last monday...

was one of the Suicide days -- no classes. Referring to my previous post, the temperature drops and the day is shorter (after having sunsets at 8.30 pm during most of summer).

I came to the office, early. It was really gloomy outside: misty, cloudy and *sigh* cold.
I studied for my Airline Industry homework (it is really long), which I haven't finished until now.
I ate my experimental Indonesian fried chicken for lunch (no instant seasoning).
Then continued working. Having a teleconference. A skype meeting with my professor (in NZ).
I am now addicted to sweets when I have my panic attack (well, only certain kinds -- I usually despise sweet things).
I went back early for the housemaster dinner; I was really quiet then. The food wasn't fantastic and I was totally exhausted.
I continued doing my homework, almost fell asleep in the common kitchen (I moved there for a 'change' lest I'd be too bored in my room), and continued reading until 2 am in my room.

Okay, I have to rush to my class now (it starts at 8 am!! -- so I am already in my office at 7 am every Mondays and Wednesday *sigh*)

cold

Fall is coming and the temperature has dropped.

Imagine walking back at 11 pm, no dinner yet, stressed out from work, with a temperature of 12C outside. It's not pretty at all.

All my cold-symptoms start appearing: dry skin, eczema, neck & shoulder aches. And it's not even winter yet.

*sigh*

random ramblings in my office

There are (at least) two super stressed-out girls in our office today. For once, I am not one of them *proud*.

One research scientist is leaving us (MIT) today so we prepared a card for him and some of us had the chance to have lunch together with him (in between meetings, so we just hung around our meeting area).

One of the girl couldn't make it for lunch, so we passed the card afterwards for her to write. She was rambling about random stuffs that nobody could understand. She said it's because she hasn't had enough food for the day, coupled with her sickness, cold, tiredness, and stress.

I was still in office when my office mate came in (~7 pm). She was surprised to see me still working (I was reading a paper and waiting for my simulation to finish at the same time). All of a sudden she started rambling and had things like: work, economist, facebook, interview, energy club, boyfriend, colorado, schedule, crazy... that I couldn't really figure out the connection between one word with another :). Then she walked out of the office waving her hands up and down, her curly hair bobbing up and down, and said "stuffs, things, stuffs, things" (n-times) "so many things to do... aaarrrrgghhh." She then looked at me and said "I'll come here and work tomorrow. R, don't stay too long. Make sure you remember to go back home."

My friend just called me and asked me to go for dinner with them -- they go Indian this time. I like Indian food and to be honest I feel like eating Indian food now :). However, one of them is really hungry now and they're leaving the dorm really soon. I, on the other hand, am still in the office. So they asked me "so what time do you think you can meet us in the lobby?" My answer was "don't stress me out." Doh??? Random!! Don't ask me why. I couldn't even answer that simple question. What a disgrace. (I decided not to join them, I guess I'd just eat instant noodles tonight -- too lazy to prepare anything).

Baeeehh... so there are three rambling girls today :(. I have to strike through my second sentence then =P.

a random conversation with cecilia

I just met her yesterday, though I've heard about her many times (she is a good friend of my lab mate). This Argentinian girl was hanging around our office for some time yesterday, and she's a very fun girl to talk to.

I talked to her about my current biggest worry: my qualifying exam. If I don't pass next year, I really don't know what to do. Retaking it won't be easy: they'd set the bar higher. The big question may then arise: is it worth investing time and energy for one whole year while the chance of passing will actually be smaller?

Anyway, she has two points of view that I found quite interesting :). She's brutally honest and realistic and I like her.

1) She tried to build up my confidence by saying -- there are only two reasons why you can be at MIT: (1) either you are really smart or (2) you are really good in pretending that you are smart. Either way, you are good enough.

2) Ok, this is the more serious part -- she told me "R, I believe you can pass the qual. I just want you to listen to one thing: YOU ARE GOING TO SUFFER. Your advisor will not make it easy for you, she'd want to make sure that you'll do all you need to do to qualify as a PhD candidate at MIT. If you are ready to accept and bear the suffering and live through that, you'll pass the qual."

