rise up like the sun

Def 1.1: A function f is fucked-up iff it is not Lebesgue measurable

Def 1.2: A function is evil iff its graph has non-integer Hausdorff dimension.

(different reasons that i might not be able to focus, how to tell them apart, and [maybe] how to solve them. work in progress.)

low energy - feeling tired and sleepy - yawning a lot  - working feels like it takes way too much energy; I’d rather just sleep - feels effortful even to think - seek low-mental-effort activities like tumblr solutions: stimulants (incl. caffeine), listening to energetic music, getting up and going for a 20+ minute walk

lack of self-monitoring - feel like i’m running on autopilot - can’t easily recall the last 3 things I did - get up and walk around a lot; get lost in daydreams and thoughts - difficulty verbalizing thoughts - can respond to prompts, but hard to generate new plans/thoughts - often goes along with low energy solutions: not getting up and going for a walk, sitting at my desk and listening to happy-energetic music while looking at the task. talking through the problem with someone else – it’ll be hard at first but having to converse will bring my self-monitoring system back online.

restlessness - feeling bored, wanting stimulation - feeling frustrated - changing sitting position often, feeling uncomfortable, fidgeting a lot - seek tasty food but almost all food is not tasty enough solutions: try working with loud energetic music and a fidget toy. if this doesn’t work, go outside and run around for a bit until you’re breathing hard, then try again. let yourself have sugar after the run if you still want it. compulsion for something else - pulled towards other, more interesting thoughts/activities - if i start working, i get sidetracked by the more interesting things without noticing - easy to enter flow state on other tasks, just not this one solutions: this one is hard. write down the more exciting thoughts and promise yourself you’ll come back to them? (you may not come back to them.)

So one day, years ago, I was on the subway in New York, and a guy across the aisle kept kind of looking at me and finally he came over and said he recognized me as his teacher. I’d taught him about 10 years before that, or more. He’d since become an oncologist, and I congratulated him on his success. Then he said, “You made us memorize a poem.” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “I’d like to say that poem for you.”

a lot of us are working from home now, pretty abruptly. it’s hard, and especially if you’re like me, a sudden lack of structure coupled with really harsh self-expectations/a tense or unforgiving temperament is really challenging.

i started working from home fulltime this year, and my stop it series is a set of doodled observations i’ve made about the obstacles, bad habits, and unhealthy expectations i’ve found myself running into as i adjust. i hope maybe they can be helpful to other people too!

please check out the linked tag bc i have further observations/clarifications on these in the captions of the individual posts, but i figured it’d be good to finally dump all the notes i’ve made so far into one place. 

It’s always interesting to pick up specialized, esoteric terminology from experienced scientists and engineers.  The language you hear on the job is very different than what you learned in lecture halls!

For example, in school, you might learn how to calculate that 4.6 GHz radio waves have a wavelength of 6.51 centimeters.  On the job, the RF engineer will tell you that once you get to wavelengths much below 10 cm, radio tends to “wiggle through” unexpected gaps and “leak everywhere,” where it becomes a “huge pain in the ass.”

In school, you might learn that many metals will reflect neutron radiation.  On the job, the plasma physicist will tell you that neutrons tend to “rattle around” inside steel coaxial cables and use them as channels to fly out into the building, where they will “ruin your day” and “piss off the nuclear safety people” if you don’t shield them right.

In school, you might learn that tungsten is an extremely dense material that makes for very good thermal shielding in extreme environments, but it can be challenging to machine.  On the job, the mechanical engineer will tell you that working with tungsten is “the fucking worst” and if they have to build “an entire god damn wall of shielding tiles” out of it, they will “seriously pitch a fit.”

Sunday 10/4/20

Last month was INCREDIBLY busy for the two of us. I was trying to wrap up my interneuron project, get trained on the cortical development project, and TA for a cell bio course, all while trying to get married.

Good news: 

We postponed our wedding celebration to next year but eloped this year. My two maids of honor had compiled video clips of our loved ones wishing us a happy marriage and giving us marriage advices, and we got it just after returning from our weekend honeymoon to Delaware. It was just a really nice cap to a lovely wedding weekend. Can’t wait to do it all over again next year with our friends and family present (and hopefully without COVID).

I settled into a really nice evening routine of TAing from home after dinner. SOOO MUCH better than my usual routine of inhaling my dinner, hauling ass back to lab, and leaving lab at 9pm. SO MUCH better.

We started doing weekly Sunday brunch on the balcony as newlyweds. We have very different morning routines during the rest of the week, so this is the one day where we get to share and enjoy our morning routine together 😊 

I’m getting more acquainted with the new cortical development project! I’m still a little bit loss on the details, but I think I get the overall picture. A lot of my skills from working with cortical interneurons easily transfer over, and I think the person training me and my PI are very appreciative of that. It’s just really nice to hear that I’m helping push this project along. It’s only my first month, but I’m hoping to make more headway this month!

Bad news: