Reverb 10 - Day 14: Appreciate or How I came to terms with my situation.

December 14 – Appreciate

What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

(Author: Victoria Klein)


It's not just one thing I've ended up appreciating in 2010. It's my entire situation.

I've come to terms with and I've started to appreciate the positive parts of all these facets of my current situation:
- my choice of topic and university,
- the independence I get in my research,
- living in Delft and the Netherlands,
- my housing situation,
- being far from my boyfriend.

Let me break this down and discuss more.

1. my choice of topic and university

I've let go of (or better: I'm trying very hard to let go of) all the "what if"s that I kept thinking of. What if I had stayed in the US and looked for a job and waited until the economy would be better? What if I'd have applied to another university?

2. the independence I get in my research

I started to appreciate the trust and independence I get here. I think this is one of the main factors that makes doing a PhD at TU Delft special. You really learn how to become a fully independent academic who can set up a research program all by himself. (But sometimes it can get really lonely and hard).

3. living in Delft and the Netherlands

I guess I have digested my culture shock (home vs. the Netherlands) and reverse culture shock (moving from the US back to Europe) by now. Delft is pretty, and the North Sea is near.

4. my housing situation

Early 2010 I left my campus room and decided to take over a previous generation of PhD students their apartment and look for roommates. Now I feel like I have a home, and not that I am camping in a temporary transition phase anymore.

5. being far from my boyfriend

Saying that I appreciate this part of my current situation would be too much, but at least I've accepted the situation.

What I've learned from all this is that it definitely doesn't help to keep dreaming of (doubtfully) better options. I've taken a decision to come here and do a PhD and I'd better make the best out of it. I've noticed that I started to enjoy living here much more when I gave up on being grumpy about this entire situation.

To express my gratitude for the situation I am in, I have started to cherish and indulge in all positive parts I can see in this situation. Most of all, I feel relaxed in my house (and I notice my cat has become much calmer and less stressed than before too).

For 2011 I hope I can further develop this appreciation. Enjoying the time I am spending here should be one of the keys to a better balance, and thus more productive time to do research.

Reverb10 - Day 13: Action

December 13 – Action

When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

(Author: Scott Belsky)


My main aspiration is to find my focus. I need to learn how to focus in many different ways.

1. Focus my concentration

The action I should take here is to train my concentration. I get disturbed easily by noise in the hallway, and people walking in and out of my office.

Next time when my office gets too busy, I will go to the library and read in silence there.

Then another problem is that my concentration, when not influence by outside factors, can be really bad. I'm never able to concentrate longer than 20 minutes, but these days my thoughts drift off after 5 minutes, or less.

I have to train my concentration by taking up meditation again, and by reducing my stress-levels.

2. Focus on my topic

I have collected all papers that might in some way be relevant to my research. To really work through these would take me too much time. I need to set days for speed-reading and sieving the valuable information out of my giant stash of information, and I should do this rather fast.

I have a very broad interest, but I should start narrowing down and develop my theory during the course of 2011. I should stop flying around loose ideas and working on bits and pieces but pick something and work it out thoroughly.

3. Focus on what matters in life

... and let go of what I do not need in 2011.

Reverb10 - Day 12: Body Integration - Part 2

I've been thinking about this prompt a bit more. My first answer was the obvious answer that I am most aware of my body when I am exercising.

But then I started to look at my past. I didn't practice that much sports as a child. Some ballet and tennis as a young child and horse-riding as a teenager was all the sports I did. I hated the hours of sports in school from the bottom of my heart. They triggered migraines since we always had to do gymnastics in which you end up upside down. And when we were not doing gymnastics, we had to play ball sports, which was a complete failure for me since I have virtually no depth sight.

As a teenager, I felt most integral body and mind when I was playing music. Especially when playing the cello, because you need to wrap your entire body around the instrument to play. Sometimes I feel complete when I sing too. Not when I am neatly singing from sheet music or singing in the choir, but mostly when I can sing along freely with a song I really like. I remember feeling integral during the pop singing classes I took.

Thinking about this made me realize I should make more time to sing freely and play the cello for 2011.

Reverb10 - Day 12: Body Integration

December 12 – Body Integration

This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

(Author: Patrick Reynolds)


This prompt seems easy and straightforward to me: in the gym.
When exercising I can release all frustration and feel the energy flowing through my body freely. If I take a group fitness class I need to concentrate on following the moves of the instructor, so I have my mind focused completely on the task I am executing.

For 2011 I hope I can add meditation to this. I've been doing some attempts recently to silence the random thoughts in my head in order to focus better, but it is still very hard.
I started to sit back and breath deeply for a few minutes in my office recently, to regain focus in the middle of the day.
This way, I've identified one of the problems: my lunch breaks actually don't make me feel relaxed and ready to tackle the afternoon. Some of my colleagues creep me out, and their presence at my lunch break drains my energy.

Reverb10 - Day 11:11 things

December 11 – 11 Things

What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

(Author: Sam Davidson)


1. Clutter

Except for what I really collect (books, CDs, photographs) I would like to remove some clutter from my room. My office is already clutter-free (at least at my side of the office), but my room, and especially my rooms at my parents' place are filled with objects I haven't touched in the last 5 years. I know I will feel lighter and able to think more freely when I eliminate them.

2. Approval of people I don't care about

Somehow, I seem to be conditioned to try to please and to be kind to all people I only know vaguely and do not contribute to my life. I try too hard to fit in, and it takes me too much energy. Eliminating this will go bit by bit, and by reflecting on my actions on a daily basis. Getting rid of this will free me of a certain amount of social stress.

3. Conflict with the people I care about

And this social stress sometimes makes me grumpy and insecure about myself, which results in me getting into conflict with the people I care for. Next time I feel a conflict coming, I will stop and pause and try to find the reason behind this. This should make the relationship with my loved ones stronger and healthier.

4. Negative memories

I'm totally an emotional packrat. I keep remembering negative events, even though they took place more than 10 years ago. I want to start to let go of these negative memories. It will free me of some unnecessary thoughts and ideas and help me focus on what is important.

