just out of reach

i almost made it to where i wanted to be before i left for the Christmas holidays. the last week and a half was full of excitement and hard work. only the last 4 days were filled with headache and roadblocks. there is still a quirky problem that does not want to lend itself to being resolved. i will just have to tackle this when i get back. accomplishment was only a few steps aways, and another day or so would have meant peaceful success for the break. oh well. things happen. i am still pleased at where i am now. i do have to hit the ground running upon my return though. in the meantime, i have loads of reading (work and leisure) to catch up on while i an at home.

when friday brings no excitement

the progress i was making has come to an almost stand-still, but i need to get some more parts in before i can begin to scale up my fix for the problem. this should be completed (*fingers crossed*) in the early part of next week. it has to because i leave wednesday morning. i am still optimistic about my work, but my pie-in-the-sky ending to this term may not materialize.

for a friday, today has been very uneventful. the excitement of my success recently at work combined with the fact that the weekend is here seems to be non-existent. i'm not quite sure why this is the case, but it sure is depressing. i mean really...............if you can't get excited about the weekend, what else is there.................monday? c'mon now, let's be realistic. there's gotta be something that you look forward to. lately for me, food has filled that void. how sad is that? all will be taken care of wednesday when i head back to atlanta for a few weeks. BUT, please know that food will be a top priority at home too.

minor hiccup

i ran into my first minor stumbling block today as i realized some biasing was done incorrectly on my measurement hardware. no biggie. the fix will be fairly simple, but it will not look too attractive. as long as it gets the job done, i am happy. hopefully, the modifications can happen smoothly tomorrow, and i can resume work where i left off before the error was discovered.

p.s. - i just realized that my posts have not been as humorous as when i began blogging (at least, i don't think they are funny). anyway, i will try harder to incorporate more material to give you a laugh as well as food for thought.

optimistic for the home stretch

the last few days have been better than awesome. my measurement hardware and testing setup is coming along, and it is almost complete. the majority of the work (setup and coding) has been done. it's looking pretty good as far a me being able to collect data while i am away for the holidays. as down as i was feeling a couple of weeks agao because of the grim outlook of my progress this ter, i have done a complete 180. i am very excited and pleased with the progress that has come as of late. if the rest of this week continues as today and yesterday did, i don't see any problems with being where i envisioned myself for the break.

whew..............i was really worried there for a second.

already december

the time has definitely passed quickly since i made it back to cambridge. probably the main reason being i had a lot of work to get done in this "short" amount of time. the late starts adds a bit of pressure, but i remain optimistic as things have come along/together really well the last few days. i am pleased. let's hope the progress continues into next week. i am hoping to finish at a point where i can leave experiments and tests running (collecting and saving the output of course) when i go home for the break. this would prevent me from having to waste time here while i waiting on the experiments to finish. the next step would obviously going through and analyzing the output.

*sidebar* it always amazes me how confusing times can be when you think you have a pretty firm idea of what's going on and what to do next. the curves balls never stop coming. i guess that would make life too easy and mundane. the uncertainty is what keeps us on our toes i guess. how then can we be so sure of the decisions we make or actions we take at times? we are taught to act in ways that are isolated from so much uncertainty, but this is not true. what modifications need to be made if any? what can be done? (just some ideas i have to answer regarding my research, but they apply to life as well)