failure is underrated
I gave my third year talk on Tuesday. A middling performance which, considering the state of my PhD, is something I'm quite happy with. Afterwards, I was asked some very nasty questions which I fear I didn't cope with very well, but apart from that it went well enough.
Anyway, this morning brought a meeting with John, my supervisor, and Chris Wade, my advisor, on the aforementioned state of my PhD, the bottom line being that I have about half a thesis worth on the population dynamics of transposable elements with and without horizontal transfer, meaning that I have about 5-6 months to produce the other half of my thesis. This may or may not be possible, depending on how fast I can get the C program that forms the core of my work to run, but I suppose there is, as always, only one way to find out. Many sage words were spoken at the meeting about the amount of work I have been doing (which John estimated, a little unfairly I feel, at 1-2 hours per day), neglecting to mention that the rate limiting step for my work is the amout of time the simulations take to run, or "bloody ages" as it's otherwise known. When I get this C version up and running, that should hopefully change, but all the same it seems a mite harsh to lay the blame at my door.
Which brings me to the title of today's blog entry. People, as a rule, spend their lives striving towards something, or some things. It's part of what people do, what people are, and if it doesn't make sense then, hell, I suppose people don't make sense. But the important part is the striving, not the thing you're striving toward. The means justify the end, and getting these two confused is the source of much of the world's unhappiness.
Er, in my opinion.
Anyway, this morning brought a meeting with John, my supervisor, and Chris Wade, my advisor, on the aforementioned state of my PhD, the bottom line being that I have about half a thesis worth on the population dynamics of transposable elements with and without horizontal transfer, meaning that I have about 5-6 months to produce the other half of my thesis. This may or may not be possible, depending on how fast I can get the C program that forms the core of my work to run, but I suppose there is, as always, only one way to find out. Many sage words were spoken at the meeting about the amount of work I have been doing (which John estimated, a little unfairly I feel, at 1-2 hours per day), neglecting to mention that the rate limiting step for my work is the amout of time the simulations take to run, or "bloody ages" as it's otherwise known. When I get this C version up and running, that should hopefully change, but all the same it seems a mite harsh to lay the blame at my door.
Which brings me to the title of today's blog entry. People, as a rule, spend their lives striving towards something, or some things. It's part of what people do, what people are, and if it doesn't make sense then, hell, I suppose people don't make sense. But the important part is the striving, not the thing you're striving toward. The means justify the end, and getting these two confused is the source of much of the world's unhappiness.
Er, in my opinion.