5. Wasting time on the internet

One of my bad procrastination habits I am trying to get rid of. I don't have a real procrastination problem (I do plan ahead and always finish well before my deadlines), but wasting time randomly clicking around on the internet is one of my dumbest habits. Getting rid of this will bring me more time and will result in a better focus.

6. Being busy with little task to avoid tackling the big problem

Another bad procrastination habit: doing all the easy little administrative tasks first, and then concluding sometime halfway the day that I haven't got to the point of tackling my most important thing to do for the day. Again, getting rid of this will help me focus and prioritize better, and free some more time for me for fun activities.

7. Fear of asking for other people's time

This one is especially a problem when asking for the time of my advisors. I am too aware of the fact that they are busy, and stressed out because of the recent reorganization that I feel guilty to go and ask for their time. But waiting and waiting before I schedule an appointment delays me. Getting rid of this strange fear will help me move forward and towards my goals.

8. Perfectionism

This probably will be the hardest one, since it is an entire part of myself. I'm taking a special course for PhD students, and since we are a small group, there is a lot of space for our personal stories in there. In 2011 I would like to let go at least some level of perfectionism.

9. Guilt when I take time for myself

Too often I still feel guilty when I take time for myself and I keep thinking I should be doing something useful like reading papers now. This again is part of my attempts to find my work-life balance, and letting go of this feeling of guilt will make sure I can fully enjoy the time I take for myself, recharge my batteries and then tackle work with a fresh mind again.

10. Anger in traffic and the supermarket

I've tried for about an entire year to pass by people in the supermarket by saying "excuse me", and it seems to be very uncommon here in the Netherlands. I ended up coming home from the supermarket upset and angry and ranting about those rude Dutchies. I probably should just let go and push my way through the supermarket too. Or at least, I should just let go of this feeling of frustration. It's a cultural thing, and I should adapt to it. The same is true for traffic. I'll just have to learn that people drive a bit more assertive here.

11. High amounts of sugar and fat

I eat these too often, and they make me so tired. Last Monday we had cookies and marzipan and all kinds of treats during our coffee break, and about an hour after that I almost fell asleep. And this happens to me every time when I eat a lot of sugar. On the other hand, fruits and granola bars (if they don't contain too much sugar at least), give me a lot of energy. I hope I'll be able to make some healthier choices in 2011. Getting rid of the high amounts of sugar and fat will make me feel healthier and less tired.

Reverb10 - Day 10:Wisdom

December 10 – Wisdom
Wisdom.
What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (Author: Susannah Conway)


At least the largest decision I took in 2010 is that I wanted to change my way of working.
I felt I was getting tired, had lost track of my priorities and had lost grip on my project.

So I made a few changes.

1. I understood it is MY project

I started to take matters into my own hands and push the project forward. I now ask my advisors for advice, but I don't ask them what I should be doing.
I determined my priorities and I've made a list of research ideas to work on.
And I'm enjoying this feeling of independence.

2. I started to use a planning

I started splitting up my to do list into several lists at different levels, as I've described in this post. For every day I have my most important thing to do, on which I focus.

3. I'm trying to find a work-life balance

I'm still working on this one. But I've already done progress. I go to the gym for group fitness at fixed times so that I have to leave my office in time. And I've noticed that I now can leave my office in the evening without feeling guilty or thinking I should have done more. If I can work on my most important thing to do, then I feel I've accomplished something by the end of the day.

How staying longer at work resulted in getting less work done

Yesterday, I stayed in my office from 8am until 7:30 pm and -oh horror- I got much less work done than on other days.

I knew I could stay longer in my office because I was planning to go straight from my office to my choir practice. That's why I stayed late.

Since September, I haven't been staying long in my office. I've been scheduling aerobics classes at relatively early hours to make sure I leave my office in time. All this is the result of my attempts to find a work-life balance as a PhD student.

Knowing that I'll leave my office at a certain time, usually 6pm, forces me to plan my day, and fit my work in my schedule. I've tried and tested this, and I am getting as much done as when I was staying in my office from 8am to 8pm before September. I even feel like I can focus better during the day.

Yesterday, I thought during the day several times that I could do this and that in the meanwhile (unimportant tasks) "because I was staying longer anyway". Around 5:30 pm my concentration was gone, and I started to instant message my boyfriend. And then I started to read some blogs and have dinner. And suddenly I had to leave and run for choir practice, leaving the paper I wanted to read unread on my desk.

I've learned my lesson :)

Reverb10 - Day 9:Party

December 9 – Party

Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

(Author: Shauna Reid)


I've had several fun parties according to the trusted recipe: fun friends, good music, great atmosphere and some Belgian beers (or ice tea, when I'm designated driver... I take my responsibility very serious then).

Other than that, I need to write that 2010 was the year in which I discovered that doing a PhD is a big party - if you want it to be like that .


You can be negative, and complain about your slow progress, lack of supervision, workload, difficulties in prioritizing and the like. I'm not telling you that you can't complain about those, every now and then you should complain and you definitely should remain realistic about your goals.

But there's so much more positive and fun things about it!
Think of this: in which job could you dig into a topic of your interest for such a long time? Where can you come and go and decide on your schedule and tasks as much as when doing a PhD? Where do you get the opportunity to travel and meet amazingly interesting people?

You see, doing a PhD is like a party for your brain. :)

Reverb 10 - Day 8: Beautifully Different

December 8 – Beautifully Different.

Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

(Author: Karen Walrond)


Today's prompt is a hard one on me. Not because I cannot find in which way I am different, but rather because I am continuously the odd duck, wherever I go.

During my school days, I never had the feeling of fitting in. Then, at university I didn't feel I was like the other engineering students.

Over time, I have come to terms with the fact that I am different. I realize that my broad range of interests can be seen as a positive quality, and I have decided I want to stimulate my interest. No longer I want to hide my artistic side when I am amongst engineers, and no longer I want to hide my geekiness when I am with musicians.

