Decisively Indecisive

I need to buy a computer.

My trusty Toshiba PC is almost 5 years old. I received it as a surprise Christmas gift in December 2006 after my previous computer's motherboard fried. I told my Dad that I would go halfsies on a new computer with him because I thought at the age of 20 I was "grown up". Thankfully, they had already purchased the computer on sale so I wouldn't have to pitch in...phew. But the computer is actually six years old if you count that it was on the market for a year before my parent's purchased it. It has been awesome and resiliant and the hardware has never failed me. I once dropped a glass picture frame on it that left only a small dent in the outside case. Everyone who uses this computer hates it, mainly because of its size. The tiny keyboard is perfect for my tiny hands. Unfortunately it is a single core processor and I think might have 2G of ram. The fan has been going on it for about a year now and the computer like its about to take off. Cbert...I'm sure you can relate. The only problem I ever had with it was a Windows 7 issue that corrupted my harddrive when it began to fight with the Linux Mint operating system (I miss you) that I used to have on here (WINDOWS!!)

So, I am purchasing my first new computer with all my money...and I'm so fucking indecisive. This process has been off and on for about a year now and I'm not in any better place than I was a year ago. I don't really have any external excuses. I have the money to buy whatever I want and am not really attached to any sort of brand...even though my lab doubles as an advertisement for Apple products. I don't know what I need or what I don't need...I just can't decide! When I see a computer, I see a $1000-$2000 financial commitment that I want to last for 5 years. This commitment issue is probably my first problem...I feel sorry for my future husband.

So here is a list of things I need:

1. This is my home computer, so it is not all academic. I want to be able to nicely edit and organize my photos, music, and other media I have downloaded for free. I have no interest in making videos or anything, but sooner or later I'm sure I will be very very into editing my photos so I want something that will be good for that.

2. I need to be able to remote into my computer at school, which is a PC. I have been told that I can remote (or use the VPN) from Mac to PC but I have never seen this. And I haven't decided if I want my home computer to double as a processing computer during my data collections.

3. I want to somehow be able to easily back up all my files and keep all that shit organized so that you all do not receive an email from me saying that my computer has crashed, I lost all my thesis data, and  that you won't be hearing from me again because I'll be too busy cutting my wrists with a butter knife.

4. Portability. I already own an iPad, which is portable enough. But it currently does not support decent word processing (I hope it will soon enough). You can use pages, but there currently is no way for me to properly edit Word documents with track changes. Lame. I currently don't do much work at the library; however, the cabin fever I got during my comprehensive exams has changed the way I look at working at home. Also, I have been in the US 3 times in the last 4 months. My iPad is great when I'm not doing work; however, if I needed to do major edits to a presentation it sort of lets me down. To be fair, that is really not its purpose though.

What a ridiculous list. I think I have realized that I am not looking for what computer to buy, I'm trying to decide what BRAND to buy - PC or Mac. I sort of have a dilema of desktop or laptop but I think that one will be easier to solve. So here are my pro's and con's of all of them:

MAC
Pro: You are suited to academics like no one else. The only reason I bought an iPad was because it offered so many more options and nicer PDF editing programs than anything android. Also, those android tablets were really made for entertainment purposes...so you got off lucky there. You make it so easy to back things up and organize things. And apparently I can still VPN into my PC computer at school.

Con: You are a fucking brand that makes people go all or none with Apple products. I have an Android phone (Samsung Galaxy S) and its so easy to view what files are on the phone, where they are stored etc etc. On my iPad, I don't know where the fuck the files are. I know they are on there, but I can't easily get them from my iPad to my PC....WHY must you be so damn exclusive! Things aren't organized in common folders. I have the same file opened in Papers and iAnnotate and Dropbox and its a mess. Play nicer Apple and I probably would have bought more of your products, which seems backwards I know. You are also expensive and I have no idea if the added price is really worth it for my needs.

PC
Pro: Everyone uses you. My dad gets all the program licenses for free. No learning curve. I know I won't have compatibility problems with the unique programs we use since they are all available for you first. I don't really have any problems with Windows but things have become more and more of a hassle.

Con: Do you know how impossible it is to get the laptop I want in a PC!? 14" laptops are unavaliable. 15" laptops have a NUMBER PAD on the side. Seriously, who wants that added weight on their laptop? Nothing is in stock anywhere. They are also, for the most part, ugly.That shouldn't be a selling point...but that is how hideous most of them are.

Desktop (not based on a brand)
Pros: Powerful. Large screen and much easier to do heavy work on.

Cons: I won't be able to bring my computer anywhere so I will be stuck in my room working....I can't have that.


