tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247841572024-02-19T19:26:50.403-05:00Northern BelleThe life and opinions of a Computer Science PhD student who was raised in Virginia but followed the internal urge to move to Massachusetts.M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-38808626587721575812010-10-01T15:17:00.000-04:002010-10-01T15:17:04.729-04:00Imposter Panel: do YOU belong?Every year at GHC there is a panel called the Imposter Panel. I remember when I first came in 2006 it was in a medium sized room, and everyone crammed into the talk, stood in the hall, and not everyone could participate. It was so popular! The one in 2008 was similar, but of course each time there are new panelists and some new take on the problem of people feeling like imposters. This year they had moved the panel to the large ballroom where keynote speeches occur. It was great that everyone who wanted to attend could be there this time.<br />
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There was a very nice opening speech describing what going to GHC can mean to a student. I think the best point was saying that we need to support a woman who doesn't know yet that she's a computer scientist, or a woman who is the only one in her department. <br />
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During the panel the panelists all made very good points about how you can combat the feeling of being an imposter. For instance, the first speaker mentioned that you need to remember all of those great things you've succeeded at even if they are small, and you should really find a mentor and a sponsor whether or not they are the same person. Many of the panelists stressed the need for your network in different ways: they support you, you support them, and you learn from each other. Great advice both about imposter syndrome and overall.<br />
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Of course the most popular comment, and probably the most tweeted, is that "there is no recognition fairy!" This point is of course that you need to make it clear what you want and what you've done, because no one will do it for you! Definitely a recurring point here at GHC, and worth the repetition!<br />
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The panel was really great, which was evident by how many more questions were left at the end. So many people had great questions, the answers that really struck me are the following:<br />
<ul><li>when you do screw up you really just have to eventually get over it. sure, you'll languish in it for awhile, but eventually you have to realize it's not the end of the world.<br />
<li>if you aren't taking risks and living outside of your comfort zone, you can't move on.<br />
<li>realize it's not just about you, and if it seems like everyone is smarter in class maybe they are just more driven to impress the professor (i.e. they memorize quotes from the textbook).<br />
</ul><br />
The last thing that really struck me about this year's Imposter Panel was that all of the panelists admitted that they felt like imposters from being on the panel! What a great example of how easy it is to feel like you aren't ready to do something when you really are the right person, especially when the audience can see that themselves.<br />
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I'm so glad the imposter panel has become such a main part of GHC, with no other competing sessions, and now a big enough room for everyone. Hopefully next time they'll do it again and maybe even find more ways to change it to keep it fresh as they have done so far!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-54863226819461739402010-09-30T10:38:00.000-04:002010-09-30T10:38:28.339-04:00Thriving in a multidisciplinary world: technical & communication skills are keySo fun! We got to learn how to say good morning in Portuguese to start off the talk on Managing Scientific Data in a Multidisciplinary world by Claudia Bauzer Medeiros. Halfway through we also had a Tolkien reference! If 10AM seems early to you, this was a talk you could enjoy despite sleepiness.<br />
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As Claudia says, we are drowning in data and need to be able to help scientists in other areas cope with that problem. This includes models and visualization as well, which is right up my area of interest! Of course, all of this also means that you need not only technical skills but great communication skills, which seems to be the theme of the conference thus far.<br />
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Some of the points made really relates to a lot of what came up in the Santa Fe Institute Complex Systems summer school this summer: you need to learn how to work with people from other disciplines and learn to speak their scientific language to have success. Of course, she calls this Data-driven science, which is different from what we call it in complex systems, but that's because she is coming from the data analysis side. I love that she had an image combining experiments, archives, literature, and simulations as facts used to help answer questions but that it's not enough: you also need data and information from collaborators not just your own set of it.<br />
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What I really love about all of this was the point that we are in an interdisciplinary world, and this should inform how we teach computer science. The implication, at least from my perspective, seems to be that the future is in collaboration between computer science and other fields and we need to prepare new computer scientists to succeed in this environment. One point here was how to get access to data as often people are not willing to give it up. Thus the Tolkien reference: the data is their "precious!"<br />
