Post #130: The conclusion

I just wrote the conclusion to my thesis. It's funny. I was meant to plan the thing but I just had coffee, well like two hours ago, and could not plan. So I decided to just start writing. And I did. Amazingly I now, one and a half hours later, have a two pages worth of conclusion. I'm laughing out loud in the office here. I just wrote without really thinking about it too much. I was like "no pauses to think... Just write!" and I did.

So yeah it might be crap but it's a starting point and I do feel kind of good about what I wrote even though I haven't the courage to read it again till tomorrow. Right now I have to get going home. I'm going climbing today! :) Fun fun. I hope.

But like the point is that my thesis now has all the parts it needs. Some parts need work I know but that's not really the point. I'm getting feedback on an old version from my boss from Germany tomorrow. I hope it's good. I have to orient myself to take it with an open mind. Since I'm afraid I sort of may just feel like saying "well I think it's fine the way I wrote it" to everything. But that's just because I've been doing so much work on the thing and thinking about it just by myself. I know I may sort of have like tunnel vision. But no worries. I'm not going to think about it till tomorrow. I'm good at not thinking about things, as I've mentioned.

Sharing is caring

My office is across the hall from the laser laboratories. There's this red light on top of the doors warning when the laser is on and sings saying "Warning - laser radiation". Well today there's been this noise coming from the laser lab. Like "sceech sceech" and well it sort of sounds like there's a phaser (as in the guns in Star Trek) fight going on in the lab. I can just imagine like Captain Picard fighting off the Borg or something. :) It's truly funny but one might have to witness it to understand. I thought I'd just quickly share this fun incident.

Thinking about thinking

I was having my morning coffee in the cafeteria today and I was thinking about thinking. I thought I should share my thoughts. See I was thinking I should be thinking about my conclusion and what I need to write on it and how I can get it to be interesting and not just a summary and stuff. Well as I was thinking that I should be thinking, i.e. gathering my thoughts, I noticed that I was not thinking about the issue but just about the thinking. And then I came to thinking that I am quite proficient at thinking about thinking and actually also at thinking about nothing when I should be thinking. Mostly I was distracting my thinking by thinking about what the spoon looked like when I moved it and how the sun was shining and how I was drinking coffee. In other words I was thinking about nothing.

Then I came to thinking that maybe I really am good at thinking about nothing. Like I think some people get stressed out because they just aren't able to turn off their thinking about working when they get home. That is not a problem for me. I can be without thinking about work all the time. Ok, so I acknowledge this might not strictly be a good thing. But I can do it intentionally too. Like at night when I'm going to sleep I start thinking I should be thinking about what I should be doing at work tomorrow but then I start thinking that I shouldn't since I can think about that at work and at the moment it might just bother my sleeping. Then I just don't think about it. The problem in this method is that I think my brain actually works quite well at organizing my thoughts in those moments that I am just about to fall asleep. Thus thinking about work at night might actually be a good idea since I might wake up in the morning with a head full on great ideas. And I do feel I should kind of get the "big picture" about my thesis before I can write a proper conclusion. Apparently thinking about it during my coffee break does not work since I can only think about thinking or about nothing.

I don't know whether everyone is better at thinking about thinking than doing the actual thinking of the thing they should be thinking of. Is that so or am I the only one thinking about this?

Oh well. I have to get back to my thesis reading and thinking. I'm making myself work late (or "late") by taking my badminton stuff to work. Badminton at five.

Thesis getting there

Yesterday I actually made like a breakthrough on the most annoying part of my thesis. I figured out a theme of writing for it or like how to write it. It was great. I made this figure by combining like a few figures from this article and got the whole annoying thing sort of explained by using the figure. I actually worked "in the zone" and then suddenly noticed that I was going to be late for coffee with a friend if I did not leave. I got the whole section finished this morning since I actually had very little left to do on it. Now I just have to check everything like as many times as I can and then write the conclusion and the summary and that should be it. Way great.

But I have to stop writing. I just noticed I have a meeting to go to. I almost forgot about it and I had to turn the oven off since I don't have time to eat before it. I guess I just got all messed up since I had to say no to a date. Oh well, I'll eat a banana and be off.