I have tried to narrow myself down, but it is against my personality.

Reverb10 - Day 7: Community

December 7 – Community

Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

(Author: Cali Harris)


Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010?

I had a very good experience at my first conference last year in 2010.

I was afraid that no one would be interested in my research because I just started it. I was afraid that I would not be taken seriously because I am new to research (and only 25, and female).

But it turned out to be just the opposite way around. Having "TU Delft" on my name-tag was enough for people to come up to me and talk to me. Or they would just come and talk to me, just interested in my research and curious what brought me to the conference.

I felt accepted by my scientific community.

What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

Professionally, I would like to connect more to fellow PhD students in other fields and around the world, and share thoughts and ideas on research and how to do a PhD. There are many similarities valid for all fields in the skills you need to manage a big research project like your own PhD. I would love to learn from others, reflect on their and my experiences and improve my ways.

Just ask

For 2011, I have a challenge for myself. I hope some of my fellow researchers will join in too.

Just ask what you want.

Have you been thinking to yourself: I wish I could go to this conference, I wish I could present there, I wish I could meet this person?

It came to my mind recently, that most PhD students need to create chances.

Taking chances is a first step, and I have been able to put myself to this point. I am naturally shy and I would prefer to stay in my safe research environment. I can feel perfectly happy with a pencil, scratch paper and a few interesting papers.

Last year, however, I discovered the wonderful feeling of getting positive feedback from peers and senior researchers. I must have been smiling and radiating throughout the entire summer, as my first two conferences gave me quite some confidence in my work.

I am glad that I have discovered what opportunities it can bring me to take chances, but I want more.

For 2011, I want to create more chances. I want to simply ask what I would like to do.
I have made a few steps in this direction already. The next two conferences I will attend, are conferences I have chosen, and have asked my advisors if I can go there. I have an abstract in process for another convention, and today I asked about a conference in 2012 already for which abstracts are due early 2011.

Another major step is that today, I dared to walk into the office of my advisor and ask him if he read the documents I sent him. We had a scheduled meetings this morning which got postponed to "sometime during the day".
Normally, I would have stayed in my office, anxiously waiting until he would show up and tell me he had some time to discuss. Now, I spent 10 minutes talking to myself and saying: just go ask!

And this I would like to do more in 2011: Just ask!

Even if the answer is "no", at least I will have tried.

Reverb10 - Day 6: Make

December 6 – Make.

What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

Thinking about this question, I realized I have "made" a lot of things during the last year when it comes to my work, but not enough when it comes to the creative person in me.

What I've created, what I've devoted all my energy to has been mainly my research.

I have written papers, I have made specimens, I have produced ideas.

But what would happen if I make more time for creativity in my life?

What would happen if I start writing poetry again, if I start composing music again? I must admit that, since it has been so long ago, I have become afraid to do this. I have become afraid that I will not meet the standards that I used to have.

And I know that, since I haven't had practice for such a long time, I will not meet these standards. So I took the easy way and did not free up some time and space to let out this creativity.

Recently, I read somewhere that creativity is a habit you need to form.
I know this is true, since I used to just allow myself 20 minutes of writing time per day in which I learned to develop my poetry style. I used to save my saturday mornings to work through composing exercises.

Creating more time for creativity is one of my challenges for 2011.

I'm already curious to see how this will influence the creative thinking I need in my research.

Reverb10 - Day 5: Let go

December 5 – Let Go.

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

(Author: Alice Bradley)


I let go of clutter

I am a giant pack-rat, and one of my challenges for last year was to let go of clutter, both objects and emotional.

Letting go of clutter - objects

I did quite some progress here. It all started earlier in 2009, when I had to move back from the US to Europe. When I left, I filled an entire trash bag with stuff I did not need anymore and another trash bag with clothes to bring to a charity.

Before that,I would keep everything I had. Now I really had to sort out and see what I could take along with me on the flight. I have kept this attitude and started to sort out my things.

By now, I seriously have been thinning out clothes and shoes. Even though I still have too much, I feel that it has become much easier for me to simply throw something away or donate it.

I still face the challenge to sort out my books, and to sort out all the random stuff I have at my parents' place. That is one of my day zero projects, and it is on that list for a reason :)

The first steps have been taken, and I feel that I am progressing bit by bit. Sorting out cupboards, re-organizing and creating more room for the things I really use now feels good to me.

Letting go of clutter - emotional

I only started to try this about two months ago. I would like to attach more value to emotions that are positive and related to the persons I care about, and to drag less negative emotions with me of situations that actually do not matter and persons who do not contribute to my life.

I hope I can report some good progress here in about half a year.

Reverb10 - Day 4: Wonder

December 4 – Wonder.
How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?
(Author: Jeffrey Davis)

Thinking about this question, I realize that wondering is an essential part of my life, in many different ways.

I wonder about research questions.

Thinking out of the box and wondering why we make certain assumptions are supposed to be my daily activities. Supposed to be, that is.

Too often, I just rush around the day in a reactive mode: helping out colleagues, replying e-mail, planning my experiments. My day gets stuffed with short activities, while I need large batches of time to actually do the real scientific work and think deeply.

One of my challenges for the next year will be to create this room for creativity in my schedule. I might start to set office hours, and try to put my meetings less scattered around in time.

I wonder about the opportunities I get.

It is amazing to discover what happens if you open doors. I am very fortunate in my project to decide what I want to try out and where I would like to go.

One of these doors I opened, was to go to a conference. It was my very first conference ever and I went all by myself. Before that, I was dead nervous. I was afraid my work would be criticized. I was afraid no one would talk to me.

But I am so glad I went there. i learned so much and met so many people. Senior researchers would come up to me and start a conversation. I was not feeling alone or not part of the community, I was feeling very welcome indeed.

I am glad that I took the challenge.

I wonder about our beautiful world.

I try to enjoy all seasons and all changes in nature as much as possible. I enjoy walking outside and admiring a beautiful scenery and wondering about our wonderful world.