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I was not expecting, however, a section title slide called "Emotion." But the point was still a great one: you need to get people emotionally involved to have cooperation. This all ties back into the point of communication abilities being key for collaboration, as it is very difficult to have a successful conversation with someone if you can't understand their perspective on the subject.M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-77137294555167472512010-09-29T16:21:00.000-04:002010-09-29T16:21:03.137-04:00CRA-W Workshops bring interesting perspectives on researchThe CRA-W tracks at GHC have been really interesting so far. I went to the first one of the Early Career Scientist track, where the top was how to start your own research lab. There was a speaker who works in industry research, a speaker from a research university, and a speaker from a primarily undergraduate institution. They really embrace active learning in the panel, as they gave us 2 minutes exercises throughout the panel: define what your agenda is, define your short medium and long-term goals, and define actions you can take toward those goals. What a great way to take teaching skills and bring them to a conference!<br />
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The second session I attended was in the grad track, with a focus on how to do networking. I really enjoyed the stories of how to meet the right people. The third session was also in the grad track, on how to do good research. I was actually surprised that much of this session was geared toward early grad students as opposed to those about to graduate. However, a lot of the advice seems to be relevant. For instance, the fact that you should find an interesting and exciting research area and try to figure out where the next big thing is can not only guide your thesis, but also your entire career. Also, you've got to enjoy what you're doing! I think that's always good advice to remind early researchers of from time to time.<br />
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Later in the session there was more discussion on how to do research after the phd. Did you know that HP Labs created color match technology where you can match your foundation color to your face by sending a photo through your mobile phone to an HP server? What an interesting project! The person who worked on this research is a networking researcher who built a collaborative team to solve the problem as presented by a cosmetics company. How unexpected, but a great example of how you can take your research knowledge and apply it in an interesting collaboration.<br />
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Ending thought: If you already know how to solve it, it's not research. You've got to be willing to go out there and claim you can solve a problem you aren't sure you can do! No one is perfect, but you'll have your expertise and should use it! "Confidence does not require perfection," always keep that in mind!<br />
What advice do you have about how to choose your research topic after getting your phd?M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-82494444794420527492010-09-28T11:23:00.002-04:002010-09-28T11:25:35.920-04:00Grace Hopper was also a funny ladyLast week there was a lot of tweeting, e-mailing, and Facebooking (is that a verb?) about the Grace Hopper interview on Letterman back in the 80s. Apparently the video has been on YouTube for years, but it seems that at least a large number of us were unaware of it. She is quite the funny lady, and even brought a nanosecond to give Letterman. If you don't understand what that means, please watch the clip to hear the explanation straight from Grace Hopper! Since she is the namesake of the conference starting today, it seems only fitting to share the video with anyone who hasn't had the chance to watch it yet. Enjoy, and see you at the conference!<br />
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<object style="background-image:url(http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/57bfxsiVTd4/hqdefault.jpg)" width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/57bfxsiVTd4?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/57bfxsiVTd4?fs=1&hl=en_US" width="425" height="344" allowScriptAccess="never" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object>M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-37336211812030528332010-09-19T22:59:00.000-04:002010-09-19T22:59:09.654-04:00Poken: A paper-free business card, free at GHC!Wow. I mean, WOW.<br />
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I just learned about <a href="http://www.poken.com">Poken</a>, thanks to a tweet about it <a href="http://gracehopper.org/2010/community/poken/">being at GHC</a> this year. Not to sound like an advertisement, but it sounds really awesome! It's a paper-free business card that works with anyone else who also has a poken. You apparently touch the two together and it exchanges your contact information. When you set up your account you can choose what information to share and what social networking sites to include.<br />
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This sounds like a great idea for a conference, especially as they are <a href="http://gracehopper.org/2010/community/poken/">giving them free to students and $15 for non-students</a>. This sounds much better than the CONNECT project in 2008, where we had to find a CONNECT person to connect us. This year we'll be able to connect digitally without having to go somewhere else first! Conference organizers really seemed to have listened to our complaints and found a potentially perfect solution.<br />
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I think it's still worth bringing regular business cards though. Not everyone will have a poken, and not everyone will set it up either. But this product could really be revolutionary! It's much harder to lose digital information than a little piece of paper (at least, if it's stored somewhere easy to access and organized). It would be great if eventually everyone just had one and it could completely replace business cards. That could take awhile though. I'd like to say it would be more environmentally friendly, but the environmental cost of manufacturing the things may outweigh the paper savings (especially with recycled paper and properly harvested forests).<br />
