Index - Evolving as a person

• Referring to a complex process in the first-person (December 15, 2011)
• Intermediate (November 26, 2011)
• Discipline (October 16, 2011)
• Fear of Interruption (August 21, 2011)
• On being "distracted" (July 23, 2011)
• Discouraging Success Stories (May 15, 2011)
• On Freedom (May 11, 2011)
• Useful metaphor (April 01, 2011)
• Thinking in Circles is O.K. (January 29, 2011)
• Women and Boundaries - Wisdom from Gwyneth Paltrow (December 03, 2010)
• 29 (September 27, 2010)
• Childhood memories of Subtraction (March 13, 2010)
• Optimizing energy management (February 18, 2010)
• Creatvity and Misguidedness (November 16, 2009)
• On having it all (October 22, 2009)
• 28 (September 30, 2009)
• Feminism (September 13, 2009)
• Back at work (August 28, 2009)
• The official "closing" post (July 30, 2009)
• Torturous Boredom, and Enlightenment (July 02, 2009)
• weee! (April 24, 2009)
• Looking back (March 30, 2009)
• Struggling (February 01, 2009)
• Being a young researcher (January 12, 2009)
• The "Women in Computer Science" entry (January 07, 2009)
• 27! (October 01, 2008)
• 26! (October 02, 2007)
• Quote from Mom (August 18, 2007)
• Sometimes it's hard to THINK (March 14, 2007)
• 25! (September 30, 2006)
• Gotta start somewhere.... (April 01, 2006)

December 15, 2011

Referring to a complex process in the first-person

So I'm reading a book by Christopher Penczak and it guided me through this really cool exercise. He says, many people think of their thoughts as "happening" kind of just behind your eyes or the bridge of the nose. I do! Then he takes you through this exercise of shifting this perspective. I'd thought about this before as a kid but didn't get very far with it. It was really hard, but also fun.

I imagined my mouth. I felt my teeth and tongue. Then I was like, "woah, my nose is ABOVE me! My BRAIN is above me." I imagined walking around and what it would like to "be" my mouth. I could feel the up-down-up-down as I walked and took steps; me and my mouth naturally moved with the rest of my body as I walked.

Once I did this, the rest was easy. Next I "moved" into my chest. "Wow, my shoulders are ABOVE me!" My elbows were immediately to my left and right. I imagined sitting down, with my perspective right there in the middle of my chest.

Next, the author guides you to hold a physical object and put your perspective in there. I used my ring because it was convenient; I was already wearing it. So I moved my perspective into the ring and I heard a woosh like I was underwater. I was cold and metal, dancing and glittery.

As you may guess, I had a lot of fun with this exercise. I merged with a few other objects and furniture around the house. I should try a plant. I already tried a fish.

A little while later it occurred to me - THIS is why I sometimes discuss my research in the first person. I am doing the same kind of projection into my work. I AM the markov decision process. I AM the algorithm.

I remember talking to a professor one time and as I was trying to explain my question I kept using a first-person pronoun to describe the situation from the perspective I was seeing it. I remember he asked me (respectfully, gently, curiously) at one time what I meant by "I". That was the first time it occurred to me that maybe not every computer scientist projects themselves into their algorithms the way I do. Am I weird? Is it because I'm a girl? Is this stupid? I do these projections naturally: this is the most familiar and comfortable way for me to relate to the concepts.

How do *you* relate to your algorithms?

I googled to try and find more of this, but I don't think there is much. I also expect that a lot of people would find what I just wrote to be CRAZY and would try to attack me or insult me for looking at things in this way. I wonder why? It's nothing but peace and love, dude. But it is different.

Did you know that there are studies about Spirituality in the academy?

Posted by Frozone Permalink on December 15, 2011 06:46 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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November 26, 2011

Intermediate

You know, I think, in the last year or so, I would say that I consider myself to have moved from a "beginner / rookie" researcher to an "Intermediate" researcher in my field. I have pretty good background. And I am in a position to actually maybe be in a space where I might be able to produce something unique and useful.

Now I just have to do it. So begins my intermediate career in research!

Let's see. I started seriously doing research as a hobby in 2006 (since I started this blog). There is a bit of a tail because I did my senior undergraduate honours project in this field in 2003-4. But overall that's very roughly 6 years.

Does 6 years sound about right to transition from beginner to intermediate? I know, I know, there's no such thing as an actual border to cross here. But I think it's fair to say that 6 years working in a field is somehow meaningful. I guess that's the period of time that it takes for most people to finish the Master's and are getting toward the middle or end of PhD. I am maybe almost halfway through the Master's, but have been working in a full-time job (where I am not being paid to do research) with no lull between jobs since 2004. There's a maternity leave in there but there is no friggin' way that counts as a year toward research, because it wasn't. Raising a baby is MORE than a 1.0 FTE.

So. Yay for experience! I am pretty darn lucky!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on November 26, 2011 03:26 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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October 16, 2011

Discipline

Often, I wish I were more familiar with other researchers' work in my field. (And I also wish I understood grammatical rules about how to handle a possessive plural noun.)

But whenever I read, each new idea causes a whirlwind of consequences or possible connections to my own work, that I get distracted from the researcher's actual report of their work. My own ideas just get in the way of understanding the work of others.

How does one deal with this?

I figure you just need to keep coming back to the same paper. Conversation with others helps, too.

However, this requires time (to read papers) and opportunity (synchronous contact with others with similar interest). Both of these are very, very scant in my life right now. But I work at it every day: trying, trying to make the time and space.

I wish that there was a place where you could just log in and see who else is there, start talking, and see where the topic goes.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on October 16, 2011 09:56 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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August 21, 2011

Fear of Interruption

Wow, I LOVED this article. It is totally me. Yup, the author of this article must have magically looked into my mind in order to write this article. It describes me exactly. Okay, just kidding. But I found this very helpful:

Fear of Interruption, by Mark Shead on Productivity 501.

The author suggested that to alleviate fear of interruption, a person should find ways to give themselves shortcuts, using organization tools, so that it takes less time to get back into that headspace. Frequent interruptions make me angry and bitter and feeling cheated. I actually think this is the reason for most of my grouchiness in my adult life. But now I can do something about it!

Here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to draw pictures, as the author suggested. Whether I am doing research or at my office job, I am going to draw a sketch of "The detailed thing I am working on right now".

I could even use my LiveScribe pen so I can sync the sketch to Evernote and then I don't even have to remember which notebook I was working on. (But, practically-speaking, this will not work because it requires that I remember to sync my pen. See purse dock.)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on August 21, 2011 11:10 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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July 23, 2011

On being "distracted"

I opened my book, and didn't get past page 1 of the table of contents before I was writing pages and pages of inspired thoughts in my research journal. I'd write until I could only gaze into outer space, and so I came back to the book to "ground" myself. I turn the page, and go off into infinity again with more ideas. This is normal behaviour for me. I am writing this because I read this old entry (Stuck between Dimensions, 2006), back before I really understood this part of myself. In that entry, I talked about how the harder I tried to "narrow down" my research topic, the broader my ideas got. Several years later, I am able to acknowledge this and work with it. Mostly, hehe.

