Hi everyone,

Linda, welcome you back. Hope everyone has a productive mid-week day today.

It's going to be a busy day for me. Need to think about the 'already s.p.d. matrix', and other 'matrix fix up methodology' in the morning. I don't know if I can work those two problems out in two hours, but will try. Then driving to school to do some admin works. It will be an exhausting day.

Hi everyone,

Chococake, welcome back. Skig, nice to see you and your progress on the journal article. Take care and don't be too hash on yourself. Pregnancy is hard. Hope everyone is doing well!

I waked up pretty late this morning. After four consecutive days of intense working, I am both mentally tired and exhaustive. Yesterday is the worst day. I would like to do all kinds of other things: chores, exercises, reading unrelated materials, except working. I ended up walking in the park in the morning for two hours. Then worked several hours in the afternoon. Today is better than yesterday, especially after a long sleep.

I am actually happy because I worked through the combination of methods I need to try, and got a result, which is not a result I was hoping for, but I was expecting that. Most of the time, I cannot get the right results at the first place. I need to reexamine the work, look at the work from different aspects, then can get a reasonable results. This is the most hard, also interesting part of the work.

my goal today:
1. think about why the covariance matrix is s.p.d. itself. Is there anyway we can fix it?
2. what method does the code use to find the nearest matrix?
3. rewrite the technique notes in spiral way.

======= Date Modified 01 Sep 2012 14:37:18 =======
Good afternoon everyone,

Yesterday, I focused on working, not faffing about online, and made some bits of progress. As a huge procrastinator, I always need to remind myself: "Need to focus, not too much rambling if I want to be productive." I waked up at 5 am today, kinda get used to that. I might have a nap after lunch.

Button, nice job to have done the paper quickly! Batfink, glad you got new model to work, so swimming helps.:-)

My goal yesterday,
3. write code for second part of 'hypothesis testing' (2t) -- done
4. test the code and document the numerical results (4t) -- this part might take me longer time as I don't have any test case designed in mind. --- half done
5. svn checkin yesterday's progress. (0.1t) --- done

my goal today,
1. document the numerical results

goodevening everyone,

Batfink, I took a lesson with about 20 classes last summer. After the class, I can struggle 1 length, that was struggle with all my strength, have to take a break for at least 1 min after a length. I feel its very hard for a breaststroke swimmer to switch to freestyle, for breaststroke, kick is the key, for freestyle, pull is the key. On the other hand, if you keep practicing, you will learn it, just might take longer time.

my goal today,
1. svn checkin yesterday's progress. --- done
2. rewrite the notes to make it more convenient for coding.---done
3. write code for second part of 'hypothesis testing' (2t) -- not yet
4. test the code and document the numerical results (4t) -- this part might take me longer time as I don't have any test case designed in mind. --- not yet
5. svn checkin yesterday's progress. (0.1t) --- not yet

my goad tomorrow,
continue accountabilities which are not done today.

afternoon everyone!

I am back from swimming, and did 6 length breaststroke and 10 length freestyle. I am learning freestyle, and quite happy with my progress, even though it is almost one year since I begun to learn from last summer. During this last push of PhD journey, learning freestyle has brought me quite a lot of joyful moments. I am calmed down and forget about stress by floating in the water. What did you girls do in the gym? I only do treadmill in the gym. The weighting area are full of guys, I can hardly squeeze in. And all the machines are way heavier loaded than I can handle.

Button, cake.....I like cakes....especially home-made cakes with pleasant fragrance. Batfink, hope you can focus and be productive today, Paralympic Games is a good reason to be distracted though!

my goal yesterday,
1. revise the notes (1t) -- done.
2. write code (3t) -- half done.
3. test (2t) -- didn't do it.

my goal today,
1. svn checkin yesterday's progress. (0.1t)
2. rewrite the notes to make it more convenient for coding.(2t)
3. write code for second part of 'hypothesis testing' (2t)
4. test the code and document the numerical results (4t) -- this part might take me longer time as I don't have any test case designed in mind.
5. svn checkin yesterday's progress. (0.1t)

good afternoon everyone,

Button, it's good that you can still work for several hours on those days you don't feel motivated. I usually cannot manage to do that. Batfink, its 2km! congratulations for the personal record. My breaststroke can do 1.5km, but freestyle can only accomplish 400m at most. Good luck with data analysis today.

my goal yesterday,

0. add bits of information into orthogonalization process. (done with 4t)
1. wrote down meeting memo. (done with 5t)
2. begin to try out estimation methods of covariance matrix in R/matlab (didn't touch it)

my goal today,
1. revise the notes (1t)
2. Code (3t)
3. test (2t)

Afternoon everyone!

Button, nice work with the presentation! Batfink, Im glad your eyes are getting better. It will recover soon.