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Well, I'm looking forward to trying out this new technology at GHC this year, and maybe it'll become mainstream enough that soon I can use it elsewhere too! I can't believe I never heard of it, but then again it looks like it may have only come out about a year ago, so I don't feel too bad. Hopefully I'll have a good experience to report!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-23159519837095832782010-09-18T11:20:00.003-04:002010-09-18T11:57:39.195-04:00GHC is just around the corner!Well, I'm definitely getting psyched about this year's <a href="http://www.gracehopper.org">Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC)</a>. I've been twice in the past: 2006 (San Diego, CA) and 2008 (Keystone, CO). Both times I met interesting women working in computer science, and I'm looking forward to re-connecting this year and making new acquaintances! Each year I've become progressively more involved. In 2006 I attended, and in 2008 I presented research in the ACM Poster Competition and was a note-taker. This year I am an official GHC Community Blogger (yay!), I'm on a panel called "Building Bridges and Breaking Barriers: Panel on Diversity and Inclusion in CS Education," and I'm presenting some of my dissertation research in the PhD Forum! There is so much to do before heading down to Atlanta (mostly related to making presentations), so time is really flying. At least I was awarded a scholarship again this year, so my main expenses are covered. That is definitely a stress reducer!<br />
<p>Did you know there are a lot of resources out there about GHC? Not only is there a <a href="http://community.anitaborg.org/wiki/index.php/Ghc">wiki</a> with notes from each year's sessions, but there is also a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/gracehoppercelebration">Facebook page</a> to keep in touch with other attendees. If you can't attend this year, you can always follow updates on the <a href="http://ghcbloggers.blogspot.com/">GHC Blog</a> or <a href="http://gracehopper.org/2010/community/ghc-bloggers/">community Blog Roll</a>, and <a href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ghc10">Twitter feeds</a>. They are definitely building a great community online in addition to in person.<br />
</p><p>I only wrote <a href="http://northernbelle-net.blogspot.com/search/label/ghc08">6 ghc blog posts in 2008</a> but I'm anticipating more this year. You can also follow my tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/umasshokie">@umasshokie</a>. Just over a week until Atlanta!</p>M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-3448648758376950372010-09-13T11:33:00.000-04:002010-09-13T11:33:31.799-04:00I'm Back!Well, after a not-so-short hiatus from the Blogger world, I'm back! I decided I needed to take some time away from the blog to work on another time sensitive one, whose time has now passed. I'm looking forward to getting back to chronicling my graduate school adventures, as I am hoping I will graduate within the next year! I have a lot of exciting things happening this year, and I can't wait to write about them!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-54060095281764678472010-01-03T16:47:00.003-05:002010-01-03T16:57:58.014-05:00White ChristmasI experienced my very first white Christmas this year! A week before Christmas a blizzard hit the east coast, including central Virginia. My parents' house had about a foot and a half of snow by the end of the storm. The last time I can remember us having that much snow there was over ten years ago, I think it might have been 1996? In that storm I remember us measuring out 21" and getting out of school for quite awhile. In this new storm, my sister and nieces were visiting and ended up staying until Christmas because the roads weren't clear enough to drive home (an hour away) until 2 days before Christmas! So instead of driving home and then back again the next day, they just stayed.<br /><br />When we arrived a few days before the holiday, there was still about a foot on the ground. It wasn't until we left on New Year's Day that it was really disappearing and looking more like what we expect a VA winter to look like. I was joking to Tim when we arrived there that usually we get rain on Christmas instead of snow. Ironically, we had freezing rain which turned to rain on Christmas day. Good old Virginia.<br /><br />In contrast, it has been snowing in MA most of the time since we returned Friday night. It looks like we will have quite the snowy winter this season. I don't expect VA to get MA-like snow again this season, but it looks like MA certainly isn't going to get any less than usual. At least we have the plows and infrastructure to deal with constant snow; I can't imagine being snowed in for more than a day at most!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-80112511642531792652009-12-14T17:21:00.002-05:002009-12-14T17:28:48.146-05:00Productive SemesterWell, despite the lack of updating, this has been a rather successful semester. Everything for the TA is rounding out in the next week, I've submitted multiple papers, and I'm working on additional papers that will hopefully be finished before Christmas. I'm well organized for conference deadlines starting in January, and looking forward to a productive rest of the winter. I even start a new project soon, which will be a nice change from the norm.<br /><br />The next week is going to be really busy, but what else is new?? The rest of December will be spent on visiting family, planning my wedding, and working on research. I'm really quite OK with that, and I'm looking forward to getting it all done so I can move on to the next to-do list!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-27688992736874507132009-10-22T13:35:00.003-04:002009-10-22T13:50:51.582-04:00How to Actually Help the Undergraduate ProgramIt's interesting what types of cuts our university is willing to make in order to keep the quality of the undergraduate education. Obviously education is the goal, and when you have over 25K undergraduate students they are also the priority to some extent, even in a research focused university. However, one of the cuts the university makes in order to maintain the apparent quality of undergraduate education (i.e., keep from increasing tuition even more or cutting too many classes) is to decrease the funding given to departments for Teaching Assistantships for graduate students.