Currently, I am reading "Gifts Differing" by Myers & Myers. I learned that people who behave like me -- i.e. handle perceiving the world primarily by living in the archetypes and just trying to link snippets of everyday perceptions back up to these abstract ideas -- these people are Intuitive types. Stuff happens right before my eyes, but I don't remember, it doesn't sink in. Here is a page that explains it more on changingminds.org.

It feels good to put a name to this quality of mine. Humans are so different. It's awesome! Now if I know I am stuck way out there in rainbows and unicorns land, and I want some help coming back home, I just have to find someone who prefers using the Sense perception to talk with me for a bit and remind me what reality is again. I suspect that my husband could a Sense type, but I will have to ask him. (Love you James, if you are reading this!)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on July 23, 2011 12:38 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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May 15, 2011

Discouraging Success Stories

After I acknowledged my "slam dunk" of a first year in my M.Sc. program in a recent entry, I remembered a time when I read about other successful women in academia. Gosh darn it, I wish I could find it. It was a beautiful PDF publication of (25?) women with Ph.D.s showing the timelines of their lives: the years they were awarded degrees, the years their children were born, pregnancies began, etc..

I remember feeling discouraged, briefly, when I observed that most of these women had completed Ph.D.s BEFORE their children were born. Then, I looked at myself with baby in my arms and not even started grad school and wondered if I'd made a mistake. I knew I didn't, for me, because I was happy with all the decisions I had made. I just didn't know if my dreams were attainable to me anymore. I didn't know if the things I wanted (marriage, babies, grad school, career) were compatible.

So, here I am, boasting about my accomplishments (YEAH, rockstar average mommy working computer scientist, YEAH!), and belatedly wondering...

What if there is someone out there who is like me, maybe with a full-time job who wants to do M.Sc. and doesn't have the privileges I have (for example, having a supportive boss and supervisor, having a job on campus). I hope they are not discouraged by my story. And I wonder how to help. I had to bend the system my own way, I hope they can bend it their way.

I have to conclude that my story can ONLY help. The more diversity, the more stories, the more paths are proven possible. I mean, relatively recently, women were not even permitted to enroll in classes at a university! We just have to keep ploughing forward. And technology will help... Just imagine, being allowed to take a class that is extended beyond the strict 3 month window of a term, maybe participating in class discussions online, maybe maintaining working relationships with colleagues, fellow students or mentor professors supported with technology. When you are the primary caregiver for a child, EVERYTHING takes longer, so why not allow it to be a normal, everyday thing for an M.Sc. student to take classes at a pace suitable to them, and have this kind of thing be BUILT IN to "The System", where it is 100% normal and expected and supported.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on May 15, 2011 09:38 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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May 11, 2011

On Freedom

During rare moments of peace, I find I can't bring myself to concentrate on research. Why? Because a "moment of peace" really isn't a moment of peace. Point of fact, since I started typing this (during said moment), my phone rang once and 3 minutes later so did the doorbell. Even if the kid is alsleep, that doesn't mean I get to do any research! I was thinking, today: Does my fear of starting to concentrate come from a past of constant interruptions? 'Kind of like being jerked awake: being torn away from research is too painful, so, why bother even starting? I am a research insomniac.

Even when the interruptions subside, I have this fear of getting "caught". If I am happily immersed at my computer, someone will inevitably walk by and comment on my "free time" or assume I am not doing anything "really important". Since I have been seen taking a moment of freedom, that is taken as evidence that indeed I do have freedom, so I have no right to complain. See, look at all these chances you are getting! I SAW you!

Whew! I am really glad I typed this. And I am very grateful to my family who supports my taking 1 day per week to lock myself up in my office with zero human contact for 7 straight hours. This is when I get all my schoolwork done, and it works. See: next blog post!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on May 11, 2011 08:23 PM | Comments (2) categorized under Evolving as a person
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April 01, 2011

Useful metaphor

I spoke before about how it is such a drain for me to get up and talk about my work in any promotional sort of way. I dislike giving the sort of presentation that is in the form of marketing, advertising, or announcing success of something I did. I talked about it in this older entry. In contrast, I love sharing what I do for the purpose of eliciting discussion and communicating in a mutually-beneficial way: maybe my ideas can help someone else, and maybe theirs can help me. This type of presentation does not drain me, but, rather, the opposite. (Yes, even though I'm an introvert! Although I always have to be by myself to recharge for a while after.) That is why I dread giving some presentations, and get really excited and energized about giving others (example, the idea giving a presentation for a class project fills me with delight! or, teaching a course is exciting, too.)

The purpose of this entry is to share a metaphor that I thought of recently as I have been dealing with the prospect of having to give a couple of "draining" presentations within the next few months. The metaphor is this: think of the looming presentation as a big rock, and when it arrives you are going to jump onto the rock. The experience will make you stronger and help you see higher. (This is based on the assumption that experience is inherently good. I believe this, to an extent, so that is why I can buy this metaphor for myself.)

Before I came up with that visualization, to me a looming presentation was like a big whirlpool; I had nothing but dread, and I just kept getting weaker and weaker when all I could do was wait for it to be over (and get sunk and die when I finally reach the middle!). If the presentation is scheduled for a couple months away, that is a long time to be carrying some dread on your shoulders!

Armed with the new visualization, I just have a couple of rocks that I can see ahead on the horizon. I will make sure I'm prepared, but once I am prepared, I have nothing to worry about; all I have to do is jump when the right time comes. And I don't even have to initiate that; it will come to me!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on April 01, 2011 11:27 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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January 29, 2011

Thinking in Circles is O.K.

I was recently privileged to listen to Dr. Maria Campbell speak. I had my eyes and heart opened in many ways that day, but on this blog I will only talk about the impact on my research life.

I learned about storytelling through the seasons. This is how aboriginal wisdom lives. Some stories are told only in the wintertime, others only in the spring, and so on. You hear the same stories year after year, but, says Dr. Campbell: "There are as many stories as there are snowflakes." You can learn something from them when you are a child, when you are an adult, even when you are old. I understood that a listener's different perspective through time will lend different take-away messages from the same story.

After listening to Dr. Campbell, I think that one of my fears crumbled and died away in the light of this ancient wisdom: my fear about spending too long on one problem, one paper, one idea. Has this ever happened to you? Suppose you read a new paper. After a day or two, it is likely that you understand some of it, or even most of it. However, it is unlikely that you understand all of it. Especially because it is not possible for any author to put all of the depths of their experience into the written word. So, reading a paper once is really only the tip of an iceberg. And it is impossible to read all of the papers that are relevant to your work. Here is how my fear made me feel: if I have a paper that I "mostly" understand, I would feel guilty about re-examining it or re-considering it because I feel that I should be "moving on", and I face pressure to grow human knowledge outward instead of being preoccupied by the past. (Also, if you have to go back and re-read, does it mean that you are stupid? answer: NO!)

But I don't feel inefficient or bad about this anymore. Now I feel I could pick up any paper I have read before and look at it again without guilt. It is OKAY to look at stories again. Actually it is very GOOD to do so. Because when you come back, time will have caused your perspective to change. This means that you can achieve depth and wisdom by considering the same idea again. You will see connections, implications and gain understanding that you could not have last time.