So there you go. I change my mind everyday. After my purchase of my DSLR in May I learned that I probably won't be able to decide on one for more than a few hours at a time and the minute I purchase it I will probably completely regret it. So I need people's input. Look at my needs, look at my pros and cons, then tell me what to do. Offers to buy the computer for me are also welcomed.

...I last posted on September 16th?!

You've gotta be kidding me. I could not have last posted on this blog almost 4 months ago. I came on here tonight to just write about anything, but now here I am realizing that this term has gone by far faster than one could have ever imagined.

So what's keeping me up tonight? Life. Denial. Loneliness. Relating to the original reason for this blog, I mostly feel as a fast tracking student stuck in a lonely middle between the PhDs w/ MScs and the MScs who are not yet PhDs but will be soon...phew. I'm in a unique situation in that respect and its hard to relate to either group. Quickly you realize that for all intensive purposes, you are at the same level as the them. But on the other hand, your lack of experience puts you light years behind where they are. To be honest, I'm not sure me obtaining my master's would have helped all too much...but that its a completely different story related to Impostor Syndrome which I will definitely get into for a later post. Then there are the soon to be doctoral students who I don't really relate to either. So I'm in this group alone, academically speaking at least.

I think this is the one main thing that I am trying to grasp by being in this situation - don't totally base your abilities on the abilities of those around you. People are different and their knowledge base isn't something to get you all wound up over. This is not to say that you won't be working way harder than they will be. In the end, they are more experience than you and do know way more than you as a result, which is a disadvantage to the idea of fast tracking. But when you look at the big picture (i.e. how people learn, share knowledge, etc etc) it reinforces the fact that we are all individuals (I sound like a childrens' TV show that tells kids "you are all unique and special in your own way"...blah).

I think what coming back to these blogposts also tell me is that if I was being 100% truthful...this blog would be on an entirely different topic that had no relation to academics whatsoever. But I'll keep that one to myself...for now :)

Planes Trains and Automobiles: The importance of travelling during your degree.

I was once told in my undergrad that one big change would occur when I started my grad degree - I was never going to travel again. Ever again. Conferences only. But the days of leisurely break travels were gone. How depressing!


Needless to say, this was an opinion of a colleague who was never told they couldn't take a break, but just chose not to. During my undergrad I realized how important going on vacation from "real life" was. There were many instances where I "burnt out"...by that I mean my stress level got to a point that I couldn't handle in my undergrad. In hindsight, things were not too bad. But it was amazing how one small road trip to Chicago could make me feel so much better.

I didn't travel much (correction...ever) before I started university. I took my first flight back from dropping a friend off in Florida after we road tripped from Chicago to St. Augustine, FL. We passed along the way various Bourbon Distilleries, gorgeous hills in Tennessee, and the worst rain cloud I have ever seen in my life in Georgia.

I always knew more was out there. But as a big city girl living in a suburb with almost a million people and a downtown core just 30 minutes away, everything was at my fingertips. But what started as small travels has ballooned into visiting friends in Vancouver, Washington DC, Chicago, Florida,  and New York City. All of these small trips geared me up to a solo adventure from San Fransisco to Los Angeles and a scary Pacific Coast Highway drive in between.

Grad students live the perfect lives for travelling. Not only do we get to travel for conferences, but for the most part our time is our own. WE set our schedule (aside from looming conference abstract deadlines) and therefore we decide whether we have time for vacation. If we were being 100% honest with ourselves, none of us really have time. But its understanding that your productivity isn't being helped when you are burnt out. Two weeks off can save you so much time in the long run. We also don't really answer to anyone. I mean we have a supervisor who wants us to stay on track and be productive, but we don't have vacation days that we have to book out. Like I said, our time is our own.

There are some obvious downsides to traveling. One main one being you NEVER want to return. I read an article recently that said people shouldn't travel because of the "travel blues" they get upon their return. I think it is true that it does take a bit of time to get back on track post vacation. But overall, the article was BS. Feel the blues or miss out on seeing some of the greatest places in the world...right.

The opportunities for academic travel are also endless. Collaborative research projects with universities abroad are great ways to get some travel in while doing work. You might also find a great place to pick up and go for a post-doc opportunity! And who knows...maybe thats where you will live forever :)

In the end, I would say this. If you have the time, travel somewhere at least once a year. If you don't have time for long distance travel, then maybe short weekend vacations are what you need. In the end, you need to think about yourself and your mental health. And ask yourself this: would you rather be looking at the California coast line in person or stuck in a burnt out rut staring at a picture of a beach someone else took?

You know if you fast track...