<br /><br />I can't imagine I'm the first person to consider that this can't possibly keep the same level of education, when students suddenly have fewer TA office hours to attend, and fewer TAs (and therefore less TA time) to answer e-mail or grade homeworks. This is why I say it is keeping an "apparent" quality of undergraduate education, even if it's not really keeping actual quality. As the sole TA for a class of 40+ students, I can say from just a few months of experience that this definitely impacts the undergraduate students. Luckily we were able to hire another graduate student as a grader for 10 hrs/wk, so I have more time to tend to the students' questions, design their homeworks, and put together the lectures I'll be teaching. But I still don't have enough hours in the week to help them. I can't imagine what TAs do when they aren't lucky enough to have just one other person to help with grading! Even spending the 20 hrs/wk I'm technically paid for isn't really enough. I enjoy what I'm doing, and don't want fewer responsibilities; but I'm really overworked, which is NOT good for my students!!<br /><br />I wish this cycle was more apparent to the upper level "management" of the university. If you want good undergraduate education, pay your graduate students! We do more than research, and we're often a great resource for students. When there is 1 TA to 40 students, the number of minutes they can spend helping each student is minuscule. How does that keep the quality of undergraduate education?M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-82790614897411185012009-10-11T19:28:00.002-04:002009-10-11T19:43:39.134-04:00New England Heating OdditiesThe process of heating your house is definitely different between New England and Virginia. This of course is not too surprising, given the colder climate up here. But what I really find interesting is the varied types of heating. In Virginia, almost everyone I knew either used electric heat or a wood stove. Up here in Massachusetts I've had electric heat, oil heat, and now gas heat.<br /><br />Supposedly gas heat is really cheap, so I'm a bit excited to see if our energy bills go down now that we aren't on oil heat. Apparently it was very expensive a year or two ago though, so I have to cross my fingers that prices won't go up again. The gas heater is really weird though; there's a heater in our living room that is permanently attached, but still is essentially a piece of furniture on one wall. It's supposed to heat the entire house, but it seems like it will just make the living room too hot to bear, and the rest of the house not hot enough. We also have electric heating in the floors that we can turn on (a separate thermostat for each room!!), which is supposed to supplement the gas heat. It will probably take a few weeks of actual use to really find the right process for making this combination work well without a lot of wasted energy. So far the house seems to keep rather warm (thank you, south facing windows and brick exterior!), so I'm hopeful that we won't need to use as much heat as we needed to keep the old rickety house warm. But the idea of having this big heater running while we're not home is not so appealing.<br /><br />The other confusing part of the gas heat is that there is no real thermostat on it. we can't, say, set the temperature to "60" and then just let it decide to run. You set it on a scale of "low" to "high" and as far as I can tell it continuously runs at whatever point it's put at. The electric heat has actual thermostats, but would require setting them in every room, and is supposedly more expensive to use than the gas heat. I hope we are able to figure out the right algorithm for making this all work out correctly!<br /><br />This is all on my mind because tonight is our first night it will be below freezing, so I will probably have to turn the heat on. I'm hoping to figure out a way to just keep it around 60 to 65 though!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-53092810857282803622009-10-11T18:05:00.004-04:002009-10-11T18:24:09.160-04:00Craftiness<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghl9I3aZhWbjhqhX2p8bd0Jg7z3bGwOtYT4mJWZ13JK97YsXuwZHGsSLNC940B_hyphenhyphenf8_NEPh3PcmHyrzVjoPwxjrxFxHtosR-dDJMNJdjtID1GRwo9VgEUVQx1BaaOycbLMmkz/s1600-h/IMG_6334_e.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 322px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghl9I3aZhWbjhqhX2p8bd0Jg7z3bGwOtYT4mJWZ13JK97YsXuwZHGsSLNC940B_hyphenhyphenf8_NEPh3PcmHyrzVjoPwxjrxFxHtosR-dDJMNJdjtID1GRwo9VgEUVQx1BaaOycbLMmkz/s400/IMG_6334_e.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391471276097806146" /></a><br />I enjoy a wide range of hobbies, which can be very difficult sometimes with how much time I spend on work. It also doesn't help that I spend lots of free time with friends! Not that I'm complaining about that!<br /><br />So, often my crafts go untouched for too long, and then suddenly I get inspired to work on them again and get tons done very quickly (and then don't touch it again for many many months). This has been happening as of late: I haven't worked on my scrapbooks since March or April, the cross-stitch I was planning to start in February didn't even get purchased until July (or was it August?), and the yarn box hasn't been touched since the main parts were finished in April or May. As you can see, the summer was not very productive on the hobby side of things; not only did we have softball games and a million weddings to take our time, I also had my thesis proposal.<br /><br />Now, however, I have finally started crafting again! It's very nice to again make something without the use of a computer. I'd say it helps my eyes, but I think starting at small boxes and stitching on them isn't so eye-strain-free. The exciting thing though is that I've stitched at least an hour every day for the past week, and I'm making OK progress! I'm not sure I can keep up the pace of having an hour every night, but most nights I need an hour to myself which ends up involving the TV, so I am hopeful it will work out since cross-stitch and TV watching work well as a multi-tasking duo. The goal is to finish before Christmas (this is a strict deadline, actually), since it will be a Christmas present. <br /><br />Some of you may remember the cross-stitch I was working on 2 years ago for my first niece Evelyn, pictured above. I didn't completely finish it before Christmas, but gave it as a gift anyway and then took it back to finish it before I had to head back to New England. This year, however, I plan to have my newest niece's cross-stitch finished before then! The first cross-stitch was top secret so I didn't mention it much here, but since I already started the trend, I don't think I can really make the second one a surprise to any adult in the family...so I think I'm free to blog away!