To that end, with my new perspective I went back and re-read a former blog entry. (Being a young Researcher) I am not embarrassed to say that it was an emotional and moving experience! I recommend doing this to any grad student. Or professor, for that matter! Or even scholars who are not currently affiliated with a research institution (as I sort of was for many years.)

Yesterday during a meeting with my supervisor, Dr. Gord McCalla, we talked about getting research oriented within the literature, and how starting to build some technology even at the early stages of research can help with the interplay between "endless reading" and "endless building".

Keep doing what you love! ;)

Related entries:

• Being a young Researcher
  
• The Structure of Scientific Revolution
  
• Blindness to novelty
  

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 29, 2011 01:35 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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December 03, 2010

Women and Boundaries - Wisdom from Gwyneth Paltrow

Dear readers,

I enjoyed this very much.

Boundaries

Love Frosty

Posted by Frozone Permalink on December 03, 2010 07:55 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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September 27, 2010

29

It's that time of year again! Hey, this will be the 5th year in a row that I make a little post around the time of my birthday. Next year there is a zero at the end!

Let's see... This year, I'm an M.Sc. student, an Open Scholar, a Research Blogger. Current favourite song? Probably Big Wheel by Tori Amos. I just like the tune and haven't studied the lyrics or anything.

Maybe this year I'll write my first paper to be sent for publication! (Well, publication in the "proper" sense, seeing as I self-publish all the time.)

More generally, I'm starting to taste the limits of how much responsibility I can shoulder, how many projects I can manage before I start seeing drops in quality. This next year I hope to see some progress as I work toward strategically doing LESS. Have I mentioned that I really like Zen Habits?

Also different from previous years is that now I am quite happy and quite comfortable sharing more than "cold logic" on my research blog. It's okay to throw in a post about cooking, or World of Warcraft, or The Devil Wears Prada. Maybe I have always posted heavily on the softer side, but now I'm comfortable with it; it does not diminish the rest. :)

It's all goooood.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on September 27, 2010 10:24 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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March 13, 2010

Childhood memories of Subtraction

I remember my classroom as a kid when I was learning math. On the wall, the teacher had affixed squares, each showing an increasing number of dots, labelled "un", "deux", "trois", "quatre", "cinq"... while also labelled with numerical digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc..

I remember we had a math quiz on subtraction. I, like many other children, would find the answer to a question like 8-3 by looking at the square with 8 dots on it, counting three backward, and knowing the answer would be the square I landed on. This worked very well until the teacher realized what we were doing. I don't remember if the squares were taken off the wall. But I do remember using my ruler later on. The ruler would be labelled with 30cm. If I wanted to find the answer to 8-3, I would find the tick for 8cm on my ruler, and count back 3cm. I remember trying to do this discretely so nobody would see that I was using my ruler to help me do math. I felt guilty about it, like this wasn't the correct way to do math. I believed that the correct way was to memorize the answer by rote, instead of figuring it out by counting each time.

If only I had trusted myself that I *would* memorize the answers eventually, and naturally, simply because elementary operations are repeated so often. Shouldn't it be okay to learn "manually" first, and letting the memorization come naturally?

Then again, multiplication tables were another beast. I am glad that I have memorized those because it would take too long to figure those out manually, over and over again until natural memorization. (Right?) But I guess kids these days have computers. I don't know how teachers deal with those. Perhaps the same way teachers dealt with calculators when I was a kid: we were simply not permitted to use them for math homework.

Just some random thoughts as I watch my toddler learn to count as she watches Dora the Explorer. :-)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on March 13, 2010 10:08 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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February 18, 2010

Optimizing energy management

Whenever I have to do any sort of self-promotion, it sucks the energy right out of me.

If I have to pitch an idea to a group of people or even simply describe my previous work, I spend a lot of time thinking about the audience and trying to anticipate where they are coming from and what sorts of questions or criticisms they may have, and I try to address these in my presentation.

The problem is that I spend so much time preparing my talks and worrying about having my desired output stored up fresh in my head, that it cripples me to the extent that I cannot be productive in my "real" work, using deep thinking. It stunts my creativity.

And if I don't spend time preparing what I am going to say, and I know this about myself, I shut down when bombarded with questions about my work. I simply cannot recall the details until I have the time and space to retrieve them from my head or from my notes. But by the time I have retrieved the relevant information (and I am usually successful) the other party has lost interest or has asked something different or has tried to share a new idea with me, which I have trouble receiving because I hadn't prepared my head space to anticipate their input and relate it to other similar things that I know.

This is why giving talks is difficult for me. They are extremely inefficient at developing ideas. But I concede that they are good for communicating in ways only a human speaker can (as opposed to text) to a large group of people.

If I want to succeed in academia, and if I want to continue in the technical aspects of my work (and I know this is what I want), then I'm going to have to figure out how to maintain my leadership responsibilities to share and report, without eating up all my precious little time for thinking/producing/designing/creative work.

I just wanted to acknowledge that this inneficiency is something I want to work on.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 18, 2010 02:38 AM | Comments (2) categorized under Evolving as a person
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November 16, 2009

Creatvity and Misguidedness

What is the difference between creativity and misguidedness?

Sometimes I think I'm being creatIve but other times, when I imagine sharing my ideas with fellow researchers, I think that I must be misguided because I predict they would see my ideas as childish and uninformed.

Do you ever feel that way?

Posted by Frozone Permalink on November 16, 2009 12:11 AM | Comments (5) categorized under Evolving as a person
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October 22, 2009

On having it all

Today I had a conversation with my supervisor* about starting grad school. (*my office job supervisor, not my academic advisor) I also recently had coffee with a friend who is nearing the end of her M.Sc. to better gauge what I'm getting into, and that helped a lot. =D (Thank you, CD, if you are reading this!) I have been thinking about this for a long time. And I think it's going to work.

I qualify the previous statement with, "in general terms".

In other words, I know I can do the working mommy grad school thing, but I haven't yet worked out the details. Such as, when to find time to work on the classes, writing the thesis, conducting my study, etc.. It's going to be a big job.

So, it's about 7:30 in the evening and my baby girl is sound asleep. She will likely wake up in an hour or so, will need soothing back to sleep (which can take up to 30 minutes), then she's good. My problem is that I'm often so wiped out myself, I don't have much steam between the time that she goes to bed and my own bedtime. And knowing that I'll have a 30 minute interruption in my evening, it makes it hard to concentrate on big ideas.

So, yeah. Is it possible to be the primary caregiver of a toddler, hold a full time job, and complete a master's degree in computer science? I've never seen it done, but I have hope. And I can always apply for an educational leave from work several years down the road when I'm done my course work and need to focus hard on the thesis. Course work will happen during my vacation time (a half day here, a half day there) while the baby is at daycare.

I figure that the worst that can happen is that I try my hardest, and I fail, and I can serve as an example to humanity that "the system" needs to be changed if a bright and shining star like me becomes a casualty. heh.

Naw. Actually, if I fail, I think I would just try again, but in a different way.