Another week gone by

So another week has gone by. I've done loads of things and maybe a bit too much of some things and a bit too little of some. But that's life. I think next week should be a bit calmer on all accounts. I really need to get concentrating on my thesis at work. Last week I had other things to do too but tomorrow I have almost nothing else. I really don't have that much to do on it anymore but of course it's all the difficult parts and like the one's I've been sort of trying to stay away from since i don't really understand everything fully. I just need to get more information. Read more. I've gotten a bit lazy about the reading since I already have more references than needed but the subject is quite broad so I really do have tons I need to know about and thing to take into consideration. But I just have to decide to concentrate on the writing and other studies instead of like men. Nothing but trouble from them.

I'm planning on going to see my parents next weekend. Well I also want to see my siblings and some of my friends whom I haven't seen in ages. I have to remember to contact them in time so I won't just go there and go shopping with my sis who's coming too and then just watch tv for the rest of the weekend. That's how it seems to go most times I've gone home. I never get anything worthwhile done there. But that's sort of the fun on going there. I can just be and not have to do tons.

Oh but I do have to tell about I used the student union building three days in a row. First I went there to see a play, then to see stand-up comedy and yesterday to see three rock bands play. Way cool that I did all those things in just one place.

Post #125: Speaking

I started a new course today. Oral communication. In other words it's asort of speech course. I wanted to go on an oral course instead of like a written communication course since I think I can better the written part of my communication capabilities by myself with like studying but it's hard to study how to make a good speech without people giving you feedback. Well I was kind of nervous about the course since I have this prejudice that all speech teachers are really horrible women that I just can't imagine I would get along with. And being judged by someone I can't get along with would just not be fun at all and I'd get this counter attitude and be difficult. But my worries turned out to be uncalled for.

The teacher was a man. Ok, so men can be bad too but this man was quite nice. He was really easy-going and made the atmosphere in the class really relaxed. I found myself commenting on the issued we discussed about more than I would have thought. Or maybe not really since I have been the chair of things and am used to talking in groups when no-one else is but still. I liked noticing that I'd actually developed in that area in the last five years or so. And it made me feel good that I'd done it purposefully and succeeded. But as talkative as I may have been in comparison to some of the other people there I did notice that I have things I can work on. I think the course is going to be really usefull.

The other people there were also quite nice. We even went for coffee during the break. (The course is like 4 hours for the next like 6 Fridays in the mornings.) It was nice being one of the people going for coffee and not like what I might have done. (I might have rushed to the toilet and then come back to the class and just waited silently till it started again.) But yeah the morning went by rather nicely. I think I'm sort of waiting for the next class though I have to prepare a 5 minute talk about some term or phenomenon from my field of study. "I wonder what I'm going to talk about..." It's way obvious. Polymorphism, of course. :) What better subject than the subject of my thesis. And I think talking to people about it will help me get some ideas together in my head. I just need to take this homework seriously and really practice what I am going to say.

But right now it's Friday. I'm off to see some stand-up comedy. Fun, fun fun. I've so ben wanting to go for ages. I haven't been in like a year. Have a good weekend!

Oh no, oh no...

Oh no.
That's what I said this morning as I woke up and looked out the window. It has snowed ("oh no"), it was snowing ("oh no") and it was snowing big bad lumps of wet snow ("oh no"). But what can one do. I got ready to go to work like I always do. The problem was choosing how I was going to get there. Would I risk taking my bike or walk. I hadn't really decided before I walked out the door and ended up taking my bike. Oh so it was a bit dangerous but they were promising the snowing to change into rain so the two centimeters or so would be gone by the time I would go home. I did get here with just one car splashing a combination of the sleet and dirt on me and one bridge dropping a lump of the stuff on me. And I do have to learn not to put on any eye make-up on mornings like these.

But yeah, I should start working now. But well I have gotten my experimental part in the register and it has been thus graded. I got a 4 (/5) or in other term 2.5. That's quite good. I should maybe celebrate but it does not really seem to matter what I got somehow. Maybe it will when I graduate or get my theoretical part done. They are like one big project in my eyes so if one of them is done then it's really only a part of the whole and I don't think I can celebrate till the whole thing is done. I think it makes sense.