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-91185271775929232262009-10-09T17:00:00.000-04:002009-10-09T17:15:15.184-04:00Politeness or Professionalism Classes: Required?Now that I'm actively involved in undergraduate courses, I've noticed a disturbing trend among students: unprofessional e-mails, inability to remember deadlines, not paying attention in class, and a lack of time management. Even graduate students have been prone to another problem: inappropriate types of question asking during presentations and class (the overbearing, you're wrong and I'm right, type of "question" that is really a statement and is usually incorrect).<br /><br />I feel that college is the best place to either learn about professional and appropriate behavior or to improve one's behavior even more, so that upon graduation it will possible to interact correctly in any work environment including graduate school. So why do we not require students to take a professionalism class? I was lucky in that my university (<a href="http://www.vt.edu">Virginia Tech</a>) required computer science students to take a <a href="http://www.cs.vt.edu/undergraduate/courses/CS3604">professionalism seminar</a> their junior or senior year, but I have since discovered that is not normal. We not only discussed and practiced interactions and professional writing, but also had panels related to ethics and the social impact of computing. I don't think this class was done perfectly (for one thing, anyone who did internships could have used it much earlier in the curriculum), but at least it was there to prepare students. Other computer science departments should really consider this type of class as well!<br /><br />We do have professionalism seminars that happen a few times a semester at my current university, but they only cover a few topics, are the same every year, and are more geared toward applications and research methods for graduate students. This is great, but the undergraduates really need more guidance!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-53676339972861768482009-10-01T11:14:00.004-04:002009-10-09T17:16:04.840-04:00Teaching Assistant LifeSo, I'm finally living the life of a graduate teaching assistant. I was a teaching assistant as an undergraduate, but had not yet been one as a grad student. It's actually great, because my responsibilities are much higher level than they were as an undergraduate.<br /><br />It could have been a horrible TA semester though; there are 42 people in the class and I'm the only TA. Can you imagine the grading? I can, since I graded as an undergraduate. But as an undergraduate we had multiple people grading for that same size class! It would have been horrible. Luckily, another graduate student is getting paid to grade 10 hrs/wk, so I have little to no grading to do.<br /><br />That means I have more time for the more interesting aspects of being a TA! I am creating the homeworks, I'll create the midterm, and I might even create the final. I also had to create the answer keys, which were a decent amount of work themselves, but at least mostly done in the creation of the homework (I don't want to give impossible problems!). I'm also giving multiple lectures, with the first one being next week. Unfortunately that lecture is on a topic I'm not particularly comfortable with, but I know I can ramp up in time to teach it. The series of lectures I'm giving later in the semester will at least be things I know relatively well already. <br /><br />Happily, I'm getting lots of great experience this semester. Sadly, it is time consuming even when I'm not doing the 20 hrs/wk I'm paid for! Just a little bit of a peek into the life of faculty, I think.M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-90962109347250289662009-09-24T11:47:00.001-04:002009-09-25T10:48:42.950-04:00Thesis ProposalsWell, a few weeks ago I passed my thesis proposal. For our proposals we have a 1 hour talk that is open to the public, the audience can ask questions, and then after the audience Q&A only the committee members and the student stay in the room. They then discuss the work, what they think of the proposed work, etc. Then the student is kicked out of the room while the committee discusses the work further, then the student is let back in to be told that they passed and what the committee wants to see for the thesis to be considered complete.<br /><br />I was actually nervous, even though I essentially knew I'd pass. I think many of my practice talks went much better than the real one, but everyone said it went well and that they were intrigued by my work. Our department chair actually stopped by my cube last week to ask a question, give a suggestion, and say he was really interested in what I was doing. So it seems to have gone well! Also, multiple students have stopped me to talk about it and how it might apply to other fields, so I'm feeling better and better about it!<br /><br />Now is the crazy part: all I have left to do is finish it! My goal is to be done in May 2011, although I hope to finish most of the main research before next fall so that I'll be ready to start sending out applications. How exciting!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-4891536456317368382009-09-18T11:01:00.004-04:002009-09-18T11:19:57.655-04:00Obama Fencing!<a href="http://timmorehouse.wordpress.com/">This is so cool!</a> Apparently two Olympic fencers were at the White House on September 17th, and they showed the President some fencing moves! The best part is they were saberists!! I'm so jealous. Can you imagine both being an Olympic saber fencer AND getting to meet President Obama?? Hopefully Tim Morehouse is right, and this might help encourage people to start with the sport who have never considered it before, or might help encourage areas without fencing lessons to find instructors. It's a lot of fun, but so many people never even try it or know if there are lessons near them!