Honestly, I think her second comment is the most true statement I've ever heard whenever I voice out my qual worries.

Wish me luck, friends...

gempor

Hari ini, Senin 15 September 2008:

jam 6 pagi: bangun, gosok gigi, mandi, makan, siap-siap.

jam 7 pagi: berangkat ke sekolah (tepatnya ke kantor). kerja dikit.

jam 8 pagi: udah siap di ruang lecture.

jam 9.30 pagi: kelar lecture, ke student center beli a birthday card for my lab mate.

jam 10 pagi: balik ke kantor, nulisin dan ngasi kartunya ke lab mate, and kasi tau dia ada kejutan di kulkas (strawberry pie yang aku bikin midnight kemarennya). lanjut dengan nge-print macem-macem, ngurusin kerjaan.

jam 11 pagi: ada kelas.

jam 12:30: makan siang dengan amat sangat terburu-buru (hari ini aku gak sempet cari makan, besok temenku gak sempet cari makan, jadi kita gantian beliin makanan =D).

jam 1 siang: ada kelas lagi (udah mulai ngantuuuuk).

jam 2:30 siang: mesti "njemput" temen di kantornya, terus kita pergi ke Volpe Center (salah satu kantor Departemen Transportasi) untuk meeting -- jalan kaki ~15 menitan dari kampus.

jam 4 sore: balik ke kantor, ngegotong laptop ke ruangan kosong soalnya ada skype meeting sama professorku.

jam 4:30 sore: ngerayain ulang taun lab mate ku --> potong pie and ngobrol-ngobrol (lumayan rame juga tadi). Mendapat pujian dari kanan kiri *terima kasih, terima kasih.*

jam 6 sore: kerja lagi.

jam 6.45an: nyerah, cari kopi (kopi hitam!! tanpa susu, krim, atau gula. harus hitam).

jam 8 malem: makan malem (udah masak hari minggu, tinggal dimicrowave).

jam 8.45 malem: kerja lagi.

jam 11 malem: nyadar kalo ternyata udah late banget, putus asa (cuapek buanget, man!).

jam 11:02 malem: kerja lagi *keluh* -- gak ada pilihan.

jam 11:40 malem: pulang ah.

jam 11:45 malem: yah kok masih error.

jam 11:46 malem: debug.

[cycle dari jam 11:40 sampe jam 11:46 terulang sekitar 4 kali]

jam 12:17 pagi: *nada ngancem* Awas lu kalo error lagi.

jam 12:20 pagi: ah manisku sekarang engkau bekerja. mami pulang dulu ya. cepet-cepet ngeluyur pergi sebelum keliatan error yang laen.

jam 12:40 pagi: (udah di rumah) cuci piring, ngeluarin ayam dari freezer (moga-moga besok sempet masak), mandi, ngeblog =P.

jam 1:17 pagi: *sekarang* udah kriyep-kriyep, mesti tidur segera (pengen baca buku dulu).

Besok pagi rencananya bangun jam 6:30 am, soalnya bacaannya buanyak buangeeeeeeeet, man.

OK deh, sekarang mau kandas karam di tempat tidur.

when you are not in a good mood -- don't cook

I made a mistake yesterday: I went for grocery shopping and then cooked when I wasn't particularly happy or in a good mood. My mind was distracted by works and myriad other things. With my worries and fears. So what happened are:

(1) I forgot to buy a few important things that I wanted to buy.
(2) I bought the wrong beef part (hopefully it won't change the dish I want to make by much).
(3) My cooking sucks.
(4) I couldn't really enjoy my meal, which added salt to the injury.

We went for an Asian supermarket yesterday, and as it's not easily accessible, we can't go there too often and thus we usually shop quite a lot. So the fact that I missed out something really irritates me. There's another branch that is more accessible (in Chinatown) but it's not as complete. Bah.

There are days when cooking is very enjoyable and the food is fantastic.
Yesterday was just not one of those days...

thinking out loud -- overwhelmed

I am overwhelmed with the many things at (my) hand right now. So much so that I have to breathe in, calm myself down, and breathe out sloooooooowly; hoping that things will get better and my mind will be less muddy. I can't really think now, I am panicking and I don't know what should I do first. I have books, notebooks, papers all around me. Not to mention one MATLAB code running, another simulation running at a remote client, and after that's done I'll have to start six (or seven?) other simulations in six (or seven?) different client computers.

