IPL Grad Partey

I confess, I had a camera with me but I didn't cover the event. But quite luckily, because I didn't know I had little battery life left, I got Milli to snap a picture of our group before everyone headed wherever.

Top: Jill, Nicole, Tricia, Tin, Ganni, Eloi, Ianne, Master

Bottom: Jeff, Thirdy, Andy, Atchong

Shiz, the only way to see the pictures from my other labmates is through facebook!

Not that grad school is out of the question.

Ma'am May has asked me twice about my plans after graduation, the latest being in our walk back from Mang Inasal Katipunan to the lab. Sir Ganni, while knowing that I've decided not to take my MS this coming school year, has been wooing me lately with jokes that I should pursue grad school.

It's so comfortable to choose the grad school route because NIP is home, everything is familiar and I'm already part of the community. But I have to be more objective, so I decide not to go to grad school just yet. 

To start, I want to really want to go to grad school and realize what to take specifically. I don't want to proceed just because I don't have plans or because it's easier to choose to attend grad school. A change of environment should do me and my pocket good.

Secondly, my Tia is against the idea. Not that I don't have my own faculty of reasoning, but I value her opinion very much and I do live in her house. Besides, I hate making big decisions when someone's super nega about it. 

Lastly, I want to take a break in studying. I've been in school since I was three years old and I think I've earned at least a season's pass in studying. I'm not sure if this is the definition of burn out but I do feel tired. 

I find it hard to tell my superiors that I'm not staying. I don't have their audacity nor their drive to decide on a career in the academe just yet. On the up side, I feel happy that staff in the lab feel (I think) that I should stay. I'm not even sure if research is my thing, or if it could be someday so that's a pat on the back.

Defensive

One step closer to graduation! Thanks to bear hands, friends, google, panel members, and of course dear adviser.

Past 3 PM yesterday, we lost power in the building. Andy and Jonats were still in the middle of their defense and I was cramming some fits in my plots. In the midst of UPS machines beeping annoyingly I almost thought my defense would have to be resecheduled. Gosh, how awful would that have been.

Ma'am Jing :)

Let's do this! 

Several minutes later my adviser and friends came up, Andy's defense was over. My turn wasn't until 4 PM but I was advised to get ready because my defense can still push through because it's still light outside and overall the situation was under control. When I got down to R211, there was a generator and a flat screen monitor. Love you VIP people. Pdfs of my slides were distributed to my panel members and we were set.

Nearing the end of my abstract slide, we gained power. Yes. The presentation went okay, though my panel members commented that I did not explain much and did a lot of hand waving. Sorry Sirs! And I will make my paper worth of the results, swear. I will take the revision notes very seriously.

We got the power.

Dakilang adviser, Sir Ganni.

The super Ma'am May.

The infamous bear hands!

Panel members: Dr. Almoro (front) and Dr. Ramos (back).

BA took pictures, posted on his fb wall. Pictures of other people who had their defense are there as well. I think it has sunk in now, we are done batch '06! Bar revisions, we are set to march! I'm so happy, I can't think of anything else to say.

Finally.

Sir Ganns treated our group to dinner at Kamirori. We even had a "bati na" picture taken, I think in Ate Ianne's camera. Then after, fellow IPL batchmates and I went to Padi's Antipolo and chatted away until 2 AM over drinks, pizza and sisig. The big hurdle is indeed over. Pirmado na! 

Everyone who helped make my defense possible, thank you. Special mention goes to Che, who according to Ma'am May has offered to give her laptop to one of my panel members so that my slides can be viewed. <3

Cheers!

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Photos from BA :)

I'm not so down into psychology, it's a very subjective and qualitative field that I don't feel that much comfortable towards its findings. But of course, most of the time we don't like what we don't understand or what we're not familiar with. This is to say that I think Ma'am Chey (tama ba spelling?) made me rethink my notion of psychology. While it is still unquantifiable (at least from where I stand, physics) I find the fields and issues we had in class interesting as well as mind-blowing, in forms of ideas I've never even thought of before. Just last meeting while we were discussing about human nature a very staggering question was raised: if our consciousness and rationality were the basis for our being human, what about the mentally ill? Nawalan ako ng prinsipyong pinanghahawakan, so to speak.

Moments like that make me think how great a class I'm attending is. Then there's the big teacher factor and a good pinch of overall class atmosphere that makes you want to recommend the class to everyone you meet. I am so thankful for the RGEP right now, for giving me that chance to pick my GEs and enlist in classes like my Soc Sci 1 under Ms. Billedo.

Quite sadly, I also realized that I used to relish in physics this much when I'm introduced into new subjects. I must admit that I did enjoy solving 112 or 141 problems even, though I often had a hard time. Now, I don't know if because of senioritis or just plain lack of interest that I don't feel that way anymore. Of course, I still like discovering things in my research work but I don't really remember feeling that elated to learn how lasers work when I took a class about them last semester. 

This is why I need to get a job or whatever after graduation, I need a break from school and time to realize if I do want to come back for a higher degree. Yuh, that higher degree in physics. Or if not, find out what I want to study further.

