Moonlighting at ICCS
I didn't ask my advisor, because I know he would've told me I'm being an idiot and if I don't cut back on what I try to do I'll never get the bare minimum done. Things like my masters' thesis. c.c;
But, what's a few days in the grand scheme of things? Every little piece of time seems so small, doesn't it? And it doesn't help that I half expect I'd just waste the time anyway if I stayed at work for business as usual.
So, I paid out of pocket and am commuting back and forth to the International Conference on Complex Systems out in Quincy, 10 miles from my apartment, 12 miles from campus, part by train, part by bicycle. It's definitely interesting, although being an academic conference, it's nothing spectacular, just an incremental step forwards and a tossed salad of ideas. I've been trying to break into something in the realms of complex systems research, rather than just traditional computer science, for well over a year now. So far, no luck. It's just been too hard to circumvent my "official" obligations to progress on traditional, mainline research -- to find a new research lead and advance it far enough to convice people it's worth letting me work on full time, while working full time on other research. But, I keep looking for ideas...
(Also, yesterday I managed to get quite a bit of sand ground into my hair as a result of all this shuffling back and forth. That was... interesting.)
But, what's a few days in the grand scheme of things? Every little piece of time seems so small, doesn't it? And it doesn't help that I half expect I'd just waste the time anyway if I stayed at work for business as usual.
So, I paid out of pocket and am commuting back and forth to the International Conference on Complex Systems out in Quincy, 10 miles from my apartment, 12 miles from campus, part by train, part by bicycle. It's definitely interesting, although being an academic conference, it's nothing spectacular, just an incremental step forwards and a tossed salad of ideas. I've been trying to break into something in the realms of complex systems research, rather than just traditional computer science, for well over a year now. So far, no luck. It's just been too hard to circumvent my "official" obligations to progress on traditional, mainline research -- to find a new research lead and advance it far enough to convice people it's worth letting me work on full time, while working full time on other research. But, I keep looking for ideas...
(Also, yesterday I managed to get quite a bit of sand ground into my hair as a result of all this shuffling back and forth. That was... interesting.)