<br /><br />One thing I think is pretty funny though is that they were wearing their lames and other electric fencing gear, even though they weren't fencing electric! I guess non-fencers would be confused by a saberist not in full saber gear, but it's still amusing. At least they don't appear to be wearing wires...M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-58376154406624636882009-09-18T10:42:00.002-04:002009-09-18T10:58:21.288-04:00So Broke!Wow, having a fellowship can really work out in your favor! Although I knew that, I'm really feeling the effects right now. The past three years I was paid via a fellowship. Now that the fellowship has run out, I am a TA for my department. I make $600 less a month now! That is really going to make a difference in my budget. Sure, I saved money over those years, but I also didn't worry about going out to eat every now and then, or stress too much about travel expenses for all these weddings I keep going to. Yes, I'll be fine, I lived on this amount easily my first year of grad school (before I had the fellowship). But it's hard to take a pay cut!<br /><br />I think the bigger worry for me though is whether or not I'll have full funding next year. I'm planning to apply for dissertation fellowships, since my department doesn't usually have enough money to pay full TA-ships to everyone who needs it, and my advisor may or may not have RA money for me. I'll be a sixth-year graduate student then, and even though that is still below the average number of years it takes to graduate in our department, many sixth-year students find themselves without full funding. People have ended up with 1/2 funding, which isn't even enough to pay the necessary bills and buy groceries! Let alone gas, medical expenses, required travel to conferences, etc. Who knew that in a wealthy area such as Computer Science, even graduate students making good progress have to take out loans just to be able to eat? I want to avoid that; I thought by being a computer scientist I WAS avoiding that, but c'est la vie.<br /><br />So, thus begins my second round of fellowship applications. Hopefully I'll be as successful as I was last time! And hopefully I'll still find a way to continue to save a little bit of money this year as well. Wish me luck!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-59289557470251466562009-09-17T11:31:00.002-04:002009-09-17T11:44:47.926-04:00Sorry we missed you, Summer!Wow, it's already the middle of September. How time flies! I have multiple half written blog posts from earlier in the summer that I should finish later. Maybe this weekend?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtmjX6OwJ_6rdNvexW6pReCc11f6tAWuqlL9vLbms7t3XtuyfKxRohqe0xLFXOa8gwG_KfOpdrVLLThtePGYUCT2ezrcjFwMblcDhmM6wdvF4h7JGEXKSPuSLDvZrsLUwHqaJL/s1600-h/watermelon.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtmjX6OwJ_6rdNvexW6pReCc11f6tAWuqlL9vLbms7t3XtuyfKxRohqe0xLFXOa8gwG_KfOpdrVLLThtePGYUCT2ezrcjFwMblcDhmM6wdvF4h7JGEXKSPuSLDvZrsLUwHqaJL/s400/watermelon.jpg" border="0" alt="watermelon" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382462564949052642" /></a><br />It really feels like we never had summer at all this year. We had some nice days, and two weeks of sweltering heat, but mostly we had rain. Once it got nice out I was so busy working on my thesis proposal that I didn't really see much of the sun! Now it's getting cold and dreary out, which really is more of what I expect for the school year anyway. At least the new students had a week of sunny days before the dreariness swept in. You would think we were in Seattle!<br /><br />There are so many things I wanted to do this summer: hiking, biking, vacation. We did some of it, but not as much as in the years past. I think this is due to Tim working on his proposal in the beginning of the summer, me working on my proposal at the end of the summer, and most of free time spent either moving or traveling for one of the 4 weddings we went to. I enjoyed all of that time, but I guess it really ate into the time for other outdoor activities!<br /><br />The good news is that we still have at least a month before it's too cold to do hiking and biking without tons of layers, so we are going to try to get out as much as we can between now and then. Technically it is still summer until the end of the month, not that it has felt that way the last few days. But we'll make the most of it! And maybe by then we'll be finished moving in and can spend our free time actually relaxing. Assuming we have any to spend on anything!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-38240095482544974132009-08-03T14:16:00.004-04:002009-08-03T14:26:54.732-04:00Working at a cafe<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_qjgWH1ontI4AeDmvKOi2DZfqJWRmODsft0y0HjM7VMSgJJRhDjobWSjfzIFbQE6qY9c8vh0hUY9ltc0W5O8LboNL-akznhLcjaip3yg_2Ws9AaU3SY0Zq1sj1L40erIbkk2L/s1600-h/IMG_4253.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_qjgWH1ontI4AeDmvKOi2DZfqJWRmODsft0y0HjM7VMSgJJRhDjobWSjfzIFbQE6qY9c8vh0hUY9ltc0W5O8LboNL-akznhLcjaip3yg_2Ws9AaU3SY0Zq1sj1L40erIbkk2L/s400/IMG_4253.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365805513570090594" /></a><br />I have to say that one of my favorite places to work is at a cafe in town. I'm actually there right now, so since I'm blogging it probably will not be too convincing to say that I get a lot of work done here; but I do! The music right now is awesome, with "Boys of Summer" just finishing. It's like having Pandora playing, but without the need for headphones! I think I'm partially lucky that they play music I really like, if that wasn't the case it would probably be really annoying.<br /><br />However, I work best in a well lit area with either complete quiet, or constant expected noise. It's the intermittent noise (like people entering and leaving the room, coughing, etc) that distracts me the most. I suspect that is the case for a lot of people, hence the reason cubicles are so detested. <br /><br />Of course, this all also means that I may just like working at the cafe because my desk is in a windowless room that resembles a well decorated dungeon. Sure, the posters and such make the room seem less dreary, but it doesn't really help with the lack of light. Even the new brighter ceiling lights don't seem so bright anymore, which makes me scare to think about how dark the room must have been my first few years before the light replacement.