I used to live for summer, and ignore all other seasons. During the winter, I would feel very tired and without energy. I thought there was no solution at all to it.

Recently I discovered that the solution lies within accepting the beauty of every season. This is the first winter in which I feel as vivid and happy as during summertime. I just gave up on complaining, and decided to indulge in the beauty of the season. It was that easy to cure my winter disease.

Reverb10 - Day 3: Moment

December 3 – Moment.

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

(Author: Ali Edwards)


My walk around the Laguna de Limpiopungo

 

Only a very few times in my life I have experienced the beauty and vastness of nature to this extent. Walking around this lake at an altitude of 3800m above sea level was a wonderful experience.

I was in the wonderful company of my boyfriend, his daughter and two of his cousins. We had just visited the parking lot of the Cotopaxi at 4500m above sea level, where we had been walking literally in a snow or ice rain cloud. I was chilled to the bone.

The sun came out as soon as we reached the lake. The air was of a freshness and purity I had never experienced before. The lake was reflecting in the late afternoon sun like a thousand diamonds. In all this abundance, I started walking. 

I was filling my lungs with this pure air, and discovering the small flowers that grow at this high altitude. The grass under my walking boots felt hard and short. Even though it was very cold, the sun was shining very brightly since I was walking very close to the equator.

Around the lake, the colors were mainly green, yellow and brown. The little flowers were purple, and the water and sky were bright blue. After walking for half an hour, something wonderful happened: a rainbow appeared. The sky was so bright and the air was so pure that I could see the rainbow very sharply. It was a complete arc, I could see its beginning and its end. For the first time in my life I had seen a complete rainbow.

I was amazed by all this beauty, and I remember this walk very often.

Reverb10 - Day 2: Writing

December 2 - Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

I write, and then I wait for the input of my supervisors.

I usually write a draft (conference) paper in a concentrated writing wave of about 2 or 3 days. In the best cases, I just sit down in my office, connect to grooveshark for my favorite music, and start writing and writing. I then print out my first draft. About a week later, I proofread this draft, make some changes (typically this involves considerable changes) and then I submit it to my advisors for their input.

There are two things I would like to discuss in further detail concerning my writing.

Avoiding writer's block

I've found my way to avoid writer's block and to actually enjoy writing.

All through my childhood and teenage days, I enjoyed writing. I wrote short stories, kept a diary and I wrote poems (and participated in an organization for poetry and young people, and in competitions and all fun stuff I enjoyed back then). Acknowledging the fact that, in essence, I enjoy writing was a first step to overcome my fear of an empty white screen.

Knowing this, I started to write intensely for my PhD. I started to write discussions and summaries of interesting papers and documents I had been reading. I started to write out the results of my parameter studies. I started writing a large literature review which I update every time I come across an interesting paper.

You might wonder, what is the use of my overactive typing? To me, the value of this is that I always have some information ready to pull contents from. When I write a paper in which I compare my experimental results to code methods, I don't have to spend much time on explaining those code methods. I can simply pull the information from one of my documents, and then alter it a bit to fit the contents and purpose of the paper under consideration.

The value of other people's input

I don't feel confident about my scientific writing yet. By the time I write and defend my dissertation, I hope will have found this confidence. As for now, I still heavily rely on the input of others. But, since my advisors are very busy people, I have the impressions they do not really have the time to deeply check my writing and will only get what I call the "first level" errors out of it: typos and little lacks in the text and drawings. However, to really learn to become a better writer, I hope to get some more structural feedback: leave out a certain section, discuss something else...

Therefore, I have tried to determine for myself why and when I find a paper well-written. I am trying to learn from other people's writing style and implementing this into my own style. However, I still feel that I need a guiding hand in my writing.

What helped you to become a better scientific writer?

Reverb10 - Day 1: One word

I have just discovered reverb10. Even though I am a few days too late to start in time with this challenge, I decided I would like to give it a go. I might not be able to keep up with the challenge until the end of the month, since I will be traveling all around in the second half of the month, but the idea of writing on a day to day basis and sorting out what happened the last year sounds very tempting to me.

The first day reads:
December 1 - One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

Start

2010 felt as the start of so many different things to me. Even though my PhD itself started late 2009, it is only in 2010 that I started to understand the real challenge of this project and that I understood that I have to take lead in my own project. I started to be in charge of my project.

Then, during the summer holidays I went to visit the family of my boyfriend. Having met eachothers' families and roughly decided where we will live after grad school gives me the idea that we really have started a long-term project together.

After these holidays, I started to push myself out of my comfort zone. Challenging myself to exercise more, eat healthier, feel less stressed and overall live a more balanced and healthier life has made me feel less tired than I used to feel. I still have days on which I prefer to stay inside instead of going to the gym and stuff myself with chocolate (today, I admit, was one of those days), but I feel I am doing progress.

For 2011, I hope the word will be "progress". I hope I can further develop the changes I initiated in my life this year.

Evaluation of my presentation

Time to reflect on yesterday's presentation....

Something interesting happened during my presentation, which tells me a lot about myself. Even though I was well prepared and put a lot of effort into making drawings for my presentation as well as stating clear goals and a clear key message of my presentation, even though I was not nervous three days ahead, I still felt extremely uncomfortable.

And the reason was very simple. One person (one of my colleagues, actually), sitting right in front of me, was talking to the people next to him, and making fun of me and my gestures during my presentation. This made me feel so uncomfortable, insecure, nervous, distracted and during the questions, I was doubting myself. Just because I felt the negative attitude of one person making me very clear that my work is not good.

I've been having this problem before, as a musician. Last year, I sang at a concert in our department during the lunch break. The negative attitude of some of my coworkers (music is not science therefore irrelevant and ridiculous) made me feel very nervous, and I performed very badly. I couldn't even have my breathing correctly supporting my singing.

Another example is almost 10 years ago, but I never forgot it because it was a very negative experience for me. I was playing cello then as a soloist on the concert of the winners of the city medal for music. Right in front of the stage, our mayor fell asleep while I was putting my heart into my Bach cello suite. It disturbed me so much, I ended up playing not well at all.

