Nonlinear Life

Cat with attitude

2006-07-11T18:03:00.000-04:00

One of the greatest pictures i have seen in a long time, you can't get a clearer message:

" I don't give a damn, just don't bother me, OK?"

Source: flickr

Why, oh why?.....

2005-12-14T15:50:00.000-05:00

This is the question all my people (i.e. PhD students) will face at least once during their gard life:

Why did you decide to go for your PhD?

Think about it for a couple of days and send me your answers (even if you are not one of "my people", try to imagine your reason if you were one).

I will give you my reason in a day or two*.

*Graduate student habits and characteristics, number 1: "Procrastination".

au revoir.

On a political note...

2005-12-08T15:49:00.000-05:00

Discover Garfield!

2005-11-25T10:22:00.000-05:00

Is it morning? Or end of the day? Are you too tired or still too sleepy to work? Do you rather do anything else than what you are supposed to be doing? (in my case, study), then do what I do: read a Garfield comic (or 2, or 5, or 117).
I've fallen in love with this mean, selfish, lazy, fat cat and I have to get my daily dose of him. I have read all of the strips (from the first one, June 19, 1978 to today, which you can see them all on his website).

Now if I showed the same consistence in my studies .......

Garfield's bustin' loose!
Check out the fat cat's wild Web site!

Welcome, 'Chronicle' visitors!

2005-11-22T17:54:00.000-05:00

I just found out that this weblog has been added to the "Academic Weblogs" list at the Chronicle of Higher Education Website.
I'm Honored!

Now I guess it's just polite to return the favor! I have added Chronicle to my links and I highly recommend that you check it regularly. It's an excellent source of information in different topics of the higher education and academia.

20 Question goes A.I.

2005-11-22T15:38:00.000-05:00

If you know how to play the famous 20 question game, and if you have nothing else to do, you might like to challenge an Artificial Intelligence version of it HERE.
In the core of the game is a neural network that Robin Burgener has been developing for almost 2 decades. The more people play the game, the more trained and more intelligent the game becomes. It managed to amaze me a few times and to add insult to injury, after finding out the subject I had in mind (I tried broomstick, sport car, cruise ship, humor and a few more and it got them all sooner or later, except for Mars) it had the nerve to tell me which one of my answers it thought were wrong!

It's good clean fun, try it out and let me know how you like it.

CV and cover letters: Can't get a job without them

2005-10-13T13:58:00.000-04:00

Personally, I feel that making a CV and writing a good cover letter is almost as hard as getting a degree. But since there is no escape from it and I had to go through them recently, I thought I put here a few useful links and resources on the subject. What makes the problem even more difficult, is that there is not many resources for preparing academic CVs and letters that a graduate student will need.
Berkeley University has a few pages of useful instructions, both for writing a CV and cover letters and also some handy information on a few other related topics. The only thing you should keep in mind is that try to ignore the occasional gloats about the almighty Berkeley. As a sample of that, I quote from these sites: "there are some individuals and departments that are intimidated by you and your institutional pedigree (i.e. Berkeley). There are many fine schools and departments that are convinced that every Berkeley graduate student is only interested in a position at Harvard, Princeton, or (hold your nose) Stanford."
The Chronicle of Higher Education Career Network offers advice columns on writing CVs, letters, interviews and other related subjects, aimed for jobs in academia. This is a good example.
Also read this article about cover letter writing.
Finally, here is a good page full of links about CVs.
I will post more if I come across anything good and also if anyone was kind enough to share with me their own resources.

adieu

On the miseries of a graduate student

2005-08-25T17:32:00.000-04:00

Human beings know a lot of things, some of which are true, and apply them. When we like the results, we call it wisdom. - Herbert Simon

One thing I know and that is that I know nothing. - Socrates

How the hell can a mathematical curve have a temperature? - Anonymous graduate student

It has been a daunting couple of months. Let me tell you why.

You know, when you make ridiculously big promises like coming up with novel and groundbreaking solutions to a tedious problem facing the human knowledge, in a given period of time, you better brace yourself for big disappointments. As time goes by, and that problem remains unsolved, you will have to sit and watch as your self-confidence, along with any shred of hope to a successful career and the happy life that comes with it flies out of the window.
(Somebody close that friggin’ window…)

Here is how the story goes: After a long struggle with yourself to decide whether you should do it or not, you start in a nice little PhD program, with a big grin on your face and a lot of air in your head.

You think the world’s long wait for a real genius to come along again is finally over and nothing will stop you now from becoming your university’s (if not the world’s) most accomplished scholar. You laugh at the older graduate students when they complain about their research and challenge your supervisor to give you any impossibly hard subject that they can think of for your thesis. You are a knight in your shining armor of blessed ignorance, just arriving at the town gates to kill the dragon. You are different from all the other stupid knight-wanna-be’s who came before you and turned to ash at the breath of the evil dragon, right? ..….Wrong!

I don’t want to scare anyone away. Just a look back at what happened to me and many other poor souls that I know. Just a warning, if you decide to go in this way, please, do yourself a favor and start small. Test the waters with your toe before you cannonball into the pool of unsolved mysteries of research problems. Like it or not, you are expected to do some extraordinary, state-of-the-art, never-before-seen discoveries. You may get lucky and pass through the committees and graduate without any of that, but if you want to ever use your degree, you better stand out. So little job options, and so many PhDs, chances are, you might have to end up either sitting home watching TV, or resign yourself to a job that only needs a 3-year college training and never mention that you have a doctorate in job interviews for the fear of being “over-qualified” for the job.

Whatever your area is, take a very basic and trivial problem, no matter how childishly simple it looks at first, and tackle that. If you managed to learn the background and reach an answer in a short period of time, and actually enjoyed doing it, take another baby step forward and add a little spice to the challenges you take in the subject. Repeat this process a few times. After a while, you will have a clear understanding of your likes and dislikes, your abilities, and as a bonus, you now have a nice little jar full of goodies: Some actual results! Something most of us don’t have (not even small ones), even after a couple of years, something you may even get a paper or two out of it. (We all know “publication” is the sacred word that we all fantasize about in our little labs and offices).

I was going to tell you why I'm having a bad couple of months. Can't you guess by now?

I'm stuck in my research!!!

Sorry for the screaming. I guess I sound a little bitter and pessimistic. I promise next time I post, I will write more about the joys of being a graduate student (being able to spend hours on your computer, doing nothing but to write a weblog, without having a boss to crack a whip over you all the time, is one of them).

Bless you

2005-08-18T16:50:00.000-04:00

Ambassador Bridge, connecting Canada and US, in Windsor.

We're here!

2005-08-17T17:41:00.000-04:00

Well, we finally made it!
So, this is blog, eh? I'm not feeling anything special so far. How long until it takes effect? I've heard people have become famous, earned many new friends and/or enemies, or even gotten into trouble with the law and authority because of this blogging.
I wonder to what destination I have just gotten one step closer. We will just have to wait and see for ourselves, won't we?

Bless you