Let me count the ways..

All I've been doing lately is finishing my manuscript, and I've been postponing some things I should also take care of or do. Actually, org things mostly. I am super AWOL. I have valid reasons, but somehow I feel guilty. I did take the responsibility. 

At the same time I want to do so many things. One thing I remembered I should be doing is catching up on my reading for the TBR Pile Challenge. I originally wanted to proceed with To Kill A Mockingbird but I think I'll read some of the more "pop" books first for lighter reading. I'm so eager to do so many things after submitting but I think it's just the stress talking. But really, I feel like I should really party hard or something after this feat. 

Come to think of it, this is technically a Valentine's Day post. So, let's end on a sort of related note. :p

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Comics strip from PhD Comics. 

Right on cue, as always.  ;)

It's Friday I'm in Lab

Thesis homestreeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch.

During our RM earlier, my adviser asked me, "Mage-MS ka ba?"

To which I replied, a smile and "Hindi ko pa po alam."

Sowwww.

Gagawin ko ang lahat pati ang thesis mo!

Talaga? HAHAHAHA

This is actually a long running joke at NIP, where the version's like "Gagawin ko ang lahat wag lang ang thesis mo." Just came into my mind while stuck in my math, deriving something I should've finished a long time ago. *sigh*

And just because I'm so surprised and elated that Eheads have their own VEVO channel, here's another vid taken from their 08 concert at The Fort, the concert Tito Bobby and I attended! :)

Earrings matter.

My coils failed me today. No new data :(
Good thing Ina has a game on Sat at 2pm, meaning we'd have to go home to the province later as planned so I can still work. Wooh. Thesis it.

Weird enough, a "the dog ate my homework" moment happened last night. Bea and I were in the sort of study nook here in the house and suddenly the internet went off and I saw the router and the broadband go off. Ayun, no current. Low voltage or short circuit, I don't really know. Thank god the other outlets are working just fine and we have extension cord to up the internet again.

Often, I feel like Macs are the hardest to geek on. 

There's a big rumor that using a Mac is a breeze. I guess when you're just a simple person, with very minimal computational or technical needs, it is a very easy and beautiful interface. But Windows is too actually, if on that same level.

Now, I find it time and time and again very frustrating to install applications on my machine. Of course these aren't the usual applications, I'm talking about not so commercial software, the types that are used to solve coupled second degree PDEs or whatever. Unlike Windows which has binaries for its applications (for the record, I haven't encountered any Windows application that had to be built manually) and Linux which has detailed solutions on installations, there's this fuzzy how-to for Macs. Essentially same principles apply in installing on Macs and other Linux flavors because they're both built on UNIX, but Macs are like the foreign cousins of LInux. They're similar, but often use different languages.

So frustrated right now.

On a different note, I went to the Eng'g Job Fair again yesterday afternoon. I vividly recall the P&G person telling us last Monday that the exam was at Jan 12 4pm. Namove ata or napagbaliktad ko kasi  11:30-1 pala. Oh well, at least I got to submit my resume and get some more freebies. And then Macquarie is interviewing me again on Friday, but I'm not really sure on that.

I just organized my files using Mendeley and it was so awesome! It's a bit hard to keep track and rename all the articles I've collected over the years but this program does it for me. I think it's similar to Zotero, which Ma'am May recommended a couple of years ago, but for my purposes Mendeley is just fine.

Try it!

Yeah, Bones is my current TV addiction (aside from The Good Wife and Dexter which I started watching again) and it's probably a factor why I'm slacking in thesis writing. But really, I am just so unsure how to write it. 

My work is an offshoot, and quite frankly I don't know how to write something that is almost just the same thing. Yes, I was made to do more theoretical work on the topic and we were exploring new ideas that are sadly not yet in fruition but I feel conflicted. Very much so. I've hardly done anything new and I can't write, knowing that what I'll say has been already said. And I can't write based on what I think I can do just because, and it'll be so weird. 

I can't write not knowing what point I want to make. Crap. 

Day one over, friendship over.

Until last Saturday I really thought SPP would start today, Tuesday, but it started yesterday. It was pretty uneventful, nothing really stood out for me. I presented my poster which got good reviews, I'd like to think. It's just that what I had printed was the version before the final one. Very deep regrets.

So there. But I got pretty emotional come dinner. HP and Epson were teasing me about Brother practically the whole day. I can take comments and slurs about it, but definitely not in a crowd. During dinner every chance they got, they turned on me. Brother's seniors were just on the other table. Good Lord. I ended up crying. And when I cry, I am bordering angry trust me.

This thing about Brother, almost everybody knows. But I only openly talk about it among select people, even rarer that I talk about anything about it at all. Just thinking about it ticks me off, and if you're familiar you know what I mean. In that sense, especially that I did tell HP and Epson about it myself, it's privileged information. I tend to keep things to myself and I really don't like other people poking around my business or other people dishing out my business.

