HOWTO: Teleport to School

Five easy steps you can take to teleport to school.

Step 1. Have a little brother.

Step 2. Convince your brother to "carpool" with you to school.

Step 3. Get to the car first every morning, and hop in the passenger seat.

Step 4. Fall asleep.

Step 5. Wake up when you arrive at school.

If your little brother drives smoothly enough, the passenger (a.k.a. teleportation) seat works like a charm. Right now, my brother is writing a blog entry that looks exactly the same except Step 1 says "older brother". The trick, of course, is Step 3.

Banality of PhD Work

I just read a review where the reviewer used the phrase, "results seem somewhat banal." This phrase seemed quite harsh: it's somewhere in the same area on the continuum as "obvious", and definitely in the area one would say, "is not a contribution." Just to make sure, I looked up "banal" in the dictionary: "drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite". I think you could make a good argument that work that is labeled "banal" is worse than "obvious." It's "drearily commonplace". Ouch.

To every PhD student, I think this kind of review is the one we fear. The purpose of a PhD is to provide an "original contribution to human knowledge": if someone says your results are "banal", well then, obviously, your stuff wasn't original enough.
Just to make this perfectly clear, I have drawn up a sketch (see above). I've numbered the important points on the scale that reflect how you feel about your work... and usually, these numbers are correlated with how far along you are in your PhD. Note that I'm currently in the midst of a #3.5. Note also that #5 is purely speculation. If I make it that far, I'll let you know how good my prediction was/is.

More Volleyball!

And another video. Actually, I went back to the previous video and changed the audio (people were making fun of me for using a song that was made before they were born).

I've learned some good stuff this time around:

• Don't let the song play through -- cut it out before it gets boring (usually around 1min-2min mark).
• Change the pacing every once in a while.

Apparently, my use of every single video-transition available in Windows Movie Maker didn't bother anyone.

T2 @ 24hr Charity R4s Volleyball Tournament

Here's the first video from our 24hr adventure. It was awesome, and very tiring. I'm still a little bit sore. Some things I that will be hard to forget:

• Having a great time with good buddies
• Pulling the fire alarm by accident
• Getting hit in the head with a volleyball while sleeping
• Actually getting a block or two
• Laughing my ass off
• Having some of my sushi ninja-d

Things you learn in a PhD

T: I just have to read this last paper.
F: If there is one thing I have learned...
F: There is always another paper
F: ... another to-do item
F: ... another email
F: ... another website with a crazy game or funny picture

PhD lesson of the day: go to bed when it's bed time.