Back to Work
I am back to work now, after a segmented vacation. I went walking with James to the Lakes. James is a healthy man, we took Helvellyn in just 3 hours (from camp to ridge), and continued walking afterwards. On another day we strayed off path to make amends to a loss of direction. I enjoyed wondering on the mountain tops without seeing anyone. It made me think of how odd it seems that we walk in the day light, but quickly retreat to a camp site before darkness. It inspired me to take to sleeping on the mountain tops in the summer.
I started stretching frequently whilst we were out there and unfortunately it seems to have aggravated my back. I am having trouble getting it to settle now, and it hurts to walk with a long stride. I will go swimming this weekend with Lana and that should help, as long as I don't let myself get too cold.
I am picking up the PhD, but finding little mistakes all over the place. I have been using a 'good version' of my code (in executable, non-readable form) for a couple of months, but I found a bug. So I went to get the source, and I had accidentally deleted it. Because it was good working code, I hadn't noticed until yesterday. So I spent yesterday trying to remember how I fixed the bad code, and finding have completed lines. However, it is all necessary, all progress. The guy behind me who started a month before me is writing up his thesis now. Tom my house mate has a draft of a paper ready. I am feeling a bit behind.
But today over lunch, I was thinking of the people who work in the lab who did not complete their PhD. I wonder if I will be one of them? At lunch, I was thinking upon whether it is important to not hold on to things too tightly, to not fear or resist change. Getting my PhD is not the be all and end all, but that does sound like I am accepting defeat. But the flip side is that maybe it is important to fight for things, and stay motivated, to ensure a level of comfort for the future?
Yesterday evening I went to a meeting with my collection of friends who are trying to start up a creative tech business. The good news is that we are succeeding. We now have Rusty Squid as a registered business, and SpringBox has won a grant with the university to trial and bootstrap the idea through their venture schemes. I have accepted a small workload. It is an audio module, and a stand alone unit. This is good news, as it means I am not reliant on anyone else, and I don't have to worry about integration too much. With just 7 months of PhD left, I have to be careful with how much extra work I take on. But this way, I stay involved.
Unfortunately, I found the meeting hideously boring, just like every other meeting I have been too. The worst were the Extant project ones, where I travelled to Milton Keynes to add my 5 minutes of dialogue. I know meetings are vital to projects, even if they are unsavoury. And I know they are complex things, that often spiral out of control and must be tamed at the expense of politeness. But the feelings I were having were along the lines of "the only reason I sit in meetings is because of the career I am in". And in that vein, today I am bored of sitting coding, sitting writing, sitting soldering, sitting sitting sitting. And if I continue on this path, its more of that ahead of me.
Maybe I am just suffering the 7 year itch? Maybe if I shovel some shit I will realise it is not all that bad? I don't know.
On the plus side, I started to build a cigar box guitar this week using an old wooden art case in lieu of the cigar box. It is coming along really well, really quick results. These are the photos I have so far. At the moment it is glued and clamped for the next 24 hours. Tomorrow I should be able to put the finishing touches to it, and I may even build an amplifier inside it by the end of the weekend.
I started stretching frequently whilst we were out there and unfortunately it seems to have aggravated my back. I am having trouble getting it to settle now, and it hurts to walk with a long stride. I will go swimming this weekend with Lana and that should help, as long as I don't let myself get too cold.
I am picking up the PhD, but finding little mistakes all over the place. I have been using a 'good version' of my code (in executable, non-readable form) for a couple of months, but I found a bug. So I went to get the source, and I had accidentally deleted it. Because it was good working code, I hadn't noticed until yesterday. So I spent yesterday trying to remember how I fixed the bad code, and finding have completed lines. However, it is all necessary, all progress. The guy behind me who started a month before me is writing up his thesis now. Tom my house mate has a draft of a paper ready. I am feeling a bit behind.
But today over lunch, I was thinking of the people who work in the lab who did not complete their PhD. I wonder if I will be one of them? At lunch, I was thinking upon whether it is important to not hold on to things too tightly, to not fear or resist change. Getting my PhD is not the be all and end all, but that does sound like I am accepting defeat. But the flip side is that maybe it is important to fight for things, and stay motivated, to ensure a level of comfort for the future?
Yesterday evening I went to a meeting with my collection of friends who are trying to start up a creative tech business. The good news is that we are succeeding. We now have Rusty Squid as a registered business, and SpringBox has won a grant with the university to trial and bootstrap the idea through their venture schemes. I have accepted a small workload. It is an audio module, and a stand alone unit. This is good news, as it means I am not reliant on anyone else, and I don't have to worry about integration too much. With just 7 months of PhD left, I have to be careful with how much extra work I take on. But this way, I stay involved.
Unfortunately, I found the meeting hideously boring, just like every other meeting I have been too. The worst were the Extant project ones, where I travelled to Milton Keynes to add my 5 minutes of dialogue. I know meetings are vital to projects, even if they are unsavoury. And I know they are complex things, that often spiral out of control and must be tamed at the expense of politeness. But the feelings I were having were along the lines of "the only reason I sit in meetings is because of the career I am in". And in that vein, today I am bored of sitting coding, sitting writing, sitting soldering, sitting sitting sitting. And if I continue on this path, its more of that ahead of me.
Maybe I am just suffering the 7 year itch? Maybe if I shovel some shit I will realise it is not all that bad? I don't know.
On the plus side, I started to build a cigar box guitar this week using an old wooden art case in lieu of the cigar box. It is coming along really well, really quick results. These are the photos I have so far. At the moment it is glued and clamped for the next 24 hours. Tomorrow I should be able to put the finishing touches to it, and I may even build an amplifier inside it by the end of the weekend.