Week in advance: 30 November-6 December

This week I need to start thinking about more than just the few days ahead and start looking a month or so in advance.  Coming up the university will be closed for two weeks around Christmas, which will probably mean I loose access to the lab.  Seeing as  have plenty of work to do, I need to make sure I am able to continue my work at home.  Meaning I should focus on experiments over the next couple weeks and do serious writing and analysis over the shut-down.

Also, as I mentioned yesterday, plans are starting to come together for me to visit a lab overseas.  To keep this idea alive I need to work out the details now so that there's enough time beforehand to order parts/material and fabricate any equipment.

Week in review: 23-29 November

I noticed this week an interesting detail regarding the number of posts I've made and the amount of time left on the countdown timer.  Just under 130 posts with around 250 days left... it's not precise, but it tells me that I am about a third of the way through my final year.  This made me thing about what I've accomplished in this time, which was perfect as I needed to complete a six month report on my progress.

In the past few months, my work has come a long way.  Two independent devices built and operational.  With my colleagues, I've contributed to to patent applications based on this work and present talks at a meeting in Auckland and a workshop in Germany.  Additionally, I've worked on other publications from experiments prior to my PhD.  It's been a productive time and what's more is I have momentum to carry me over into the next year.  This week I continued to collect data which will be key for my thesis and at least one journal contribution.  I am also have other work waiting to be written up for a journal.  Both of which I plan to dive into (start, no promises on completing) during the upcoming holidays.  I have also begun work on hardware to take to a lab overseas.  This work will also play a key part of my thesis.  Additionally, I have a talk at an international conference next February.

I've continued to make progress in the lab this week, but I've also spent time taking stock of what I've done the past few months.  Based on my track record so far during this "final" year, I am moving confidently towards my deadline.

Early start

After being away from the lab the past couple days, I wanted to get an early jump on my work.  I headed in a bit before my usual start time and took care of a six monthly report (that was due by the end of the month).  The rest of the day I spent most of my time preparing material, parts and design for the next iteration of hardware I am going to build.  Also, I had a quick sit down with my supervisor to look at some data I collected at the beginning of the week and I ran some analysis scripts on other measurements I made a few days ago (which will contribute to one of my manuscripts I am working on).

Another day off

I guess the title says it all...

I am headed back in to work tomorrow which means I'll be playing catch up.   It's the dark side off time off, but I'll take things one job at a tine.

Day off

Rating today (it got a 4) was probably the easy job ever.  See I took the day off to spend time with my wife who recently returned from a conference overseas.  Although the plan is to take off tomorrow as well so I guess I'll have just as easy of a time then.

Check the clock

Based on my experiences today (and many other days) I wanted to share a phenomenon common to the postgraduate experience.  That's the concept of time dilation.  Now as a physicist I could try to be clever here and tie an analogy to a particular aspect of relativity, but I'll spare you the artistic and clever prose.  The point I do want to make is how quickly a day goes by.  I was in the lab for over 12 hours today, and yet it doesn't feel like it!  Now this is where you assume I'll brag about how much I love my work, but that's not my message either.  The point is that even the smallest of jobs take heaps of time.  If I were to set my watch (which I don't wear because I work around huge magnets) based on the time it took me to get things done in the lab, I'd be shopping for Christmas 2011.

To some the deliberate and methodical pace of a PhD might be exhausting, but the reality is producing a thesis is a protracted process.  As such, on the time scale of hours or a day it's difficult if not impossible to see any progress.

Again, today's post was only to share my experience, not complain about any specifics.  For now, I am happy with the progress I am making, one step at a time.

Restraint

This morning I worked on a couple experiments in the lab.  Collecting data from one instrument while troubleshooting methods with another.  Unfortunately I had to cut my work short as I had a meeting early in the afternoon.  Also, I did volunteer this evening after I finished on campus, which made the work day feel very short.

I don't know if it's my excitement and enthusiasm from the start of the week or a a feeling I didn't do enough work or maybe a sense of urgency, but when I got home from volunteer I had to fight off a desire to go into school.  Now suppressing an instinct to work sounds ridiculous, but it was after 8pm.  With the walk up the hill to school and such, I would have arrived pretty late.  Sure I could get in a couple hours, but where would that leave me for tomorrow?  Thus I held back (this is what I worked on last week) and I hope to carry over my energy to tomorrow and have a great day in the lab.