Meh, I don't know. I'm going to make some coffee and try out this "working in the evenings" thing. Like I said, normally I go to sleep at the same time as my daughter (like, 8:30 or 9:00 at night because I am just so wiped out) but today I'll see how going to bed later pans out.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on October 22, 2009 07:39 PM | Comments (1) categorized under Evolving as a person
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September 30, 2009

28

Continuing the tradition, here I am with another post on (well, close to) my birthday. Now I'm 28, and next year I'll be 29! No matter how old I get, I will always seem young to someone. Well, unless I live to be 130 or something. Yesterday, I was at a project meeting when one of the team members teased me about he was writing code probably before I was born. The remark surprised me because it has been a long time - years - since my age was ever brought up in conversation in this manner. I'm old enough that I'm no longer reminded daily of my naivite or inexperience. I remember these issues arising frequently: I started working at my first office job when I was 17. Then, my age really stuck out. But it has been less so in recent years. I enjoyed that moment: even though I perceived my temmate's demeanor to be a little condescending, I still appreaciated the road block because it caused me to reflect and appreciate my current step in the road of life. :-)

I would also like to say that I am head over heels in love with the iPod touch's "new" copy paste feature. It is new to me because I only upgraded recently; I believe it had been available for quite some time. I was unable to blog much before because in my blogging tool, if your session times out and you press Save, you lose all your work. So I always do a select all and copy before pressing save. And now I can do this while nursing a baby!

And my baby is turning into a toddler. She can walk several steps on her own, however her primary method of locomotion is still crawling.

This last year I also overcame my fear of "taking": taking time for myself, taking opportunities, making decisions in my favour. I have experienced deprival of many freedoms, which made me realize how important they are, and that these freedoms are indeed MINE, thus I experience no guilt taking them. Such freedoms include: taking a shower, working at a full time job, taking a sip of tea. I also recognize that such freedoms are not handed to me: if I am to enjoy them I must get agressive beyond my comfort and seize them. I think that this realization is part of what drove me to feminism.

So continues another year.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on September 30, 2009 06:16 AM | Comments (1) categorized under Evolving as a person
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September 13, 2009

Feminism

You know, I think that I've become a feminist. I've been mulling over the idea for a few months now ("Huh? ME? A feminist?"). I also stumbled on a resource, "Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog", and reading some of the entries here helped to educate me about feminism. Now that I know what feminism is, and formed an opion about my personal stance on the matter, and now that I've sat on it long enough for the idea to "feel" right, I'm going to say so. I'm a feminist!

I think that the turning point in my feminist thinking hit its crux about 4 months ago. I was participating in a discussion about artificial intelligence in a computer science forum when one of the contributors casually mentioned that they'd read about a similar topic in "Maxim" a while ago. I didn't know what Maxim was, and thinking it was some cool AI magazine I didn't know about, I Googled.

I raised an eyebrow when I found the online magazine's current headline, something to the effect of: "Cheerleaders, give me an H, O, T!" Maxim is a men's magazine that shows pictures of scantily clad women (with other content too, but...). Could this be what the contributor was talking about? Why would the contributor mention this magazine name in an AI forum? I thought it was totally off topic, and it made me uncomfortable.

And, as I do when I am uncomfortable, I overthink: What was this contributor trying to do? I thought that since the forum was frequented by undergraduate computer science students (a good chunk of whom are 18-20 year old young men), perhaps this poster was trying to impress peers by announcing that they (he?) reads this "grown up" sort of magazine. I don't know.

Anyway, I was distressed for quite a long time afterwards. Not severely distressed of course -- I was able to get on with my life and forget about it, for the most part -- but every now and then the thought would bubble up, "Should I have said something?" But what would I say? I didn't want to embarrass the kid in front of all of his classmates, nor did I want to seem like a prude for yapping about something so "trivial".

I never did bring it up, and the thread has since been archived. But I still veer toward feminist sites to see if other people have encountered a similar situation. Maybe I could figure out why it distressed me, and if anyone out there had advisements on how to handle it.

I still don't have a solid answer. But I CAN point out some articles that spoke to me:

Isn’t feminism just "victim" politics? Not long ago, even as recently as a couple of years ago, I had secret thoughts that feminists were just a bunch of loud-mouths looking for attention, crying "poor me" when they didn't actually have anything legitimate to complain about. The more I read and the more I listen, the more I believe that I was wrong.

“Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About” Following the line of thought above, I found myself in the past thinking that feminists who made a point about using inclusive language or pointing out a seemingly trivial wrinkle in public policy were just looking for excuses to complain and were "annoying everyone with trivialities". I think I'm starting to change my mind.

When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege I didn't know what male privilege was before reading this. Reading this article gave me a perspective I've never seen before, and it struck several chords of common experiences in my past. I don't know how to react to it yet. Learning about male privilege has also illuminated me to the concept of "white privilege", opening my eyes even more to the privileges I enjoy myself, unaware of the challenges that other people have to face that I don't. (update: another resource about male privilege)

Another article, taking the same tone as above but with a new level of eloquence and fire, by Melissa McEwan: The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck. It's worth a read.

Anyway, I'm still in the "input" stage in my feminism: learning, deciding, analyzing.... but this is a case where I'm seeing that knowledge IS power, and the more I learn about this issue, the better equipped I will be to deal with the daily things in my life that make me uncomfortable. If I can see why, and learn how to do something about it, I think I'm taking better control of my own world.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on September 13, 2009 09:27 PM | Comments (3) categorized under Evolving as a person
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August 28, 2009

Back at work

So I've been back at work for over a week. I have conflicting emotions.

First, I feel a rush of power and glee in the pit of my stomach - like when you're on an amusement park ride - that comes from being back at work. I enjoy using my mind and applying my interests in a job that makes the world a better placein its own little way. (But I'm no Mother Teresa...!). There is no question in my mind that retrning to the workforce was the right decision for me.

Second, I feel a little bit of fear and panic about my research. I just re-read my last entry and I felt a little choked because I realized how "rusty" I've gotten already, not thinking about my problem on a daily basis. My research got very specific and very technical, and when I came back and didn't even understand my own words upon the first read, I felt torn away. But after re-reading a few entries, I was able to get back into the right head space.

I don't know what's going to happen. I'm optimistic. I feel like I'm in control of my own life, for the most part, and that I will be able to pursue my interests and shape my life in the way that I want it. But I also know it won't be easy. Not that I would want it to be easy... a life without challenges would be missing the point, I think.... but, it's just frightening, I guess, to feel like you're still far away from your mark. And alone. I know that I'm the only person who can make my aspirations come to fruition. Maybe I was just having a moment where I realized he big my goals are, and wondering if my iron will is strong enough to make it through the journey to reach them.

Stay tuned! ;-)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on August 28, 2009 05:58 PM | Comments (1) categorized under Evolving as a person
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July 30, 2009

The official "closing" post

A sense of closure is important to me; if I don't write this official closing post, I know I'll be left hanging. Like my chi is being drained by unfinished business.

My maternity leave is pretty much over:
- Next week = adjusting to daily daycare routine.
- The week after = okay maybe 1 normal week left in my maternity leave.
- The following week = Frozone is officially a working mom!