<br /><br />Anyway, if you are looking for a good place to work outside of your own dreary office/cubicle/desk in the corner, consider your local cafe! The pot of tea makes everything better, not to mention you can actually get <i>natural light</i>! Just don't get too distracted with people watching, and you'll be OK...M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-29650839088116528872009-07-30T11:50:00.003-04:002009-07-30T11:59:18.283-04:00Softball Semifinals! First time ever??This summer is my fourth season of playing on a town co-ed non-umpired softball team. I was on a different team the first two years than the most recent two years, as it was created as an overflow for my current team. The team I used to be on (called the Turkeys) is a very good team, with very competitive people and a rather beefed up line-up. The team I'm currently on used to be consistently one of the worst teams in the league, but I have loved playing with them anyway. There are a lot of decent players on the team, but maybe not as much confidence as necessary.<br /><br />Well, this year has been different! This summer we ended the regular season as number 5 out of 12 teams, with a winning record of 11-9. We got a bye in the first round of playoffs, and solidly beat the number 4 team in our first playoff Tuesday night. That team narrowly beat us twice in the regular season, so our 17-3 win was fabulous.<br /><br />So, we are on to the semi-finals and possibly the finals tonight! In the semis we play the team that is undoubtedly the best team in the league, the Diamond Studs. If we manage to pull out a win, we'll play either the Turkeys or their semifinals opponent in the finals. This is definitely a big turnaround for us Coyotes!<br /><br />I'm so incredibly busy right now, but it's good to get some exercise in here and there. Wish us luck for tonight, both that we don't get rain delayed to next week and that we pull out the win!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-46856351656882740742009-06-25T19:34:00.000-04:002009-06-25T19:34:02.046-04:00Organizing Proposal WritingNow that I'm really trying to hunker down on the proposal writing, I have found a few techniques work much better for me than others (although I can't guarantee I'm in the majority here):<br /><ul><br /><li><b>Lots of hot tea drinking.</b> It's calming, but more exciting than water. I'm an avid tea drinker to begin with, but usually drink less in warm weather. However, it's helped me concentrate very well over the past week, as well as forcing me to need to get out of my chair every few hours.<br /><li><b>Make a proposal playlist, and listen to it.</b> I'm partially stealing this one from <a href="http://kathleenfoucart.livejournal.com/">my writer friend Kathleen</a>, as she makes playlists for her different books as she writes. I'm currently using music that is not distracting, but still upbeat to help keep my energy levels up as a write. Lately I've been spending all of my music time on <a href="http://www.pandora.com">Pandora</a>, as I wrote about before, but sometimes you just need to have too varied of music for that to work. However, if you don't own enough music for your playlist, this could be a nice alternative.<br /><li><b>Break the file into individual files.</b> Assuming you are writing in LaTeX, this is pretty easy, but is something I never do for writing. Basically, you make a file for each part of your proposal (introduction.tex, chapter1.tex, etc), and then include them in the main file using the command <i>\input{filename}</i>. Fairly straightforward, but makes it easier to find where you are in the file, AND it <i>helps keep you from getting overwhelmed</i>.<br /></ul><br />However, the most important piece of advice have so far is this: <b>don't work all day on it.</b> Unless you are one of the few people who can work 15 hours/day without ever getting burned out, don't torture yourself from dawn until dusk. Today I really figured this one out, and it's why I decided to post. Today I put all of my proposal and previous writing work on my lab computer (fairly new, so I still use my laptop for a lot of my research). Now, my plan is to only allot time for proposal writing during the day, in the lab, unless I specifically plan to work outside of the lab that day (in which case I'll just have to get the files). This way I feel more pressure to be productive while I'm at school, and can concentrate on other things in the evening (other work, hobbies, wedding planning, moving, etc). Overall, I expect this to lower stress levels significantly, at least for the next few weeks.<br /><br />I'm lucky in that I have exactly 2 months before I defend my proposal, meaning that if I take a month to finish writing and revising I'll still be done early. But of course that means that motivation on some days can be hard. Therefore I have my last piece of advice for now: <b>if you have enough time between when you start and need to finish your proposal, be sure to have other projects to work on too</b>. Now, all PhD students should have tons of work they should be doing instead of writing their proposals, so that <i>having the work to do</i> shouldn't be an issue. But the point is that if you have enough time to have low motivation, do some work on those other projects! If they are related to your thesis anyway, it's useful even for the proposal. Just don't get too caught up in them; the proposal should be the primary focus, otherwise you'll never get it done.M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-57388918842977124022009-06-24T16:09:00.002-04:002009-06-24T16:09:01.085-04:00Buffy vs. EdwardEarlier this week my housemate sent me a link to a video created to depict Buffy (from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118276/"><i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</i></a>) beating up <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Cullen_(Twilight)">Edward</a> (the vampire from book/movie <i>Twilight</i>). The point of the video was basically to show that yes, Edward is a creep, and yes, Buffy could totally take him.