The Blog

   Summary of my week...

I've had a migraine, and a tummy bug (which may have been self-diagnosed as an allergy to goat's cheese, but I'm not sure I want to test that). I've done bugger all at work.

But I did fix my family's broken ps2, and I've almost finished FFX, so maybe I don't completely suck after all.

Labels: cait sith, never going to graduate, playstation, sickly-Cat

   Oh my...

I just found myself a list of goals for doing my PhD. Among them I found:
10. Testing - reproduce K&K's results - January '05.
I was only out by a month and three years.

Labels: deadlines hurt my brain, never going to graduate, phd

   More on just how much I rock...

The science behind these images requires a lot of explaining, but the images themselves are easy to explain: they're my results (in red) pasted over the results of the guys whose work I've been duplicating. (I haven't done the middle sections because they're not that important and they're more image editing that I'm too lazy to do *grins*.) Purple is the expected solutions that things are meant to tend towards (and where you can't see purple, it means things exactly overlap).

Labels: happily ever after, iCatherine, never going to graduate, phd

   Yeah, I rock...

After 4 years (-2 days) and much heartache, I finally, finally got my code to match the results of those dudes who came before (to 1%, which is very good all things considered). I think that means I win.

Now I suppose it's time for some original research.

Labels: happily ever after, never going to graduate, phd, reaffirming my faith in humanity

   300 posts later...

...and I still want to do this blogging thing. Who would have thought?

So, in the personal news, Minako is back! Woo! *does the happy laptop dance, which sounds much dirtier than it actually is*

James bought me some stickers from MOO with my flickr photos on them, and I've been gleefully sticking them all over my once immaculately white iBook. I'll post photos later, I imagine.

Actually, on the subject of photos, the other week I knitted a scarf in three days for my dear friend Nilanka's birthday. It was the short row rib from Magknits, knitted in Vintage Hues by Cleckheaton and it was really fun to knit something fun and simple for a change. Which is to say something other than my jacket of doom (last seen in this blog post by my mum), which is coming along nicely, but the last stages (knitting the collar and sewing it up) are going very slow.

As a part of her birthday present I also promised to teach Nilanka how to knit herself, and so last Sunday I went to see her and taught her how to both knit and purl and she's now the proud creator of the first 15cm of a scarf in a 3 rows knit, 3 rows purl rib (much the same as the one I knitted for her, but without the short rows). It's very pretty and I hope she enjoys knitting from now on. I may have to go back in a week or two to teach her how to cast off.

I've also knitted a scarf for Heidi in the last few weeks, but I forgot to photograph it. :(

I'm currently at 6 pages on "Skirting the Paradox", for those who care about my fictional works. I'd love to have this finished soon, but I'm really bad at writing fight scenes, and when you get right down to it the whole story is one long string of fight scenes. *sighs* I kinda just want to skip them and get on with the fun mystery stuff, because that's really the point of the story, but the violent setting keeps getting in the way.

Oh, and I suppose you want to know about the PhD. Well, I think I finally made a breakthrough today. I'm still not going to finish anytime soon, but I feel like I know what's going on and where I'm headed. I'm sure that'll only last a day or two, but right at this moment, I'm feeling good about it.

James has started a new job today. That makes me inordinately happy. I imagine he'll be blogging about it soon enough. In the meantime, everyone should go and read his post where he points out the uncanny resemblance between the latest iPod posters and screenshots from Battle Royale. Because it's awesome and while I believed him when he first told me that was what they look like I didn't realise just how similar the imagery was.

My sister has packed herself a "go-bag" in case of terrorist attack during the APEC summit next month. We're reasonably certain she's being ironic, since it primarily consists of her St John's Ambulance first aid kit (which she keeps in her car anyway), a change of clothes and a packet of timtams (which will someday run out), but you can never be too sure.

My grandmother on my father's side is currently in the Sydney Eye Hospital (she had the cataracts removed from one eye last week and it promptly became infected) and yesterday she had an operation which was apparently successful. She's in the room next door to Anthony Mundine, who's got himself a horrible eye infection because he noticed a speck on his contact lens and licked it to get it clean. The good news is that my nanna will be fine, the bad news is that no one is sure about "the Man".

Actually, while we're on the subject of Catherine's relatives, my grandmother on my mum's side recently loaned me her collection of newspaper clippings about her father (my great grandfather), Edward Michael Boland. My mum took the time to scan them all into a pdf file for posterity, and it's available for download if you are interested in my family history. He was a great man (even the Queen recognised it, giving him an OBE *smiles*), being Apprenticeship Commissioner in NSW for more than 20 years, known for being fair minded and working with Liberal governments in power despite him being a Labor man through and through. Grandma informed me that the Liberal government actually changed the age of retirement laws so that he could stay on longer in his job.

My favourite quote from the collection reads:
The Commissioner is not concerned that his OBE puts in the same order of chivalry as the Beatles with their MBEs. But he commented wryly: "I still prefer youths with hair short back and sides."
- (We think the Sunday Telegraph), 27th June, 1965


Moving on to the world outside my circle of peoples, we have a couple of great bits of news to discuss:

Giant Lego man washed up on Dutch beach
This is just amazing. Both for the quotes ("I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England.") and for the thought that maybe he was made to walk the plank on a giant Lego pirate ship. Or maybe he was just washed overboard. We may never know!