OK, so here's what I have in the list (as the title suggests, I am thinking out loud here):

(1) FAA Research

As some of you may have known, my study at MIT is fully funded by the Department; and for my specific project and work it comes directly from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) -- if you go to the Mall in Washington DC, you'd see the office building: next to the Aircraft Museum (Aviation? Aerospace? where you know what I mean, the one housing Wright brother's plane). That means, I have to fulfill myriads or request and myriad other paperworks (!!!!) . Well you know how it is if you work with a large organization, especially when it is affiliated with government. On top of the agony, my advisor is currently enjoying her sabbatical year in New Zealand. Communication is done through skype and... documents: mostly in .pdf file. However, being a super-demanding and perfectionist person that she is, I can't do it in Microsoft Word (it's for high school she says). Rather, I have to type (and "code") in LaTeX; which I also prefer, but can take longer to finish.

Anywaaaaaaaayyy... I have to devise my own experiments, do it, etc etc etc... not knowing whether it's the right way to do (nobody has ever done what I am doing it before). Too much coding, too much debugging, too much testing, too much caffeine...

(2) Thesis Research

So, apart from my FAA research, I still have my own personal research. By "personal" it means I have to figure out a problem, gaps in literature review, and produce a novelty in the end. it's maddening.... how I spend Saturdays reading stacks of papers, not knowing whether I'll use them or not. But literature review is the backbone of any research, so you'd have to do what you have to do. This research will be the main topic and content of my PhD thesis (if I ever graduate).

After tons of papers being read, my advisor and I concluded that the (broad) topic that we had discussed is indeed new and waiting for someone to work on it (that's me!!).

So I have to devise my own experiments, do coding, evolve the code and problem, expand the problem, scale the problem, etc etc etc...... In other words, it's not easy. I am having a sketchy start now :(.

(3) Qual preparation

Ah, qual. The most dreading word in my mundane life now. Qual is a short form of qualifying exam that all potential PhD students have to take, but with varying difficulties and passing rate across departments. The two contenders for the most difficult and lowest passing rate are: Dept. of Mechanical Engineering and Dept. of Aeronautics/Astronautics (mine!). This year (2008), Aero/Astro unquestionably won. The results are very surprising to most qual takers. Even some outstanding students failed miserably. So now you know why am I panicking. I wanted to start preparing during Summer but I didn't have time. By the way my qual will be in January *shudder*. The classes that will be examined (orally): I took them TWO years ago. So I guess I must attend and sit in those classes again *big sigh*. One of the class is at 8 am twice a week!!!

(3) Coursework

Due to my mounting workload and qual preparation, my advisor suggests that I only take one class this semester, which I agree. However, I still haven't really decided on which class to take. I want something useful, interesting, and not too time-consuming: difficult criterion indeed. The class that I currently take seems really interesting, I like the professor and he likes me, but it requires a lot of work. Booh.

I am also a Listener for another class: The Airline Industry. Interesting indeed, but I don't think I'll take it for credit. Just as a Listener.

There's another class that I am interested at, but requires Artificial Intelligence and State Estimation background :(.

There are many challenging (read: fun) classes that I really want to take, but I have to restrain myself from taking them; following people who have taken their quals (no challenging classes when you need to prepare for the qual).

Ah, well, I'll just stick to the class that I've registered and hope for the best... and more caffeine.

(4) Others...

I seriously consider joining MIT Concert Choir; but I don't know. The commitment is 5 hours/week... imagine how much work you can do within that time.

I'll cook more; the least thing I can do to myself at this time is to enjoy my meal, and food in Boston in general sucks *no offense*. Let me rephrase, food around MIT sucks.

Okay, that's all from now. In ~30 minutes time I'm going to attend a seminar on Flapping Wings Aerodynamics or something like that... Exciting!!

* I am hungry *

* I still enjoy my current life much more than when I worked though *