The lesson I learn from this is that I am very vulnerable to the atmosphere in which I perform or present. If one person can make the atmosphere turn hostile against me, I am lost.

Up to now, I don't know how to shield myself against these influences. I should just ignore it, but I'm an HSP, so sensing my environment is my natural behavior.

How can you ignore someone's hostile attitude while you are presenting?

Tomorrow's presentation

Tomorrow I will be presenting again at the same symposium where I had my first presentation about my research one year ago.
Last year, my presentation wasn't bad, but there was a lot of room for improvement. I've corrected some of last year's mistakes and wanted to write this out here for myself to see what I've learned, to see if I'll have more to add to this in one year from now, and maybe new PhD students can learn from this too.

1. Prepare ahead
Last year, I had to make my presentation the afternoon before the moment of the presentation. I wasn't expecting that I would be presenting. I checked the box "I would like to give a presentation" but later on I heard that only 3rd and 4th year PhD students would be presenting. Then, the day before the symposium, I came back to my office in the afternoon, after arriving from a transatlantic flight in the morning. Totally jet-lagged I looked at my mail, to find out that I would be the first one to present. If only I would have had some slides ready (just in case, they always come in useful), if only I would have an idea of an outline.... but no,I had to start from scratch at that very moment, I even had to go and take pictures in the lab. I've learned that it is very good to always have something ready, just in case.

2. Know your audience
Last year, I didn't check to whom I would be speaking. I just assumed everyone out there would be a structural engineer. I didn't know it would be open to all civil engineers and architects. So I immediately jumped into the core of the problem, with not much introduction. This year, most of my presentation is figures and concepts.

3. Try out to work with a key message
This year, I made a slide with my key message which I will show twice during my presentation. I hope that will make my most important hypothesis clear enough. It's the first time I try this approach.

4. The importance of the Q&A
Last year I answered some questions too quickly because I thought they were irrelevant. I think the asker was not too happy about that. I promise I won't do this again, and I promise I'll try to let the asker finish his or her question before interrupting (very difficult for me).

Alright, now I'll go back to packing my bag for the symposium. I'm not nervous (yet), which is also an improvement as compared to last year.

How to learn from your supervisor

When you are in a PhD program like mine, in which virtually no course work is involved and you are supposed to spend 40 hours a week in your little room with your stack of papers and a computer, you might really feel the need to be nourished with some fresh ideas.

Your supervisor could play an important role here. The Dutch PhD system is inspired by the medieval practice of the master and the apprentice. However, nowadays supervisors are really busy people that only every now and then can transfer knowledge to their student. I, for example, feel that most of the interaction I have with my supervisor is based on him approving my progress, adding some ideas and putting me back on track whenever I need.

But how can I be a better apprentice, how can I benefit more from the knowledge of my supervisors?

During my time as a PhD student I have found a few ways to learn from my advisors. My preliminary answers to this question are:

1. Coffee breaks
Some of the most interesting talks (not related to my research topic) I have had with my supervisors occurred at the coffee machine or during the coffee break. Hearing their random stories about conferences, other people's research and approach to research feel very valuable to me. I get the broader scope, I get some insider information from my advisors who have been in the academic world for decades. What I learn at those moments appears to be lessons for my -hopefully- future academic life.

2. Field trips
Last Friday, my advisor and I went to inspect a real case of my research. I learned more in those two hours on the site than I have learned in a few weeks in my office. Since my advisor had scheduled this time to go there, he also had enough time to give me and my fellows a little lecture there. It was absolutely great. Seeing this case and getting all this interesting information made me feel that bit by bit I am growing to an expert in my field and that I get the opportunity through my PhD to learn what is not being taught in courses.

3. Writing papers
When I give a draft paper to my supervisor, he can quickly see where I have not been clear enough, where I should add an extra figure and where I should expand a little more on the topic. This teaches me to be more critical and find the flaws in my writing.

Unfortunately, these occasions have been very scarce and I would like to benefit more from the knowledge and experience of my advisors. How do you learn from your advisors?

A few lessons from the lab

The past year, I've been conducting an enormous amount of large-scale experiments (my funder is quite generous). Tomorrow I'll have finished large-scale test number 98, and I will have tested 14 slabs (half-scale slab bridges) and 9 wide beams/slab strips. In this past year, I've learned by trial and error how to get a good routine and manage the testing program.

1. Plan
There's much more to plan about doing an experiment than the experiment itself, obviously. You will need a planning to arrange the delivery of your material, the fabrication of your specimens, side testing and then the course of the experimental program itself. Even though your planning will change (mine is changing frequently because of unexpected delays: sickness of technicians, the carpenter being unavailable,... ), you still need a planning to make sure you won't forget anything and to estimate the time every step will take you.

2. Prepare
Don't walk into the lab with empty hands. When I go to the lab, I have my fixed set of documents along with me: a sheet with predicted values to immediately compare my test result to and a table that I fill out during testing in which I note down observations for every load step. I also take the camera along with me to photograph the failure patterns (and sometimes something to snack on).

3. Classify
Don't wait until months after testing to organize and classify your data and notes. Right after a test, I save the raw data and pictures into their respective folders. I add results into tables which I build up test by test. I write a short summary in my lab book. You get the picture: take action immediately to keep it all neatly organized.

4. Automatize
If you carry out a large test series, try to automatize your data processing as much as possible. Even though programming might take you a few days, the benefits will return to you in the long run. I for example wrote a Matlab code that reads my raw data and returns all plots and numerical values I need for the considered test. Programming is by far not my specialty, but I learned something while writing my code, and now I generate all plots in just a few seconds. That sure is a win.

5. Write
Don't wait until months after the experiment to write your report. With my large testing program, I sketched an outline of how I want to discuss every specimen and test and made it a good habit to complete the report after finishing a specimen. Initially, I could remember every detail of every test, but now I notice that every now and then I have to check in my report to verify what happened during a certain experiment. There's a limit to our memory, so you'd better not wait until you start confusing to write down your results and observations into a report.