China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
You read that right. The Dalai Lama must now ask permission (no doubt in triplicate) before he reincarnates.
And while that sounds amusing at first (and indeed, those of us here in the office laughed when we first read it), it's also terribly sad when you think of the Chinese government using this power to corrupt the beautiful mysticism of the Tibetan people.

Skipping away from depressing news, the new iMacs were released today. I think they're pretty ugly, what with the giant black border around the screen (which is really a quite clever way of hiding the fact that you can't actually fit a computer in the space behind the screen alone), but they're better than the mockups James showed me last week and still reasonably sexy. And I'm sad to say that I want one like burning. Good thing they haven't released Leopard yet, or I'd be in trouble. Bloody Steve.

And this story about Magic has just made my day. I must wire some of those switches into my life.

So, this is the end of my 300th blog post. Was it good for you too?

Labels: crafty-Cat, Domus Prime, family, history, iCatherine, knitting, lego, longest blog ever, magic, never going to graduate, news, old photographs, phd, reality distortion field, web stuff, writing

   "You're just one graph away from feeling good about yourself"...

That's true, and it's actually pretty profound, but it's still one graph, and I'm a long way away from getting it.
On the other hand it's nice to know that the boss understands and knows how to make me realise that things aren't that bad.

And before we get totally emo about how much my PhD sucks, the producer got in touch with me today and we're going to meet up in person to discuss the project and whether we can work together. Sounds exciting, maybe something really will come of this.

Labels: it's about singing and dancing and making people happy, never going to graduate, phd, quotes, unhappiness

   Snippets of an Update...

• Got enough HWWS conference registrations (and enough speakers not attending the dinner and pizza nights) that we can afford to give everyone gingerbread in their conference bags. Bags are still cheap ones, but they now will contain mq-branded mugs, books and pens, and star-shaped gingerbread, along with some tacky 'health bars' that we're getting for free. Yay team budget!
• The PhD is suffering because of the stupid conferences. Fortunately, I think that after today I'll be back on top of things (currently coding up the schedules and the like, which is horrible).
• I have knitted about ten rows since the last time I posted the scarf, which meant that I was in no rush to take photos this week (the fact that I've only had one night off this week may have also had something to do with it). I might do something about it tonight, but I might just go home and sleep.
• Heidi and Tony got to move in to their new house on Wednesday night. It's great, perfectly suited to them (no lawn to mow, just enough of a garden that it won't take Heidi forever to manage it and huge lounge rooms for having lots of people over to watch movies). Their furniture will follow tomorrow (hooray for moving days!), the internet will arrive in 2 weeks and then it really will be their house, full of their stuff. I'm so jealous.
• On the subject of jealousy, Manda (*Star) has gotten engaged to her boy, and it looks like they're going to live happily ever after. Congratulations you guys.
• I got an email wednesday about a film producer seeking a 'physics consultant' for a new screenplay they're working on. I replied yesterday morning, but haven't heard back yet. I hope I do.
• And blogger's autosave feature let's me know when my html is broken. I approve. (There's nothing quite like having to wait until it finishes uploading to see that you screwed up and now your blog is broken.)

Labels: blogger, conferences, feeling lucky, happily ever after, Heidi, knitting, never going to graduate, nice people are nice, phd, uni

   I liked my old office...

It was nice and big, there were only three people in it on the busiest of days and only one person could be gazing at my screen while they were at their desks.
Sure, it didn't have air conditioning, but it had a fan, which was nice, and most of the time I was the only person there.

Now they've put me in a huge cubical farm, with no whiteboard, air conditioning that is on by the vote of a committee of overheated peoples (I should not have to wear a jacket at my desk) and they won't stop talking. If they're not arguing over the position of the fridge (which I suspect Korinne won't be happy about, since everyone will be congregated at her desk if it stays where it is), they're fretting over what numbers the phones currently possess (which are being changed as soon as IT services gets around to it) or they're just fucking talking all the fucking time!
I was told it was going to be quiet in here. That it was nicer than my old office. That I would be seated with a bunch of people who are never in. Only now those people are saying that they like it so much they want to be in all the time, and they are all looming behind me making it so I can't concentrate and do any work.
Frankly I'm tempted to switch my computer off and move it back, because I'm really very unhappy here. Either that or switch the position of my desk so that I can face the window (another plus of my old office) with my screen pointed away from everyone else.

I hate it here, and I wish that W would get off the fucking phone and do some bloody work. It takes him an hour to drive here, he ought to respect that effort more and not spend the whole time talking to his wife.

Edited to Add: Break out the fucking headphones, or I will break them out for you, dipshit. Your taste in music sucks arse.

Labels: get off my lawn, I want to go home now, never going to graduate, odd smells in my office, stupid people

   So, at the end of three years...

I have:

• 1.5 (draft) chapters of my thesis written;
• no real results to speak of (though I have duplicated the results of others, which I'm told is a good place to start);
• only 1 year left in which to get this bitch done.

Is it any wonder I'm depressed?

Labels: astronomy, freakshow, hating myself, latex ftw (but not the fun sort of latex), never going to graduate, phd, thesis ftl, wasting my life