I predict that my entries on this blog will become much less frequent for a while. This is sad, because my research is so important to me, and I've equated this blog in my mind to "my research place". But at the same time, I will be doing other things that are ALSO important to me, such as getting my career back on track and making sure that my baby girl has a high quality of life. Who knows, maybe on the weekends I'll find time for research. Or maybe I'll be able to use some vacation or banked time at my office, during the time when my daughter would normally be at daycare.

I feel like I'm in an odd situation because I'm trying to balance research and parenting, but "research" is not my occupation. I'm not a professor or a grad student or a postdoc... I have a coordinator position at a university. Hum. But I wouldn't have it any other way right now. When I think about it, yes, I would like to be a professor. But that's a decade of hard work ahead of me, I think. Anyway.

I have a lot of reflections about this last year of my life, but only limited time to write about them. Since this is a research blog, for the rest of this post I'll focus on the research dimension of my maternity leave. There are many other dimensions to my life (relationships, family, friends, work, etc.!) so I'm only painting a small picture here. :)

During my maternity leave, I tried to devote some time to my research and I think I did a pretty good job. I didn't write a complete thesis or anything, but that wasn't the goal. (That's what a graduate studies program would be for!) I scribbled down some thoughts about my specific research in this other entry. The biggest change that came from this last year, I think, is that I've changed my motivation and my focus. My perspective on research has changed, really.

A year ago, I might have said that in the back of my mind I was trying to narrow down a topic, or to focus on a particular question, or to fill in the background material for some unanswered question. Trying to find "my place". That's not my mindset anymore. To me, now, research is more of a creative, growing process -- not a "narrowing down". I don't associate my identity as a researcher with a particular problem. Okay, I can say that I work on "instructional planning", or "looking into modelling pedagogical processes using decision theory", but those things change all the time, while my identity as a researcher does not.

Even though I've already shared this link on my Google Shared Items, I'll mention it again here because it had such a positive impact on my mindset. My brother recently shared the article, Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham.

For me, my research time is my Maker time. (I mentioned it in this other post, too!) It's when I get to explore, and then take the new ideas I find and turn them around and fit them together with what I already know. I like to suggest new methods to accomplish some goal, or use a tool in a novel way. This is my favourite thing to do, and I think this is one of the activities in which I am most skilled. This is where I shine, so to speak. :)

In this last year, I learned that being the primary caregiver of an infant puts you on a Manager's schedule. Structured timeblocks, with constant interruption! My job is also like this. Don't get me wrong, I love being a mommy and I love my job, I just now recognize that the nature of these two parts of my life contribute to the challenges of having the heart and soul of a Maker.

In summary, I'd say I've learned a lot about myself as a researcher, and have developed a good idea of the things I'll have to face over the next few years as I braid together the different priorities in my life. I also learned a lot about my topic, which is important. :)

I have a couple hours left until I have to go pick up my daughter from daycare. I don't know if I'll have enough steam to finish my latest entry (I had another juicy thought about preceptor applications in pedagogy) and also to finish all the emails and phone calls I have to make.

I'll just have to pick my priorities and scrap the rest... life goes on!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on July 30, 2009 09:08 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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July 02, 2009

Torturous Boredom, and Enlightenment

A few months ago, I found myself thinking about how I might describe my maternity leave experience to other people. I came from a demanding (but enjoyable and rewarding!) job in a high-powered environment and experienced a really different lifestyle being a stay-at-home mom. The first few months was indeed a blur: recovering physically from childbirth and adjusting to being the primary caregiver of a very needy infant. But then as the months went by and the blur transformed into routine, I started to experience something else: a torturous boredom. I had been living in this mindset - i.e., if you asked me how I would describe my maternity leave experience, I would have told you about torturous boredom -- until this weekend when I listened to a talk by a Buddhist monk named Pema Chodron. I think she changed my mind.

Going back to torturous boredom. To understand this feeling, I'll put myself back in the shoes of the high-powered career woman. This woman thinks, What would it be like to suddenly take one YEAR of your life when you don't have to go to work every day? I am an incredibly self-motivated person; What happens when you turn me loose with no professional obligations? I thrive on quiet time, and become energized when I have the opportunity to create my own ideas and to build upon my own initiatives. Wouldn't being a stay-at-home-mom be perfect for me, then? Wouldn't I accomplish a zillion amazing things? Build a few of the systems that I had designed in my head? Try out some new tools? Read some new articles or plough through a bookshelf of material?

Nope! The problem is that all of these projects & ideas require focus and attention. These things are taken away from you when you're the primary caregiver of an infant; you can't devote your entire attention to your aspirations. One eye, one arm, and one thread of your internal processing power must always be devoted to the baby's needs: keeping her safe, fed, clean, entertained, etc..

The boredom part kicks in because caring for the infant does not take up all of your brain power. There's enough left over for your thoughts to wander and for boredom to set in. You get tired of watching your kid crawl around the house all day. Sure, there's lots to do: go to the park, the mall, attend moms groups, take the kid swimming, etc... but it's hard to devote your energy to these things when your heart is actually longing to continue with your personal projects & your research. So even as your body is busy caring for the kid, your mind is actually getting quite bored.

This was hurting me to the point of causing physical pain. So, my coping mechanism was to walk, walk, walk! At least while I'm pushing the stroller around, I have my thoughts to myself. I can't read a book or use the computer or write notes.... but at least I can think. I've also been able to keep my sanity by feeding my brain during those precious, precious times when the baby is asleep. But those quiet times are rare and are frequently eaten up by other responsibilities. And I'm sure I have complained about this on my blog before. Anyone tired of listening to me yet? LOL.

Anyway, the perspective I described above has been "Me" for the last few months. But as I said, I listened to a talk on the weekend that changed my mind, I think. It's still sinking in.

The monk, Pema Chodron, described enlightenment as a state of mind. I think of it as being in the centre of a flower. Imagine you're sitting still, in mediatation. It's normal for thoughts to bubble up and your mind to wander in all different directions: these thoughts in all directions are the flower petals. But you can always bring your mind back to the middle, when you are just "existing", between the threads of thought. Those who live most of their time in a "centered" state, not being distracted so much by wandering down the flower petals of stray thought can be said to be in a state of enlightenment.

So, I'm sort of thinking of my experience with my baby as a "forced enlightenment". I can't get distracted by my stray thoughts, ideas & initiaties. Instead, I'm forced to be "in the now", only dealing with what's in front of my face. Instead of feeling resentful, I should just appreciate the chance to stop and appreciate the moment. To maybe find value in something other than producing & researching. To somehow bring whatever I'm searching for "out there" to be back "in here" while still continuing my efforts in research. I've got a lot of work to do on this, but I think a little seed has been planted in my mind, and at least I have improved my perspective on life a little, I think!

Now, if you were to ask me how my maternity leave is going, I think I would say, "enlightening". This experience really does tear apart your life into little pieces, and it's a slow process building yourself back up again, establishing yourself as a good parent, but also discovering how to devote your energy in the way YOU want to devote it, while braiding in this new parenting part of yourself into your life.