6. Smile
You probably won't be working all by yourself if you carry out a series of tests. Respect the technicians you work with, don't treat them as "inferior" because they are not pursuing a doctoral degree. Arrive in time when you need to fabricate a specimen and technicians are volunteering to help you. (I'm writing this because I've seen bad examples, unfortunately). It might be hard work (my muscles used to hurt terribly after working in the lab for the first months), but make sure you enjoy. Joke around, have fun, and above all: smile.

Social Media and Academics

Today, I attended a workshop on Online Networking and Social Media by Floor Drees at the PhD Event 2010. One of the most striking observations was the reluctance of young academics to social media. I was surprised to see that only about half of the audience has a LinkedIn profile, and very few hands were raised when Floor asked about Twitter.

I understand the criticism. In the end, for an academic career, your publications are very important, and to get something out of social media, you need to spend some time on it. You might be wasting your time, you should be researching and publishing.

It took me time to convince myself to explore Twitter, too, and to start writing this blog. I was afraid of writing something unintelligent and losing some academic credit for that. But then I realized that social media is very much me and what I like and stand for. I'm the kind of nerdy kid that was building websites as a teenager. I'm the kind of kid that as a child, rejoiced over having Windows 3.1 installed on our home computer. I love new stuff, and I love all that is hot and happening.

But that's just me. What might be in there for a young academic?

Organizations which give you updates on their next conferences, and you can tweet about the conference using the appropriate hashtag.

Personal leadership advice : Doing a PhD is all about managing a giant project, and you need a good set of soft skills to reach your goals. On Twitter, a lot of young entrepreneurs with a small business like to share their ideas and advice with you. Even though my university stimulates me to attend trainings and workshops, a few encouraging words per day are always welcome.

Be visible If you're on the internet, participating in discussions on your topic (for example in the LinkedIn groups), you can show to peers further away where your expertise lies. And since you do a PhD in a specific topic, you will be one of the experts in that topic.

It doesn't take that much time. Some people have the idea that social media, and especially Twitter, are a waste of your time since you might end up tweeting your every move from your office and not getting work done. I love social media, but my priority is obviously my research. Therefore, I don't touch any social media website during my workday. When I come home, I check what is going on. In total, I spend about 20 minutes per day, which seems to be enough for me to get the benefits out of it.

Branding Fail

Today, I was reading an article on an online newssite. The article was about a company that offers training courses to demotivated and burnt out employees. I thought that sounded interesting (I enjoy reading about personal leadership and development), and so I clicked on to the website of the company, where I discovered they hadn't updated their website since 2005. Like, 5 years ago!

They only advertise a personal branding workshop which they were offering on a certain date in 2005. Really, I found this such a difference between the statement the company makes (we don't care to give you up-to-date information) and what their actualy goal is (training on personal branding, and getting more fulfillment from your job).

The work-life balance thing

My first blog post here was all about writing down my new academic year's resolutions and making them public and thus pushing myself to actually do something about it.
One of the "problems" I wanted to tackle is that my work-life balance was pretty much gone. I would get absorbed in my material and only go home at the point I'd be close to starving (or shove another granola bar into my mouth and go on). To avoid my brain from getting overloaded and blurred, I knew I had to go away from the books and get some exercise. One evening of choir repetition per week is not exactly enough of relaxing activity for me.

Last year I had a subscription to the university's gym, but I didn't like it. Since I prefer group fitness, I need a place with certified and enthusiastic instructors, which is not quite what I can say about the gym of my university.
And so I decided to go to another place this year. Since I have to pay a fair amount of money per month(for a grad student, that is), I am motivated to squeeze everything out of my euros.

Since last week, I can say I'm officially addicted. I enjoy it a lot, enjoy pushing my own limits. Other than that, I just feel so much better: I have more energy, sleep better, and can concentrate better during the day.

Another advantage is that, since I know I have to leave my office in time to get to the class I want to take, I try much harder to get my work for the day done in time. I haven't found myself browsing around the internet and wasting time anymore recently. I feel focused on my project, step by step and day by day.

So, all good news from this side, and a smile to go with it!

How a few software tools created several hours per week...

One day, about half a year ago, I was browsing around on the internet during my workhours, and reading the news of the day. One of the articles of the day was about time management software. I read the description and I thought it would be a way too confronting. In the end, I can only concentrate about 20 minutes, and I need a break every now and then, so I thought.

But I kept thinking about the idea and a few days later I downloaded my first tool Rescuetime. Initially I was enjoying the free trial period of the extended version in which the software asks you after an idle period what you have been doing (meeting - phone call - other).
After two weeks of using this software, I realized how much time I actually need for my activities in the lab. The software clearly showed me that I do not only spend the time in the lab which I need for an experiment, but I also go downstairs to check regularly, to help the technical staff here and there and the discuss our planning, material schedule and casting dates. I also need some time after every experiment to sort out my labnotes and to put certain data into the computer. All those small tasks are necessary, but they take up 10 and 20 minutes every time and add up to the total time I actually need per experiment.

A second conclusion I drew from using this software is that, in total, I was spending a way too much time per day on surfing around on the internet, reading the news and playing around on social networking sites. I saw the results of my "very distracting time" per day, per week and per month and I was alarmed about it. However, I did not take action right away. Somehow I couldn't just give up on my bad habit. But after a two-week holiday and a one-week sick leave (related to that holiday, unfortunately) in which I had not had any time at all to visit social networking sites, I realized I could do without these sites during my workday. At the beginning of the new academic year, I decided to simply block my distractions.

The result is that by now I can go home about 1,5 hours earlier per day and I feel much less guilty about spending time in my office on social networking sites. I now have time in the evening to go to the gym and play some music at home. In turn, having these activities in the evening which help me unwind, results in having more concentration during my work hours and being able to focus better. It's a giant win, and apparently a software tool was the impulse to act which I needed.