Shopping and laundry

I went shopping today. I finally found myself new sports trousers. I mean they are not perfectly cute but they fit low enough, the legs can be tightened with drawstrings so they won't get in the way while climbing and maybe most importantly they're green. I don't think I'd have bought them had they been like black ro maybe I would have since they were the best ones available anyways but them being green is a big plus. Not everyone will have pine green trousers while exercising. I also bought a grigri (self-braking belay descender device) for climbing. Like now I don't have to pay an extra 2 euros when I go climbing and have an important safety apparatus that is mine and thus will be taken good care of and thus it will be very trustworthy. I mean it is like my life on the line when I'm 10 meters up in a wall. There are cheaper devices but I think I may just not be very trusting of people and bought the one that is self-braking. I also enrolled on another climbing course. This time it's outside climbing. It should be fun. I'll have to order good weather.

Oh and if we continue on the "what I bought today" -theme then I also bought a new usb-memorystick. 1GB since I'm having to fight with storage space all the time at work. I just can't fit all my stuff on 100MB at work. I have 100MB of storage space on the computer or well on the network drive and then my old memorystick of 128MB and since I like to keep my things like my thesis in two places it just is not working out. I mean the network drive is really full and I'm having to use my memorystick for everything. It's been annoying me but all that is solved with the new memorystick that cost just 10 euros. The comparison is that I payed like 35 dollars for my old one like 3 years ago and now I get 10 times more space for one third the price. Fantastic.

If hadn't had to do laundry today I'd have called someone and gone for at least coffee with a friend today but since i had to come home and do laundry I did not do that. Now it feels like I've just been wasting the whole night. Haven't seen any friends today. I talked to one on messenger but that doesn't count really. I want to meet people in real life. Ok so I could have called someone for coffee to my place or something but in the end I just wasn't feeling like it. I'm quite tired. I think I will just have some tea with these chocolate chip cookies I got from home that I just noticed I had. Dad and my little brother said they are great. I guess I'll make up my own mind soon.

Weekend again

It's snowing outside. I'm eating breakfast. It's Saturday and I've had a pretty good week. The only problem has been that I've still been a bit sick. That did not, however, stop me from going to play badminton and going climbing though I did not do a 100% at climbing. At badminton I had to really work at getting some points and even then I did not win one game. But I could only have played a bit better had I played any in like a year and had I been otherwise fully healthy. The badminton was on Tuesday and my arm was still a bit jammed from it on Thursday when I went climbing.

I really want to do more sports. I want to get in better shape. And well it seems it's sometimes small things that can have an effect. Like in Germany I walked up the stairs to my appartment for the last three months or so and now I think I can walk up the stairs to the chemistry department much easier. It's just great. It might partly also be my attitude toward walking up stairs but a change in attitude in a matter like that is also a good thing.

I'm a bit worried about having too many male friends. I think all my female friends are just moving away or something. Like if I had a party and invited everyone from Jyväskylä I like to hang out with I could maybe get four couples to come and then maybe like 8 guys. Not that I'd actually invite all these people at the same time or that all of them would come. But this just demonstrates my problem. But oh well. I'd like to think it will just take care of itself in time like all my "problems". No use worrying.

The Easter weekend seems ridiculously long. It's like two weekends in a row. I could get tons of things done but I can only orient myself to do one weekend's worth of stuff. Not that I have to do like anything proper since it's like a vacation. But like I should organize my appartment but since I took all of the stuff from the floor back to storage downstairs it seems like the problem is gone and I really don't have to organize anything. Except my clothes in the closet. They're just falling out and I can't find anything I want to wear. I may just need to take tons of clothes to a recycling center. That way I can get tons of new clothes. :)

I guess I should start the day. I plan to play some dancing game, go to the store and then later on go for a dinner and movie with the guys. Should be a good day. Have a nice Easter!

Hello fish

I moved my fish on the weekend. Well I did have loads of help. Like my sister who emptied the aquarium with me and my other sister's boyfriend who drove around the country just to help me with the aquarium. Thank you. And thanks for the car dad.

So today for the first time in ages I came home and was like "hello fish, hello froggies, hello plants. How you doing, how you doing, how you do-o-ing?" just like I always used to. Way nice. And the little fishies were all excited when I got home. They wanted their food.

Oh and for those who have not guessed yet. Guess how many guppies... I've even got a picture of tehm all in a bucket to help with the guessing. You are to guess the number of females, males and babies separately. Ok so you can also guess the whole figure but I'm sure you'll be way off.
I'm almost cured from my flu. I still sound weird but otherwise I think I should be fine in a day or two. The only annoying thing was that I could not play Singstar with my sister during the weekend.

But right now I want to make some tea and go check out all the new looking guppies I have. They are soooo cool looking.