. — Douglas Hofstadter

Needless to say I was grinning like a fool as I read the quote.  Having the past year of my life embody the sentiment.  While it's nice to know my experiences are not unique to myself, in the coming weeks I do need to make sure my time and milestones are tracking appropriately.

Week in review: 30 November-6 December

I am pleased with my progress this week, although by the latter part of the week my work took a small side track.  Looking back at what I accomplished and the value of this week's projects, in the context of my thesis project, I believe the time was wisely invested.  Just like so many aspects of postgraduate study, details plan a crucial role.  Either the details of literature/background material, methodology/experimental design, analysis or communication.  Unfortunately there's no way to predict for all nuances that one will encounter and that's why everything seems to take 3 times longer than expected.  While my progress this week (and every week) is slow, it is steady and moving in the right direction.  At this point the clock is ticking, but I have plenty of time to carry out thoughtful and thorough research.

Something new

One of the coolest parts of studying is working with and around other students.  By no means am I an expert on my subject area, but I am starting to be quite familiar with the concepts, papers, people and methods that are central to my work.  Today I spent most of the morning discussing ideas and troubleshooting another student's experimental set-up and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to explore about a different field.  While there was some overlap between this student's project and research I've done in the past I walked away having genuinely learn something new.  Also, revisiting some ideas from my past that I hadn't given much thought to over the past couple years illustrated how my understanding of general principles has changed (I hope improved) over time.

Later in the day I focused on the programming from yesterday.  I finished the day discussing with my supervisor, for an hour, a grant application that is in the early stages of development.

Catch-up

As I mentioned yesterday, I am travelling through a rabbit hole of work with the goal of debugging my experiments.  Before I can focus on my experimental set-up, I am determined to improve the methods behind the scenes.  It's a mentally challenging job because even though you're making progress, in the back of your mind you know you're not even to the "important" or "hard" work. 

That said, today was a fun day and although I still need to focus on the experiments and collecting data, I am very pleased with my progress today.  So what kind of work was it?  Programming.  Pure code.  Specifically Python code on two levels, a user interface (using the PySide Python bindings for Qt development) and a back-end to give the UI functionality.  Additionally I worked on the code that sits on my instrument, which is currently compiled using through the Arduino IDE.

It's just me

As I mentioned yesterday, I have one of my new methods functioning in a minimum working example mode.  To start the day, I played with some parameters, however, the results were garbage.  As such I dove into my code and set-up.  Sure enough I found a couple pesky bugs in the system.  Now I am at a cross roads, I could either take my one working example and move on or I can get hung up with trying to sort out the details of my system.  My work to date shows that the methodology is sound and the physics "works".  It's only the engineering (in this case software) that prevents me from widely applying the technique as this time.  My simple example is enough for the paper draft I am working on, but do I want to spend time working on the "bigger" picture.  Well not only do I want to have a little look at my code, to see if I can sort out this issues now, but I've also taken another step backwards by re-working my interface software that I need to debug the method programming.  So in typical fashion I am taking on extra work (moving backwards) when I am being encouraged to move along.  To be fair, I've given myself a limit of a couple days to indulge my interest, before I force myself to patch things up and move on for the time being.

Ramping back up

Today was a great day in the lab, although being my first day back after a short break I was moving a bit slow.  That in mind I did continue running experiments from last week and I collected a data set which could be used for publication.  Right now I am just interested in demonstrating the proof of concept for a new method so the exact parameters are not as important as illustrating the technique.  Now that I have a minimum working example, I'll play around tomorrow for my own benefit, but then I hope to move on to other experiments.

As I said, I was a little slow to get into work today, so tomorrow I hope to hit the ground running first thing.

Impromptu

On a whim I took the morning off of work.  Mondays are always short due to volunteering in the afternoon, so I decided to just take the whole day.  Actually for months now my wife and I have talked about working from home or just taking Monday mornings off, but in the past my schedule never allowed for such a luxury.  We'll have to see if the trend continues.

By the way, the day was wonderful, but due to a guilty conscience, I had to compromise with a "2" for today's rating.