Before hitting "publish", I just noticed that Mrs. Comet Hunter has a post up on Career vs. Family. A very timely discussion -- go check it out!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on July 02, 2009 01:53 PM | Comments (5) categorized under Evolving as a person
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April 24, 2009

weee!

It's 4 a.m., I'm running a bit of a fever, I have a sore throat, can't sleep, and I ache all the way to my fingertips. So thinks Frozone, "Obviously, I must work on my blog!"

I'm so weary, but I can't sleep. Maybe this state will be conducive to my coming to an understanding of the finer points of planning. Off I go to shuffle through some abstracts.

Wooo! I love you, world!

(No, I am not on any medication right now. heh)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on April 24, 2009 04:17 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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March 30, 2009

Looking back

I just read a few of the earlier entries on this blog. It was weird, it was like talking to a high school kid (even though I had already been out of university for a couple years when I started this blog!). I can't believe how excited and enthusiastic I was, always jumping the gun and ready to start coding at every turn!

I don't want to say that my increasing age has made me cynical. It hasn't reduced my enthusiasm in any way -- I think I'm very much still a kid when I'm reading through papers, getting excited over the rainbows and unicorns of possibilities. I think that age has just taught me how short life is and that it simply isn't possible to code up every idea that travels through my brain. You have to filter A LOT, and let things slide by, left as scribbles in the margins. It's about recognizing what is really important to you, and keeping your love and attention on that. It's also about learning what's important to those around you, so that you can help them with their own tasks of filtering & keeping on what they love.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on March 30, 2009 08:38 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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February 01, 2009

Struggling

So I've been reading some theses in the area of my research because I want to do an M.Sc. of my own and wanted an idea of the kind of scope I'm looking at for a research/contribution project. I really enjoyed how a lot of the theses summarized and beautifully laid out all of the background information upon which they build their contribution. That was part of my motivation for plowing through the "Sweep of Representation Techniques" from the last few posts. I figured if I blogged about the necessary background information, then I'd be able to reference these concepts in future postings that would hopefully build up from these ideas. I have so many head-in-the-clouds ideas and I feel like I can't make any progress with them unless I build a foundation for myself to grab a hold of!

But, I'm having some trouble with my plan -- I'm struggling with my "Sweep"! I haven't even scratched the surface of all the things that are in my head and all of the jot notes I have on paper. It takes SO LONG to type stuff out (probably because I get about 30 minutes per day at the computer... grumble grumble!!!) So I am feeling discouraged. I also have to remind myself that I'm the mother of a 5-month-old baby and that it's silly to expect that I should be getting a lot of research done.

I'm also struggling with the format of this blog. To me, a linear set of postings released in time (reminiscent of a Markov model??) is not an appropriate format. I'm more interested in focusing on the overall content first. The timestamps on each entry are helpful, I guess, but I don't like how the order-in-time of my entries is emphasized in this blog format. Maybe I should have used a wiki. Except that it would be "just me" authoring. I guess that was the idea behind the black box you see if you scroll to the bottom of this page. *Choke*, it has been TWO YEARS since I updated that. heh

Alrighty, I've figured out how to make this better. I'm going to go clean up my "Look Down on All Those Notes With Some Grand Vision of Organization". Then maybe I can keep up with my slugging through of knowledge representation techniques. Or maybe I'll have a completely different angle to tackle. Fuddle wuddle! :P :)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 01, 2009 10:16 PM | Comments (4) categorized under Evolving as a person
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January 12, 2009

Being a young researcher

This morning with my baby snoozing on the floor next to me, I wrote an article about what it's like to be a researcher. (Can I call myself a researcher? What am I, anyway? Ugh.) In the article, I share experiences about why I do research, some pitfalls, and conclude where I am in my journey. The other day I was feeling kinda lost and did some random web surfing and stumbled upon some Women in Computer Science stuff, which prompted my last post. It also led me to email the author of one of the blogs that comforted me, and now I have a new facebook friend! (Hi, Gail!) Anyway, I hope that this entry can act as a "familiar face" for any other young researchers who might be asking those meta-Why questions.

Outline
1. I want to create
2. Growing up
3. A life experiment
4. Grappling hooks
5. Seeking a niche
6. Conclusion, sort of

I want to create

Have you ever had the experience of being pushed "off course" when you're in the middle of a research project? This has happened to me many times: I have a particular question in my head, or a line of research that I want to follow. So, I find a good paper and I chase down the references or do keyword searches on ACM, SpringerLink or even Google Scholar. Then, you find a paper that seems "just right", so you start working on it, but then you realize it's so big and far beyond you that you can't even appreciate what it's saying. It's like following a path through the woods and having the path lead you off a cliff into a swirling vortex of too-much-ness.

(Has anyone else ever experienced that? Or am I just weird? heh.)

I think I'm frustrated because I'm a practical person and I like to build things and monitor them for results -- constantly improving & evolving. My research, however, has not really been evolving. Sure, I'm absorbing a lot and reading a lot, but for the last 3 years (gulp, has it been 3 years already?) I don't feel like I've created anything. To me, learning is to create. It's like I've built up this arsenal of tools and materials but am stuck at the workbench with artist's block!

Hmmm... I guess that's not entirely true. About the 3 years, I mean. I recently took a class in which I had the opportunity to write a 10-page paper about how my research relates to the topic we covered in that class. I sure enjoyed writing that paper and hadn't felt that fulfilled in a couple of years. ("I want more!")

I had a conversation about this predicament with my professor, Dr. Michael Horsch, and I explained how my research was looking like a river delta: just getting bigger and bigger with multiplying paths. He said, "That's when it's still fun!" He's absolutely right: it is fun. However, I'm still antsy about it. Later on, I figured it out: I'm upset with my situation because I want to "grow up", in a way. I don't want leisure, I want progress! Read on...

A life experiment

I want to get stuck in a corner where it feels like nobody else has researched this area before, and yet the explanation I come up with should be somehow "acceptable" like it would be obvious to everyone else, and for some reason the fate of the entire world hinges on it. Let me rephrase... I want to put things together, and draw conclusions that would be helpful/useful/interesting/a contribution to the world.

Why do I want this? This is the agony of an academic, right? Or at least part of it? Or, am I a mommy on maternity leave who has spent too many hours breastfeeding with nothing else to do but worry?

So, why do I want this? I want it because deep down I believe that if you find something in your life that's important to you and you work at it, that you can discover amazing things. This is my theory... so, I want to be in a situation where I can test it.

Maybe I'm putting too much value on finding something important.... Yes, my work is important to me and I love it very much... but maybe I have to realize that it's not about making a single discovery, but continuing the trail of little ones that I'm already following.... but I want to create, and can't without progressing on a specific-enough problem... so I keep searching for "The" problem... and so the loop continues.

Grappling hooks

I have so many questions and want to reach out to another human being and ask them. I've had a couple of fabulous professors in my life who are always welcoming to discuss these things but I feel sensitive about the intensity of my questions: I'm frightened that if I let them all out it'll be like a flood of incomprehensible reachings... like when the superhero falls of the rope bridge into the canyon, and shoots out a grappling hook to clutch at the walls to save his life, only I am shooting out dozens of them!