<br /><br /><a href="http://jezebel.com/5298683/buffy-shuts-down-edward-cullen-in-the-best-clip-ever">Buffy Summers takes down Edward Cullen</a><br /><br />Since I've <a href="http://northernbelle-net.blogspot.com/2008/10/twilight-is-my-favorite-time.html">written before about enjoying Twilight, and vampire stories in general</a>, it seemed appropriate to also share this link. If you know anything about these stories, you will hopefully find great amusement in the video! Also, as you may notice in the credits, something from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was used; see if you can find it, it's only a very short clip, but if you think about it, it becomes very obvious!M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-35537094230100934982009-06-24T08:55:00.000-04:002009-06-24T08:55:00.367-04:00First Biology Conference<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii0EY2U9bOUZq2oyrronhysxecVrhV7CBiWxFLJ4Qz6SGS2MjbwCfwyUoU0-Q4VJH39EEXRf_5yexQLblbbO2-cwPIjei_ks5jE27BUI1nttG6JoqXjPf3KuhZHSDH2gomv2eH/s1600-h/sysbioposter.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii0EY2U9bOUZq2oyrronhysxecVrhV7CBiWxFLJ4Qz6SGS2MjbwCfwyUoU0-Q4VJH39EEXRf_5yexQLblbbO2-cwPIjei_ks5jE27BUI1nttG6JoqXjPf3KuhZHSDH2gomv2eH/s400/sysbioposter.jpg" border="0" alt="cropped version of conference poster from http://www.csb2.org/events/sbhd-2009" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350553601584824690" /></a><br /><br />Last week I went to my first biology conference, <a href="http://www.csb2.org/events/sbhd-2009">Systems Biology of Human Diseases</a>, held at Harvard Medical School. It was definitely different from the computer science conferences I have been to thus far. Of course, for me the biggest difference was that I was surrounded by people that were experts in a completely different field from mine, but yet were still working on some similar problems. We just happen to have very different vocabularies. Overall though, I think it was a worthwhile conference to attend. I learned some new keywords, learned more about how biologists describe cancer, and got some new ideas for how to present and do my research. Not bad for a day's worth of time. Unfortunately I couldn't stay through the poster session thanks to a migraine, so hopefully next time I won't have that problem. Luckily this conference will be in Boston again next year before they merge with a European conference, so I will have easy access for at least that year. After that we will have to decide if it is worth traveling to Europe for it.M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-48047812481924263932009-06-23T11:45:00.003-04:002009-06-23T11:53:15.841-04:00Undergrad Class AgainEarlier in the year I wrote about <a href="http://northernbelle-net.blogspot.com/2009/01/experiencing-undergrad-class-again.html">experiencing undergrad class again</a>. Later in the semester I sat in on two lectures of my own department's intro programming class, as part of an observation for my "teaching undergraduates" class. I was in the same horrible classroom/auditorium I was in for the other class, but it was much emptier and thus quieter.<br /><br />Overall, I was very impressed with the faculty member giving the lectures. Sure, he wasn't perfect, but he had a great energy to him. This is one of the reasons I had chosen to observe him over some other professors; I knew he brought a lot of energy and excitement to teaching at the graduate level, and I really wanted to see that happen at the undergraduate level. <br /><br />In the second of the two lectures he brought his research area (Computer Vision) into it. He helped the kids think about how they might go about solving problems in the area with what they had learned in the class: arrays, I/O streams, etc. Really, I think if more professors used this type of lecture throughout their intro courses, we would have a better retention rate in Computer Science. It takes a step back from what can often be boring topics, and shows that there is an interesting use for all of it after all. I hope when I start teaching I am able to bring this sort of thing to my lectures as well.M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24784157.post-59498498394542140002009-06-22T11:36:00.000-04:002009-06-22T11:47:22.436-04:00E-mail becoming unusable?A few days ago our e-mail system went down overnight. Most people (who I know, at least) didn't notice for awhile. However, I had a big clue: no junk mail. My e-mail account had gone all night without acquiring any spam. Since I tend to get about 45 junk e-mails over the course of 8 hours each night, getting none was quite suspicious.<br /><br />This leads me to wondering whether or not e-mail is really starting to become unusable. If we don't win against spam, phishing, etc, will we become too frustrated with it? I can get 100 spam messages in a single day. Many of them are moved to the junk e-mail folder; however, when I'm sitting at my computer doing work and the new message icon appears in my system tray, I always end up looking to see what it was, and it is almost always junk. I like to have this indicator, but it's starting to become not worth it.<br /><br />I think most of my junk e-mail is due to a mailing list I'm on. I'm hoping that once I am off this mailing list in September, i will see a dramatic decrease in unwanted mail.<br /><br />My Gmail account also recently started having spam issues. I never see spam on that account, and starting earlier this month I started seeing a few e-mails of spam a day. It hasn't happened for a few days, but I am sure it will happen again.<br /><br />I feel like my e-mail box has become much like my real mail box: mostly just ads for services I don't need or want. How do we fix this? This is not my area at all, so I have no great solutions. I don't like the proposed solution of making e-mail cost money, as right now it's a great medium for staying in touch even just throughout a day (I have entire conversations through e-mail throughout a single day, that sometimes involve 20 messages, which could really add up in cost). I do believe we need to find a way for it to not be profitable for spammers/phishers to bother; or would that just mean even more e-mails, as the likelihood of finding someone who will fall for it is low? I hope that in a decade it will be common knowledge what types of e-mails to ignore, but my brain tells me that is unlikely. Won't spammers just keep evolving with the technology? So how do we get spammers to give up? Maybe we need psychologists to work on this problem.M. O.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07573900590200862301noreply@blogger.com0