One of those days

I'm sure you've also had one of those days. When nothing helps you get an edge. And progress takes the backseat to procrastination. I've not only had a day like that, it's been more like two weeks. However it's not necessarily been procrastination that's been the driver, it's been bureaucracy.

It would be easy to admit that today has been another day of lack of progress, but I'm not so sure it would be truthful. I have just spent a gruelling 3 hours filling in an online application for funding for 2007. Let's hope that the 3 hours pays off and I get the funding next year. Why you may ask? It's almost double the normal funding that I could expect from my project supervisor. I'm a firm believer that students can always do with more cashflow.

Considering all the time spent filling in forms and sorting out claims and so forth, I have decided that: One. It's good to start a new degree the same time as everyone else... then everyone is filling in the same forms and whinning about the same stuff - to use the Tax Department's phrase: Filing Season. And Two: It's no wonder that doing a PhD takes on average longer than the 3 years it's supposed to. That over-time is spent on passing through red tape.


So with only the hardcopy paperwork to wrap up on this, the first application of filing season, I hope the others go smoothly and the time spent is worth it at the other end - the paycheck end.

Hopefully more about the project soon. On the bright side, the application has taught me how little I actually know about the finer details of my own project!

Todays Vocab Word : Amphoteric
In chemistry, an amphoteric substance is one that can react as either and acid or a base. Examples include amino acids, proteins and water. Many metals, such as zinc, tin, aluminium and beryllium, have amphoteric oxides.

What's mine is mine.

Friend C and I were chatting yesterday about the possible content that I had planned on including in my posts. The issues of copyright and intellectual property were raised and I got thinking if I'll be able to meet my original intent of publishing results, findings and thoughts uncovered on my PhD journey, through this medium.

I approached Friend AuE for his advice. He has more web publishing experience than I do and thus I respect his views. With his advice, I have decided to re-think the intent of publishing and prolific writing through the medium of a blog, and to further investigate facilities for private posts and so forth.

I'm off to reassess things. What I do know is that I am confident that this will grow and change as I make even more progress with my project. I'm excited to see where this takes me.

Special thanks to Friends C and AuE for probing my neurons into making more connections and consuming more glucose. *bow*

Today's Vocab Word : Stoichiometry

... is the calculation of quantitative, measurable relationships of the reactants and products in chemical reactions.

Where to start?

Well I guess starting at the begining, or what may simply be a point in time where we choose to start our story. I've had this blogger account for about 2 weeks now, mentally working on the opening pitch, so to speak. A friend yesterday reaffirmed a position / thought of mine about writing things like essays, which can easily be transferred to blogs too, that for most of us we need to find that zone, where writing just flows. Sometimes finding, the zone, is equal to being forced by some deadline or purpose.

So our story begins with me wanting to learn how to write prolifically. As I start my PhD, I'm reminded about how labourious writing up my MSc and subsequent papers was, especially in terms of finding a zone. The idea was that I now find a ways to switch a mobile writing zone on, before thousands of data points and statistics spin Terrifirma into a writing wobble.

I got thinking about how to, everyday, make some contribution, document some finding, about what I had learned or discovered that day and keep it somewhere as a log of my entire PhD. Then writing up is merely a case of assimilating those daily writings and Bob's Your Uncle or something like that. Well at least I hope so.

Can you see now where this is going?

Having had some intimate exposure to let's call it web presence, in an old life, a personalised blog seemed the way to go. And this is only the start. I have a few big ideas of what I want to address each day in this process, but there's room for organic unplanned growth. Stick with me and let's see how this pans out.