Once I started to see the advantages of Rescuetime, and my free trail period ended (it still keeps track of my very productive and very distracting activities nowadays), I decided to try out a few more other time management tools. I downloaded a few tools which were of not much use to me. However, ManicTime turned out the perfect addition to RescueTime's free verion. ManicTime is an incredibly easy to use tool. It obviously tracks the software and documents which you use, but at the same time you can also tag slots of time with the activity you have been carrying out. I can tag the time that I spend in the lab, or the patches of time I use to write a paper.

All this helps me to estimate how much time I need to finish a certain task, and I am sure this knowledge will help my planning and will help me reach my goals in time within the next years of my PhD.

Friday already?

Before last February, I used to feel a sort of panic on Friday afternoons, thinking: "Oh no, this is the end of the week, and I have done so little!"
What I changed last February is that I started to make different levels of To Do lists. I used to go with one list, and that worked perfectly fine as long as I was attending school and finishing classes at the end of every semester. With something as vast as a PhD-project, that didn't really seem to work for me though. The list kept growing, and my sense of panic grew alongside it as well.
My different levels of To Do list are the following:

1. General research ideas
This is my little goldmine of research ideas, that might keep me busy for quite some time after I graduate, provided that I can stay in academics/research; or ideas that could work for a master's thesis. There's no timeline attached to these, I just keep this file as a source of ideas.

2. To Do list
This to do list consists of well-defined small projects that need to be done by a certain month or date. It includes for example the deadlines for conference papers which are a few months ahead, or the next few parameter studies I would like to carry out.

3. To Do in Month X
Very clear: the list of what I need to get done this month. I subdivide it in a few categories, and try to be as realistic as possible.

4. To Do in Week Y
About a quarter of the contents of To Do in Month X goes into my To Do in Week Y. I then take my planner and write down per day what I should focus on: testing 1,2 on day 1, testing 3 on day 2 along with reading paper z and so on.

At the end of the week, on Friday afternoon, I review again my weekly and monthly documents, add what I have done, and see what still needs to be done... and usually leave my office with quite a sense of accomplishment.

Day zero project

Since August, I have my own Day zero project ( http://dayzeroproject.com/ ), which consists of my 101 goals in 1001 days - ending around April 27th, 2013. I've gradually started to accomplish small things that simply make me feel happier and less stressed out. My list consists of 5 categories: home (10 goals), work (15 goals), family (20 goals), finance (15 goals) and myself (45 goals).
So far, I've accomplished 11 goals on my list, and I'm working towards more of them (such as preparing an abstract for a conference where I really would like to go to). One of the important goals in my list is to find a work-life balance. If you'd leave me with enough food in my office, I wouldn't leave it. I can't concentrate at all when I'm hungry, the only thing I can think then is: "Food, now. Food, please. Ow, I need food. I'm so hungry." Granola bars and "peperkoek" save me and my work on a regular basis - I keep a stash of them in my drawer all the time.
Two months, 61 days, into my project I happy to see that I've met some goals:

Home - Goal #10
Rearrange my clothing cupboard in Delft and get a shoe organizing system.
I've rearranged my cupboard and the drawers underneath my bed. The only thing I'm still looking for is that shoe organizing system. The ones at Ikea take up too much space and I am undecided where to look for it since Ikea doesn't have it.

Work - Goal #3
Quit checking Facebook and Twitter during the day.
Well that one was pretty easy, I simply downloaded a tool and blocked these sites from my Firefox. My RescueTime amounts of "very distracting time" have shrunk to just a couple of minutes per week. That's a yay for personal productivity!

Family - Goal #7
Meet my boyfriend's family.
I met them and spent 2 weeks at their place last August. They are at 20 hours of travel away from me (that is flight and lay-overs, not walking hours!)so this goal needed some planning ahead (my mom helped me getting the ticket, if not I would have needed to start saving money way ahead of the actual travel).

Family - Goal #14
Decide where my boyfriend and I will live.
I went to see his home country, and he came to see mine last winter. With that in mind, and possible job opportunity, I've decided to take the big leap and go and live in his country after I finish my PhD. It will be quite a challenge, and few people understand this decision, but all I can say is that I've been thinking this through and through and have decided on it.

Finance - Goal #4
Buy flexi-8s.
I've always wanted these, and never bought them because they are kind of expensive. So I finally decided I can only enjoy them (and the fact that they'll keep my tailbone-length hair out of my face).

Finance - Goal #5
Make an overview of my expenses.
I've been meticulously tracking all my expenses since I started my PhD, so this one was a rather easy goal as well. I made an overview of expenses and savings per month, and decided that overall I'm not doing too bad. My salary is not bad, but having a boyfriend at the other side of the Atlantic makes things a bit more difficult. Still, I've managed to save a little bit of money over the last year, which hopefully I can spend on a well-deserved holiday later on.

Finance - Goal #10
Get the bonus card from the local supermarket.
Really, that didn't take much time, but why did it take me one year before I actually applied for the card? Going to the desk and filling out my information was the only effort it took. I should have done this way earlier!

Finance - Goal #14
Part ways with my Corsa.
Me and my Corsa have spent miles and miles on the road together. He turned into an old rusty boy, and has been replaced by my dad's car (another financial winner, I was expecting to spend a painful amount of money on a new old car).

Finanice - Goal #15
Buy a new pencase and toiletries bag.
My pencase had giant holes in it and my toiletries bag was -yuck!- 11 years old. I got a very bright and colourful new pencase on my trip to my boyfriend's family, and I happened to find another toiletries bag among my stuff at my parents' place. Having new, freshly smelling and shiny containers for the products I use daily makes me quite happy.

Self - Goal #10
Weigh 58kg.
I caught salmonella a month ago and that made the weight-goal a very easy one. It's been one month since I lost that little bit of bellyfat and I'm still on the same weigth below 58kg.

Self - Goal #15
Start a blog.
Eh, this one is obivious, no?

