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Funny though it may sound, I sometimes need reminding that I'm not superhuman.
There's a whole load of (fun, interesting) things I'm doing when I'm not at work at the moment, which I want to keep doing. And, of course, I've got my thesis to write up.
I've just been handed possibly the biggest responsibility I've ever had. I'm now at the head of a team of ten people, including three newbies that still need hand-holding, working on the primary research project that will generate funds for my lab (and thus, for me) for the next three years. There's a scoping study due on Friday, the same day as the Research Group Christmas Party, and I still need to do a hell of a lot of reading before I can set goals, assign subtasks etc.
If I look particularly mangled in the near future, do me a favour and remind me to delegate, will you? Sure, it's a huge project, but I've got a huge team. It only looks unmanageable because I've forgotten to account for their contribution.
The Glass: broken
Bit strange, that. I've never been asked to give a reference before, and now two in one day. Still, I'm happy to do it, for the most part, and it's nice that I'm apparently now a trustworthy source for such things. Curious. Oh well...
So, give a reference. Take a reference, well... I'm trying to ease into the whole thesis-writing thing by writing a series of case studies on system-safety failures (currently Nimrod, THERAC-25 and Ariane-5, but I suspect more will turn up whenever I get bored of the bits I'm writing later). I've no idea which if any will make it into the thesis, as several of them are kinda the same and they're not all really relevant to the topic, but it gets me back into writing long documents instead of code snippets, which is going to be necessary, of course. The actual writing probably restarts Monday next week, with the technical introduction, but one thing at a time. I'd start it tomorrow, but tomorrow is full of meetings, which are a necessary evil.
To bed, then, so I might sleep and be ready for an awesome tomorrow. Or something.
It's been difficult to concentrate today, to the point that I didn't even get into work until about 11AM. I blame the overspeed effect, to be honest: I've been working hard for so long that now that particular project is over, I'm having a little trouble adjusting to the change of pace.
Ah well. I've squared away most of the stuff that was left hanging, brought the code repositories up to date and written the last few little bits of documentation, so we can probably consider that phase of the project closed. Now I have to tweak it some more, into the final configuration, add a few little bits around the edges and get some more results. Oh, and start writing up. This is going to be an interesting journey...
Hopefully, tomorrow will be more productive.
For now, at least. It's been a busy few weeks, all things considered. The fencing club startup has been pretty manic, but... the main problem has been work. My lab has been extremely busy, in the last couple of weeks at least, finishing up the Big Project that has been our primary source of funding over the last three or so years, but we're done now. We're all entering a transitional phase between big projects (though we've already been NDA'd on the next one, so someone obviously thinks it's important). Hopefully it'll give me some time to write up my PhD, at last...
The presentation I had to give went well, at least. I'm normally spectacularly rubbish at presentations: I freeze up, gabble and ... well, it's not pretty. This time, however, I decided not to even try to give any kind of professional presentation, just to study the slides, do the background reading and then give the talk like it were a lecture or a seminar presentation, with my usual asides and illuminatory digressions. It worked pretty well, all considering: despite their being guys in suits and ties, I found them responding a lot like students, which meant I could handle them like students and .... well, it all worked out. I shall have to remember that. Even my supervisor seems to think it went well.
I was going to try for a cut-down version of NaNoWriMo, just 10'000 words this year, but I don't think that's terribly smart, really. When I'm trying to write 120'000, another 10 grand is ... well... likely to be troublesome. Instead, I appear to be trying to help a friend write a rules set for a LARP he's running in the near future. Oh well. Roll on, the month.
So, it's been a few weeks since the last Maelstrom of the year, and I can feel the urge to be someone else for an afternoon starting to gnaw at the edges of my consciousness. A few of my friends are working on maybe putting together a linear system for use in Brighton, and there's Brighton Below in November, and of course I should try to get along to the semi-official Fools and Heroes game that runs monthly here. I've heard mixed reviews of the Fools and Heroes rules and setting, but don't knock it till you've tried it, right?
Maelstrom was good, though. A festival hosted by the faithful was always going to be quite religion-biased, and the laws were quite restrictive (less so for males than females, lol Islamic-template-religion), but on the whole, I think it went well. We went there with a small set of goals, and came away having completed most of a larger, completely different set, so ... success, sort of.
Enough froth. The fencing club will start meeting again soon, so since I'm the armourer I need to see what state the kit's in and repair any damage, restock worn parts and flat batteries, and get ready for the start of the year. The club meets at the same time as the Portslade gaming group, and since I'm an officer at the club, I kinda have to be there, which doesn't help my desire to play RPGs any. So it goes. It just means that this Tuesday is the last time I'll be able to see that group of friends until December. Hmm. Have to fix that, somehow.
The Freshers are on campus now, and the old place is starting back up. I have to admit, I am looking forward to another year's worth of young people to meet, and to train. I wonder who we'll see this year? I'm always surprised by the sheer variety of people we get, and how the best fencers are absolutely not the people you expect.
The title of this entry refers to something that makes me slightly sad, but also happy. As you may be aware, I cycle most places and take trains the rest, owing to not having a car (and also as part of the ongoing, and currently stalled, Operation Not Being A Fat Bastard). However, my bicycle needed a new rear hub a while back, which meant a wheel rebuild, which apparently I didn't do very well. Constant tuning and three snapped spokes later, I'm biting the bullet and paying BikeHut to rebuild the wheel for me. Since the price is fairly reasonable, and includes gear and brake retunes and cheap new cables for both of the above, I'm not overly complaining. Still, I'm an engineering student, and I feel like I should be able to do these things myself. I suppose I can claim that my time is more valuable than theirs, but ... eh, justifications. Whether I can actually afford it, until my new funding arrangement starts working properly, is a question I can't actually answer till I see my payslip for this month (there's about a 33% chance I won't be paid the right amount this month due to admin failures) I've enough in savings to get by, it's just a pain.
Onward, ever onward. I've just found what could be a fairly significant timing problem in the work we're doing right now, so I should probably stop blogging and start working again.