The Annual Do-a-Thesis-In-A-Weekend Campaign
Every year, circumstances beyond my control (or perhaps my fervent need to procrastinate) put me in the position where all the research I have done all year has either failed, broken or been backlogged. What makes this one challenging is my unique situation for both my advisors think the other actually grades it. One doesn't know the context, the other doesn't know the subject. This has resulted in both thinking that I have been doing absolutely nothing. This, ofcourse, is absurd, since I have been attending more meetings, writing more reports and working m0re hours than most of my classmates. Anyone who knows me here at Cornell will hear the words "Car Team" and shudder - knowing full well that I will find a way to swallow all my time.
Unfortuneately, most of that time hasn't been on an actual publishable thesis project. Thus I have learnt the valuable lesson that you can follow a very structured systems engineering and project management approach to your project with everything progressing beautifully until you realize you have nothing tangible that you can hand in. My new plan is to revert to something I learnt in the ol' Eng Sci days - stay-up all weekend debugging the microcontroller until it works well enough to produce a result, not paying attention to how it looks. I seem to recall even the most elegant nail-hammering robots still failing in 2nd year, gift wrap and all (apologies Winnie et al).
Grrr! of the Day:
Before I came here, I set up this elaborate system to transfer money from my Canadian account to my American one - the short of it is I write myself a cheque and get funds. Thinking that I would have crazy problems depositing this cheque in an ATM, I've been going to the teller every month and she says she manages to put it through with a super-annoying 7 day hold instead of the usual 10 day hold. 7 days is inconvenient but I dealt with it. Yesterday I put the cheque in the ATM accidentally, and swore - thinking I would have an even bigger hold - turns out the funds cleared right away and the money was available today. Stupid teller kept telling me she was doing me a favour all this time!
Unfortuneately, most of that time hasn't been on an actual publishable thesis project. Thus I have learnt the valuable lesson that you can follow a very structured systems engineering and project management approach to your project with everything progressing beautifully until you realize you have nothing tangible that you can hand in. My new plan is to revert to something I learnt in the ol' Eng Sci days - stay-up all weekend debugging the microcontroller until it works well enough to produce a result, not paying attention to how it looks. I seem to recall even the most elegant nail-hammering robots still failing in 2nd year, gift wrap and all (apologies Winnie et al).
Grrr! of the Day:
Before I came here, I set up this elaborate system to transfer money from my Canadian account to my American one - the short of it is I write myself a cheque and get funds. Thinking that I would have crazy problems depositing this cheque in an ATM, I've been going to the teller every month and she says she manages to put it through with a super-annoying 7 day hold instead of the usual 10 day hold. 7 days is inconvenient but I dealt with it. Yesterday I put the cheque in the ATM accidentally, and swore - thinking I would have an even bigger hold - turns out the funds cleared right away and the money was available today. Stupid teller kept telling me she was doing me a favour all this time!
posted by Megalomaniac at 2:33 PM
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