Self - Goal #16
Write every monday in my dairy.
I've made this an item in my planner for every monday, and now I take the time to sit down and write. I did some good thinking progress while writing today, so this is definately a goal which is very good for myself.

I hope to achieve some more goals within one and two months from now. Bit by bit, goal by goal, I'm working on my work-life balance by placing little sparks of fun and pride in my accomplishments into my lab-dominated world.

The possible cause for concentration problems

Yesterday afternoon I had difficulties concentrating. Instead of being mad at myself and disappointed, I've decided to try to look for the possible causes of yesterday's reading failure (while my back-up is running and Scopus seems to be down).

So I've been sitting here and staring at the screen and contemplating all possible reasons why yesterday turned out the way it did, and, more importantly, what I could do about that.

1. I wasn't really reading exciting new material.
In fact, I was reading a PhD thesis. The material of this thesis was published in journal papers in the subsequent years, and I've had already read all these papers. All I had to do is to go and search for some more details in the thesis, which was heavy on concentration-intensity.

2. Reading an entire day is hard on me
I know this, but somehow I fail to plan accordingly. Reading an entire day gives me the vast amount of time of "an entire day" and somehow puts me off. I work much better when I divide the morning into reading and the afternoon into lab preparation.

3. Lack of breaks
Yesterday, after lunch, I didn't see any person nor talked to anyone nor had a break with the others. Bad idea, as simple as that.

4. My body
I was feeling painful and unfit yesterday. I did go to the gym in the evening, but my muscles (if any) were not collaborating at all.

The lesson I've learned from this is that I mainly should plan better and divide my time into smaller chunks so I can get a little more variation in my day.

A few good Friday habits

Friday means the end of the workweek and the beginning of the weekend. Or at least, it means that for the next two days I can sleep in a bit and work/read from home. Naturally, my energy level is lower on a Friday, and that is the reason why I developed a few good Friday habits.

1. Back-up time
Thursday evening I put my external HD in my backpack and my first action on Friday morning is to make a back-up of this week's work.

2. Plan less intense work
I reserve certain tasks that require less brain power for Friday's lower energy level. For example, I run my code to obtain the graphs for my test report, and write about the most recent experiments in my test report, based on the notes from my lab book.

3. Make an overview of the past and next week
Every Friday evening I make a to do list for the next week, and I look at the past week's to do list. I write on the bottom of the past week's and current month's to do list what I've accomplished. For about half a year I've been doing this now, and it gives me a much better estimate of how much work I can actually do in a week's time.

4. Time for chores
My last Friday habit is to try and get as much chores done as possible: getting groceries, cleaning, doing laundry and more of that fun stuff. Getting this done on a Friday gives me more time during the weekend to divide between reading papers, studying, relaxing and working out.

Do you have any special Friday habits?

First steps in speed reading

I'm naturally a slow reader, a very slow reader even. When I read a book, I create an entire universe in which I can visualize the characters. I can imagine how they look like, how they act amongst eachother (outside of the story of the book), how they are dressed, what their voices sound like...
However, having this habit of slow reading isn't helping when there are piles and piles of papers waiting to be read. I've been reading around the internet about speed reading, selective reading, skimming and more of those fashionable terms, and I decided to give it a try. As for now, I'm very positive about my results.

At the moment, I have a folder of papers on my desk which basically gives background to my research. It is not exactly about my topic, but I need to know more about the general background and the application of my research. So I've decided to read all of these papers, and try to read them fast.

My first attempts have been based on this method:
1. Read the abstract.
2. Read the introduction.
3. Skim through the text, paying special attention to graphs and (sub)titles.
4. Write down a few keywords.
5. Go to the conclusions.

These actions I perform in one wave of concentration, and afterwards I "relax" by putting the reference into my system to manage references (Endnote, in my case) and by adding the relevant information to the "scope" chapter of my literature review.

I've only been using this method for a few days now, and I will write about my progress.

A new blog

A new academic year comes with some kind of new year's resolutions. For me, one of those was to start a blog, in which I am supposed to keep track of how well I'm doing with my other resolutions.
I have finished the first year of my PhD, and luckily I have done a fair amount of testing. However, there are always better ways to do things, and most of the time you discover this while doing. And so, after a year of working on this seemingly never-ending PhD task of mine, I have come to a few conclusions.

1. It's not like homework
Initially I wanted to show my supervisors every single calculation I had made, and show and tell them every single piece of work I had done. It took me a while to realize that it is my and only my responsibility to make this project a success, and that it also mainly depends on my judgment.

2. It's my playground
This conclusion follows from the previous one. So it's not homework, but then what is it? It's my playground. Where else in the world or when during your life would you ever get the chance to play around with something you like for an entire period of four years' time. Think of the idea. It's awesome, and not as scary as you would think.

3. It's so easy to drift off
There are several pitfalls that can result in drifting off too far. You can loose your point of focus by wanting to do too much and looking at too many things at the same time. Somehow, there is a point where you have to decide what you will work on, and stick to it. There's a lot of interesting material out there, but not all of that is what you need. And then another problem of course is not keeping concentrated on the work you are actually doing: going online and reading the news, talking to colleagues around you and more creative ways of procrastination.

My main resolutions for the new academic year are the following:

1. Stay focused
... in both ways I previously discussed. Some time management software is keeping track of my productivity to cover the procrastination problem. And when it comes to sticking to the main point of focus, it's all up to me. I find it very hard not to read another paper that touches the boundary of what I work on. It's interesting, and good background knowledge, but it won't make me move forward.

2. Find a work-life balance
I've taken a subscription to a gym, and I'm so ready to put a little bit more effort into staying healthy and fit. I know that it will benefit my research too, but somehow I find it very hard to allocate hours for it, or to stop what I'm working on to go to the gym and work out. Also, I have decided that once a month I will go and do something fun during the weekend. It doesn't have to take an entire day, but just something to mark the weekend and enjoy.

Two resolutions might not seem that much, and easy to handle, but these two will have quite an impact and will require some effort as well.

It's a new academic year and I'm full with good ideas and intentions!