I guess it is my problem that I take things too seriously. I do. I can't help it. Maybe that's why I'm relatively pikon. Other people, even friends, can't gauge of my personality that well; it's probably too much to ask for. Only a few really do, and after last night HP and Epson absolutely don't.

Kamon!

I handle responsibilities pretty well. It's a bold statement to say, but I'm quite sure being responsible is among my better traits.

Our lab is having our annual welcome party tomorrow afternoon, a holiday. What's worse is that a senior member of our subgroup proclaims tomorrow morning as an impromptu cleaning session. Oh my gaaaaaaaaaad.

Oh, come on, on a holiday?

Good thing that my parents will be coming and I have a pretty valid excuse to skip at least one laboratory activity tomorrow. I never thought laboratory activities would jam and control my schedule so much. So much for considering grad school.

Low Batt

This week has been nothing but all about SPP. It is my last year as an undergrad (believe!) and I do want to say there has been fruit in my endeavors in research. That is, I want to at least have a paper this coming SPP.

But, dear lord, I am so tired right now.

I got home around 10:20, and yes I spent the whole day in the lab. Got frustrated over bad samples, a bit crazy over cleaning glassware, and a little impatient in handling data. I hope that when I process these, they'll be worth it.

What's worse is that I also have to present a seminar tomorrow. As in, the one with Dean Saloma. I chose a topic a few weeks ago, so I agreed when Jeff asked me to switch schedules a few days ago (I'm originally scheduled next week) because he has a wedding to attend. But things didn't go as smoothly as planned, and what I thought would be an easy task to squeeze in is now a big burden. I can't think well enough to make my slides. Ano ba yan.

Hay. At least I have that Mang Inasal date with Andy and Nicole on Monday to look forward to. Yay?

Why yes, but why?

Optics was my first choice when I was still an applicant in IPL. It was a popular choice. I enjoyed our Optics under Sir Garry back in high school, it seemed cool and interesting plus I had no idea what Complex Systems were, and of course my close friends in IPL were under the Optics faction. I was completely shocked to find out that I was accepted to the Complex Systems group, but like everything else I got settled in and I realized the ubiquitous applications of this field. 

Frankly, I think I'm a bad research student. I feel like I don't perform very well, and that I can do so much more but I am at a loss why I am such. My adviser is patient and encouraging, that I feel guilty even more. Ha. What's more is that he invited me to the Saturday Optics group. Not that I have a choice, but really, seriously?

I've shied away from Optics after 165, and I didn't really pay attention much after that. I didn't think I'll be needing it, but now it seems that I do.

Eureka Moment

Last April 7 was IPL's graduation party, held at UP Balay Kalinaw. Not that there's something special this time, it was composed of the usual message to the graduates marathon and AVP fest. But what I really loved about it was Ma'am Jing's message to her advisees, and to the whole of Instru as well.

First, let me introduce you to Ma'am Jing. She is Dr. Maricor Soriano, an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Physics. She specializes in image processing, and she's been my teacher for three subjects as of last semester. Anyone can attest how hardworking and how passionate Ma'am Jing is, it is an honor to know her and belong in the same laboratory as her.

She opened her message citing the eureka moments of her advisees who will graduate this school year: Ate Lau, Kuya Vars, Ate Cherry and Ate Kaye. When you are troubleshooting for days and a spark of realization hits you, that is a eureka moment.  When you keep on running your simulations and then find a very viable solution, that is a eureka moment. When you calibrate your sensors exactly right to be able to gather all the needed data, that is eureka moment. She said that her eureka moment was to have led her students to their eureka moments. And that from there, she needn't do anything and all she needs to do is to stay back and let things fall into place.

A eureka moment in research, or in any endeavor, really buoys you up. It gives you a certain momentum to keep on going, to keep on working even if it's 3 in the morning. It is such a great feeling to realize something significant when you've been working at something for so long. It's like a pat in the back that you're doing well and what you're doing is correct. Ay. How I wish moments like that happen more often. But can only think of two ways to increase the frequency of eureka moments, to work more frequently and to work more rigorously.

Ma'am Jing made me realize that I do want my eureka moment(s?) and I want my adviser to have his eureka moment while I have mine. Actually, I think I miss being eager to do research and I miss being fueled by good news to present in my RM.

After my social life suicidal decision to take Bio 11 this summer, I will have my eureka moment, hopefully more than once.

Bio, yeah you.

I have decided to take Bio 11 this summer. I have been firm that I will not take it during summer, because it will eat up my entire term. However, recent developments that being no Physics 161 will be offered this summer, I am forced to rearrange my plans. 

It is most logical that I take it this summer than in the coming semesters since I think it will be very difficult to take parallel with my thesis. Ah. But this is a very big deal for me. I hardly like Bio, and to immense myself in it seven hours a day everyday is a little masochistic for my taste. I am not a fan of masochism by the way.

The things you do because of pure good reason. There's no debate that this choice is the best, given my circumstances. But I feel that I am giving up so much. Bye research afternoons. Bye spontaneous lakwatsa. Bye social life.

Hay, Bio.