I also feel that it's important, for integrity's sake, to attempt to find the answer on your own before asking your professor. If you haven't attempted to answer the question on your own first (taking care of your own "front lines") then asking the professor could be... this is dumb, but it's the most suitable word I can think of... sacrilegious. I think that your professor/advisor/supervisor can be great to help you develop your ideas by conversing with you about them, or to suggest resources, or to help you see overall directions if you're getting lost in the details, and to provide motivation/fear for deadlines (heh), but they are not there to do your research for you.

I think this perspective (fear of asking too many questions) gets the better of me sometimes and as I result I end up asking fewer questions than I should. Conquering this will be part of growing up, for me.

Seeking a niche

Anyway, to minimize the impact of my incessant questioning by strategy of dilution, I surfed the web for groups of people (forums, mailing lists, anything!) who seemed to be interested in the same things that I am. I signed up for a few, but so far everything seems to be "Calls for Papers" or official-type communication. I was hoping to connect with *people*.

I lurk on the Systers list, which has been a great source of support. However, my own barrage of questions is not related to being a woman. I also sort of have the impression that there are a lot of hardware/electronics/assembly language programming type folks on that list... are any of them AI researchers? I don't know. Guess I should just out and ask. Maybe I will!

Conclusion, sort of

The only conclusion I have at this point is "and so the journey continues". Eight more months left in my maternity leave; grad studies is pretty soon on my list of life goals after that! Personally, I find comfort in reading about people who are going through similar phases of questioning as I am, so I hope that these questions provide that "familiar" feeling of comfort for someone/anyone out there!

Well, that was long and self-indulgent. I enjoyed myself. har, har, har!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 12, 2009 10:25 AM | Comments (1) categorized under Evolving as a person
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January 07, 2009

The "Women in Computer Science" entry

So, I'm a Woman in Computer Science and I've been blogging about artificial intelligence applications for a couple of years now. But -- I haven't actually blogged about being what I am. (Well, not much... two other posts mention it.)

The truth is, as an undergraduate student I was always aware that I was in the minority, but I didn't think about it much or really do much about it. I went from class to class with my mostly-but-not-all-male friends, enjoyed their company, messed up on those very-rare times when one of them actually asked me out (ugh, I was such a dork!), and generally just did my work in an alone-but-not-alone sort of way.

Very often, I thought that I wasn't as smart as the rest of my friends because I thought that I was struggling more than they were and had to fight harder to finish assignments. My transcript isn't spectacular... mostly 70s, lots of 60s, a smattering of 80s and a couple 90s in some some first-year classes. Oh, and a 47% in math. I worked *so* hard, and everyone around me seemed to be able to get better marks with less effort. I didn't understand why (and still don't!). Maybe it was just my perception, I don't know.

Sure, I showed up at the odd women-in-science thing, and even spoke on a panel once, but, in the back of my mind I had this yucky feeling that such groups were promoting a "poor me" mentality, and that people like me should just stop their complaining and get back to work. Accepting any support because you're a woman would be a sign of weakness or inferiority.

I hope that all the women reading this right now don't hate me. :) Honestly, I think my feelings on the issue were just a reflection of how brutally hard I am on myself. As I've said to my husband on more than one occasion: "I am my own worst enemy."

I started a maternity leave in September 2008. I return to work in August 2009. Before my leave, I was registered in 2 grad classes and was hot on the trail of an M.Sc. which I wanted (and still want) *so* badly. Well, it's not that I want the letters behind my name so much as I want the experience of diving into research, taking a topic by the horns and learning it inside-out while using ideas of my own to improve all of human knowledge by pushing this one area of research just a little further. That's why I have this blog: it's a way for me to have some research in my life even though I haven't got my act together yet for getting myself into a graduate program. (Regarding the 2 grad classes... I decided to back out of both of them. I was pregnant and exhausted, and couldn't put in the oomph to finish them at the graduate level. I still think it was the right decision. Actually, I was hospitalized at one point, when only 8 weeks pregnant... and I'm *still* slightly questioning my decision. Good grief, I am hard on myself!)

As I was saying, I started a maternity leave in September 2008. As I write this very moment, my baby daughter is sleeping wrapped up against my chest in a baby sling. I've been using my maternity leave as a chance to dive into further research: Every day, I set my baby down on a blanket, surrounded with toys, and next to her I spread out my books, papers, binders and iPod Touch (for internet access -- try using a laptop while breastfeeding -- doesn't work! I love my iPod!) and conduct my research in little snippets, between jiggling a toy in front of her, or talking to her, or singing, or breastfeeding, or changing a diaper, or cleaning up spit-up, etc.. I get on average 1 hour of research in per day. The rest of my free time goes to e-mail/facebook and keeping family & friends up-to-date about baby as she grows. Oh, and not to mention eating, showering & using the bathroom!! Many-a-day it is too difficult to find time for these 3 basic things.

This hour-or-so-per-day of research is so precious to me, and I'm a little scared of what will happen when the time comes to return to work. Actually, I know exactly what will happen: I will lose what I love unless I claim this time for myself, and away from my family. And I feel so GUILTY about doing it! And there's no one making me feel bad about this except for moi.

The point of this post was to express gratitude for the other blogs of women in computer science out there. Reading them, I realize that there are other women like me who are so hard on themselves, but love their work so much, and somehow manage to battle their way through an M.Sc. or Ph.D. while still being loving mothers/wives/girlfriends/etc..

I think that becoming a mother has changed my attitude. I no longer feel that being a woman in computer science is insignificant. It does mean something. Maybe I don't know what that is yet, but, lately in my own mind I've stopped belittling the fact, and maybe I can accept that part of myself not as a source of weakness or "poor me"-ness, but, as a source of that type of strength only a woman has.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 07, 2009 04:38 PM | Comments (4) categorized under Evolving as a person
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October 01, 2008

27!

Continuing the tradition... ;-)

This year, my daughter was born!

The song I'm enjoying most lately has been Evidence, by Marilyn Manson. No particular reason. I love the drums and the guitar.

I took 2 classes about AI this year, and learned a lot. As it turns out, I took them both at the undergraduate level. (I was close to tackling the 800-level version of the course, but decided not to push so hard with the late nights while I was pregnant.) I'm trying to decide if I can pull of an M.Sc. now that I have a baby.

Last week, I rolled up my sleeves and revved up a Tomcat engine and plugged in a couple of simple servlets. It's only been a year and a half since I left my programmer job, but I'm already rusty! I thought that by sketching out an actual software architecture, I might get a better handle of some specific questions I want to pursue. For instance: Given a task domain ontology, how do you employ a teaching strategy (how is the strategy modelled ahead of time?) to guide the learner though the material?

I guess my latest interest is, specifically, in *how* teaching strategies are modelled computationally.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on October 01, 2008 10:42 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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October 02, 2007

26!

Hello; 'in accordance with the pattern I began last year. :-)

Let's see, my current favourite song is Question! by System of a Down.

My lamp no longer flickers. I think I must have changed the bulb at one point.

I've spent the last couple of nights fantasizing about constraint-based modeling in (unspecific) AIED applications. Apparently I'm no closer to narrowing down an M.Sc. topic.