Everyone has stories about people who fast track. When I first told people that I was fast tracking (AND even now...two weeks before I being my PhD), I received many words of wisdom that started with something along the lines of  "You know if you fast track...". Some of them went like this:

"...it'll take six years to do your PhD"
"...it'll be disastorous"
"...you lose that year of learning you don't get by doing a full MSc"
"...you'll be done when you are 27"
"...you'll end up like the other people who have fast tracked (aka...poorly)"
"...I think you will be successful"
"...you'll have to work really hard to make up for that year of publishing papers you lose"

So as you can see, most are negative and many jumped all over me before I could even get a sentence out! But I think there were two camps: the "senior" PhD students had absolutely nothing good to say about it. The "Newbie" PhD students were supportive and thought it was a good idea. Another way to look at this, senior PhD students are extremely bitter (true) and new PhD students (who haven't been broken down) are extremely naive (also true).

Its easy to be swayed (or scared shitless) by peoples' opinions. The one thing I learned in the process is that to every point, there is a counter point. Someone was unsuccessful, but in the circumstances they got themselves in, ANYONE would be unsuccessful. I may be done when I am 27, but will I be lacking publications and experience to get me a job once I am done?

I always knew that this is what I wanted to do, and I think I will use peoples' opinions as things I need to look out for. Everyone was right, but maybe these are not reasons to avoid fast tracking, they are just things you need to look out for and have a game plan to battle. In the end it is an a decision that needs to be made on a person by person basis. How much research has this student already done? Publications? Conference Presentations? Troubleshooting skills? Innitiatve? etc.

So I hope in the future that I can say to someone, in a nice (non-judgemental way) "You know if you fast-track for the right reasons...you won't regret it"

Calm Before the Storm?

If this is the calm before the storm...I'm going to need a bigger boat.

As I have explained to many a family member, graduate students do not take summer vacations. I pay tutition, I come to school, I do my research, I sit outside in the sun and procrastinate. Now, as the title suggests, my blog is about me and my decision to fast track through my Master's degree after one year of course work to a PhD starting in September. I'm pursuing a degree at a Canadian University in Kinesiology, a science that looks at the way we move. As posts continue, I'll go into the trials and tribulations of fast tracking. But for now...its August.

When I first decided to fast track in April, I thought that I would be able to relax this summer. Not in the "I'm going to do nothing this summer" way. I had no pressure to have a thesis proposal finished by the end of the summer. As a fast tracker I am not required to do a Masters thesis. So, my supervisor suggested that I take the summer to learn. Easy enough.

In hindsight, I think I took the whole learning thing to an extreme. In talking to him a few weeks ago, we listed off everything that I was doing this summer - processing an incredibly large data set from a past student, running my own ultrasound study, a tech note collaboration study with a colleague, and helping out a Master's student finish her thesis collection. Sounds busy enough. But factor in everything I needed to do for each of these:

Study 1 - I had never really used the processing software and was completely unfamiliar with the literature and the measures involved
Study 2 - taught myself ultrasound techniques and motion capture system ( you know...like the ones you see the athletes wearing when making sport video games) that involves a ton of front end work
Study 3 - I knew very little about some of the techniques coming into this study, but my work in study two helped me get involved in study 3
Study 4 - Same motion capture system in study 2, but used in a completely different set up that I needed to learn

I think there is one more. Each study has sub studies and well...you get my point. Its now mid august and I'm overwhelmed with work! The tricky thing is that for a such as myself is that despite speeding up a year, I lost a year for publications. So I could potentially have atleast 3-4 papers coming from all this research. And for a young research such as myself, who has two first author papers to her name from undergraduate work, this is gold. But I'm exhausted. So like I said...if this is the calm before the storm, I am going to need a bigger boat.

Granted, I do enjoy the work even if I am pulling my hair out as a result. I believe its worse than I would have expected in the beginning of the summer since mastering any technique always takes way longer than you orignally planned. I have also run into major problems in each of the studies, which has involved an incredible amount of trouble shooting. In the end, I learned way more than I had even imagined possible when I began.

The moral of this summer is that writing a proposal would have been the easy thing to do. Concentrating on one study, not even an entire study, would have been a breeze. But I wouldn't have even begun to learn anything that I learned this summer, even through pilot data. In the end, hands on experience trumps anything you read in a journal article. Some may say I lost a year, but I can easily say I fit a years worth of work into one summer. I would also like to run into these simple start of problems now instead of two years in my PhD after I have already done my proposal. And, I have learned early on, that sometimes its just not possible to do EVERYTHING at once.

So I have three more weeks until I begin. That being said...my vacation can't arrive fast enough!