I looked back on my old posts, and realized 'The work Im done' usually cannot match 'my goal today'. When I made my goal, I try not to make it too ambitious. So too much work is not the reason. Maybe I don't stick to my goal, and wander too much? I will try to check 'yesterday's goal'.

my goal yesterday,
1. wrote down meeting memo. ----- didn't touch it
2. begin to try out estimation methods of covariance matrix in R/matlab ----- didn't touch it

my goal today, (same as yesterday)
0. add bits of information into orthogonalization process. (1t)
1. wrote down meeting memo. (4t)
2. begin to try out estimation methods of covariance matrix in R/matlab (3t)

good afternoon everyone,

Hope everyone had a nice weekend, and got enough energy to go back to work.

Yesterday evening, we picked up an Italian restaurant with good reviews to have dinner. Google map gave us wrong direction, opposite direction. Google map is very reliable in my mind, yet, this is the third time it gave me very wrong location on the map. Maybe I always need to call the restaurant to double check the address.

For work, sup asked me to try a different procedure to get the structure of matrix I need. The procedure involves something new to me, I might need to search for the most appropriate methods. I am a person with divergent thinking. Hope I won't drift too far away during the searching process. This week is going to be the first week of new semester, I might need to travel to school to register the school, and other bits of admin things to do. I also need to see my o.b. It's going to be pretty busy week.

my goal today,
1. wrote down meeting memo.
2. begin to try out estimation methods of covariance matrix in R/matlab

======= Date Modified 25 Aug 2012 15:49:46 =======
Hi Button, I'm also here. I'm going work for a couple of hour.

My goal:
revise exposition of one section of my technique report.

Have a nice weekend!

======= Date Modified 25 Aug 2012 02:48:52 =======
good evening everyone,

Button, nice job to have the journal article done, and jump into the next without gap! It is also good you manage to work with lots of personal issue going on. I usually cannot concentrate on work if personal issues bother me. Skig, things will fall into place for you for sure... Batfink, hope your eye-lid recover soon. I had eye-lid infection before, also in late summer. some dirt went into my eye, and I rubbed it. Doctor also recommended me to wash my eyes frequently.

I met with a friend yesterday, and he said I should enjoy my PhD instead of constantly feeling stressful. I think he is right, I am too serious about this Phd, so every setback/slow move/unable to solve a particular problem bothers me, is stressful on me. If I can take it more easy, things might be better. Enjoy the intellectual freedom, which will be rare when I begin to work for a job.

Today, I have done the new p.d.f. case. It took me only one day to do it, but I have procrastinated for four days before I started it.

======= Date Modified 23 Aug 2012 21:16:49 =======
Button and batfink, I was very frustrating. This happened several times before. sigh~ Batfink, can you try another stat software? or google to see what method/procedure is your software's strong point, maybe you can switch to those methods? or maybe you can start with some simple model, then add more features step by step? I'm not familiar with stat software and models, just some general thinking. maybe someone knows more about stat software can give some more specific suggestion?

I have been headache for the whole day, really hope this PhD journey can end soon.

======= Date Modified 23 Aug 2012 02:07:58 =======
Batfink, nice work with the journal article. I would think it's cute to ask for four hard copies of paper. Its very enjoyable to ruffle through nice printouts. Button and Skig, hope your journal paper also goes well.

I drove 1.5hr one way to meet with my sup, only ended up getting a message from another student: 'he is away, he has something else to do. ' I was hoping half-week meeting with my sup can push me forward. It seems not reliable to depend on somebody else (not even sup) to urge me to work. Drive from myself is what I can depend on.

My goal tomorrow:
1. start the new testing case.
a. coding b.testing

good afternoon everyone,

potatoes, good luck with the viva.

yesterday was an other mind-wandering, unproductive day for me. There was a small testing case for me to do, the design is ready, the reasoning is ready, I just need to carry out the plan. I was very reluctant to begin the new testing case. Old method proves to have critical flaw, new method is proposed by others, not by me. Those setbacks are very frustrating for me, also improve my emotional self-doubt. A couple of days working, a couple of days procrastination, which should not happen in the final push stage. There is 'writer's block', is there anything called 'researcher's block'?

my goal today:
pull off at my testing case, hope I can get some results to show my sup this afternoon.

good afternoon everyone,

button, I'm glad your headache has gone quickly, before I start to work.. Skig, I also hope the baby pressure is in good way, just keep it under control. Our tent is very small, we plan to use it on beach under the sun, a green tiny light shade. ( feel happy when I think about it. :-) ) Button and skig, thanks a lot, that makes me look at my sup's questioning in a more positive way, still painful process though.

Yesterday is not a productive day for me. I was busy doing this bits and doing that bits. In the evening, when I reviewed, figured out most time is spent browsing different books/articles, googling, reading, jumping to another book/article. I was actually mind-wandering most of the time.

my goal today: come back to the real work today, need to get out of the 'pdf' part soon.

======= Date Modified 20 Aug 2012 15:37:10 =======
Afternoon everyone,

Skig, mid-October is almost there, looking forward....

I showed some positive results to my sup on Saturday, he was happy about it, but still not very sure about my method. He need one more method to justify it. My work has always been questioned by my sup, and I am troubled by these doubts. Anyway, will think about one more method to resolve the problem today.

We bought a small lovely camping tent yesterday, will try to set it up today. :-)