Incidentally, after a conversation this evening it appears that I will be formally registered in a graduate-level course next term. (*restrained excitement*) Two courses, actually, if you count the one that I'll be participating in but not taking for credit. :) I think I might like to pursue something in the area of pattern-searching (predicate-discovery ??) in large data sets. I have to go further, though, and use those predicates for something. Like, to fold them into an instructional planner or something. Hum.

Today, I also learned that when you are working with "Millennials" (people born after the year 1980, which apparently includes myself) you may find that they are more productive if you provide more structure when outlining your expectations.

Oh, heavens. Next year I will be 27.

o.O

Posted by Frozone Permalink on October 02, 2007 06:01 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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August 18, 2007

Quote from Mom

Today is the 9-year anniversary of my jaw surgery. Cool. 'Still glad that I went through with it. :)

In addition, today, here is a quote from my mom that touched my heart:

"You can have everything, but not necessarily all at once."
Primary theme: connectons & growing, evolving
Secondary theme: research & discovery

Posted by Frozone Permalink on August 18, 2007 06:09 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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March 14, 2007

Sometimes it's hard to THINK

I used to read academic papers during my lunch hour each day. I would read 2-3 papers per week, then when Saturday came along I'd have tons of material to mull over, making connections and struggling to understand the relevance of one thing in the context of another. I was learning a lot, and quickly. It was great!

Somehow, this wonderful habit stopped. I haven't been reading many papers lately. Looking back, I haven't really made any progress (academically-speaking) since, ugh, November!! Nooo! What's wrong with me?!

If I don't keep up on my reading during the week, when Saturday comes I don't really have anything to work on or write notes about. It's like there's no more fuel for the engine.

On the bright side, I've made some progress in the implementation-world (database locks, etc.) and I have been very diligent about adding new webcam photos of myself in the upper-right corner. LOL

I still have some notes l'd like to transcribe into my meta-notes, so, 'guess I'll do that for the next hour or so until it's time to make some supper. Like they say, if you want to improve something in your life, you have to start TODAY. NOW! Okay, here I go! *grabs some notes* :-)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on March 14, 2007 03:59 PM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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September 30, 2006

25!

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yippiee!

My current favourite song is A Beautiful Book by Butterfly Boucher.

Every time the train rattles by our house, the light bulb on my desk flickers.

My favourite Simpsons character is Moe Szyslak.

I had a nightmare last night that I was traversing a graph using Dijkstra's algorithm but I kept getting lost because I could only compute the total weights of shortest paths to a given vertex, but could not remember the actual paths themselves.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on September 30, 2006 10:49 AM | Comments (0) categorized under Evolving as a person
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April 01, 2006

Gotta start somewhere....

In many ways right now I feel like a child - I'm trying to get started on this project but the world is so big and wide and full of unfamilliar people, I feel a little lost and I know that all my questions seem dumb and obvious to everyone else in the community.

But, what the hell, here I go.

I finished my B.Sc. in May 2004; it's hard to believe it's been almost 2 years since I've been off campus. Seriously, it just feels like I left last week. 'Probably because in my mind, I've never really left, I've just been preoccupied elsewhere for a while. :-)

I've been thinking of going back to do some graduate work, but I know the time isn't right for me right now. I'm too busy with my full-time job at the school board office, and my husband and I just got married last year (May 2005) and I know that we would both like to have children one day. I worry that I have to pick -either- my academic studies -or- motherhood. I told this to my mom, who chuckled and said, "Don't worry Steph, lots of women are academics and mothers at the same time. It's hard work, but it can be done." And then I thought of my Aunt Nikki, who is a student in the College of Education, and she has 3 children. What an inspiration!

I just had a vision of myself with a master's degree in Computer Science in one hand, and a laughing, giggly toddler in the other. Whew! Maybe one day, lol.

As for today - I still have a small fire in my brain about the studies I left behind in 2004. I was studying Artificial Intelligence in Education under Dr. Gord McCalla in the Department of Computer Science. He introduced me to the field of study, and I read a swarm of papers, and wrote a lot of notes as I tried to wrap my head around the endless new frameworks, concepts, researchers and histories of AIEd. I was also incredibly lucky that CMPT 862 - which now appears to be CMPT 872 - Advanced Learning Technology - was offered at the same time as I was studying the area. I lurked in on a number of the class discussions, reading the papers that the class studied, and listening to the reports each week about the students' progress on their class project.

And, before I knew it, it was all over. I had my degree, and was hired full-time at the Catholic school board office. After I had been there for about a year-and-a-half (this is where I chuckle about Catholics and speedy decision-making), they recognized my degree and gave me a nice salary boost. With a promising career ahead of me, I'm not in a hurry to go anywhere.

For the last couple of months, though, I just can't shake my burning interest in this academic study. I re-read a lot of papers I had, trying (and semi-suceeding) to incorporate their ideas into my applied work at the school board office. I went back to the U of S Special Collections office and dug out my favourite Ph.D. thesis, Determining the Focus of Instruction: Content Planning for Intelligent Tutoring Systems by Barbara Brecht, 1990 (now Barbara Wasson at the University of Bergen in Norway) and I re-read it. Now I want to go back and finish reading it until the end; this material is just so interesting.

And this week, I did something monumental and amazing. I did something that could bring people around the world to tears.

I cancelled my World of Warcraft account.

So, my 60 Human Warlock (Affliction-specced) named Meredith shall no longer be roaming the Burning Steppes and the Searing Gorge, trying to save that cash for the level 60 warlock mount. And Meridelle, my level 30 Undead Warlock (Demonology-specced), shall no longer be throwing dynamite and wreaking havoc in Arathi Basin and in Warsong Gulch. Sleep well, girls. Maybe I'll be back as a Wisp to fight in the Burning Crusade later on.

Lately I've been doing academic work instead of playing Warcraft, anyway. I love the game, but it's such a time sink. So I'm officially taking a break for a while.

And what would I rather do than play World of Warcraft? Well, this morning I was thinking, as I sipped my coffee, about how I had to find something that is really applicable. So, I came up with these questions: (And these are the ones that make me feel like a silly child, so, to those in the field, bear with me:)

- If I want to start tinkering with some AI systems, I will need a way to store domain knowledge. I want this storage mechanism to be easy and applicable - it doesn't necessarily have to be "on the edge" or new or amazing or anything. Preferably, actually, it should be a technique of storing information that is well-established and is already being used in AIEd systems. Using RDF statements seems to be a very easy and highly-adaptable way to store any kind of knowledge, really. Perfect! So, my first question in my new quest shall be:

How can I use RDF technology in my schools? How can teachers start to set up the domain knowledge that our students need to learn? Once I have a small library of information in RDF format, how can I begin to use it? Can I build a browser-like utility for simply viewing this knowledge in raw form? Could I use pieces of the Haystack Project and explore different ways of applying them? Once I'm sick of manually typing out the RDF files in my favourite text editor, is there a way that I can start to auto-generate them?

Geez, am I ever rusty. Okay, time to go do some surfing to see if I can get myself back into the groove, here. Wish me luck.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on April 01, 2006 09:31 AM categorized under Evolving as a person
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