Tomorrow is school day, again. This does not mean that I’ll be starting to attend the SEE program at Stantford University, it just means that my days has a PhD student are about to start.
Two years of working as a software engineer made me realize that experience is very important, and that I have a lot to learn and do before I can call myself a experienced software engineer. I’m working on that issues, trying to read about new methodologies and techniques by myself and learning to apply them in the everyday job.
But there is also some other fields I’d like to improve, a lot more close to research new knowledge than to applied engineering. This is one thing that is seems to be missing from the current job. Let’s see if the ‘part-time’ PhD provides some new insights on other fields of knowledge.
I love photography and any thing related to it. Photo journalism is one of the many areas that I enjoy and the work of Michael Kamber (for New Your Times) just made me really thing about life. The work presents shoots taken during a USA military mission in Iraq, during which the 2nd Brigade Combat Team was attacked (suffering a casualty). The quality of the photos and the comments of the photographers made me think about how fragile is human life. I think one of photography’s main goals should be to make people think more often about that.
©Michael Kamber for The New York Times
… and I can’t sleep!
I just got up from bed, after a really quick sleep, because I can’t stop thinking about work. This is one of those nights when every time the mind starts to wander it always goes to something work related.
I was supposed to get a few days of vacations starting tomorrow, but that isn’t going to happen. The release has been delayed, and my free had to be sacrificed with it, again. I just hope the delivery gets done soon, in order to have a full stop in the current activities and so creating some time to re-group my thoughts from the future.
Things change. Sometimes without anyone taking notice of it… and the last thing I noticed that changed was Capri-Sonne. Yes, I mean the well known juice that comes in those puffy packages different from any other juice packages. It’s not a metal can, it’s not tetra pak carton, it’s Capri-Sonne!
Capri-Sonne was elected to be my latest vacation official drink. During a late afternoon, the beach brought to my attention the ‘new’ fact.
The orange straw, that comes firmly attached to the back of the package, no longer falls inside. The package design has been remade to avoid that. I don’t exactly what changed, but the fact is that my first grade school trips horror is no longer possible!
Whenever the straw didn’t fall into the package, it was just because the straw pierced the package front-to-back. That is also very unlikely because the new design includes a very soft membrane very easy to pierce.
I hadn’t had a Capri-Sonne in a long time, but now that I’ve tried it again… it brings memories.
I usually use my own car to travel to work everyday. Unfortunately, the public transportation (the BUS, or as called in the province of this small Portugal, “carreira”) near my home is quite scarce, and I only tend to use them when strictly necessary. On the other side, I some times use the car to travel half the way and them take the train the rest of the way.
The last option has a lot of benefits. The first benefit is related with the smaller carbon footprint os using the train (instead of diesel “tank”*). Secondly, this kind of travelling provides with much more time for reading. And I love reading…
So, with don’t I use the train every single day? Because it takes me almost one hour a day more than when using the car.
* “tank” is the caring name I use to refer to my sweet old car!
Let me start by saying “I need a vacation”.
That being said, today’s thought goes to my obvious lack of concentration. I suspect that not being on vacation for six months in a row is the major cause of sensing some difficulty in concentrating. And worst of all, this is becoming evident for the people around me. This week, several events have brought that to my attention. Dramatically…
I’ve never considered myself stupid, but this week:
- I was unable to find a word in a book index (of course the word was there)
- I forgot the hours of scheduled meetings (4 out of 5)
- I was unable to find an evident option in one of the applications I use regularly
- and… I forgot the forth event… I know, depressing…
I need to go on Vacation, soon…
When you enjoy what you do for a living, your job can be the main motive for getting out of bed in the morning. Not considering other factors, such as family, this is fine and can be the right way to get the personal gratification everyone needs.
As we should all know, in a work environment, dealing with tight schedules is difficult. An even greater problem arises when work becomes an obsession (persons with such an obsession are known as ‘workaholics’). The compulsion can drive a person to start working at home in order to try and finish the assigned tasks, or to stay late in the office.
Such an environment doesn’t help the worker that can let himself into depression. Depression can arise due to the permanent delay of gratification associated with the termination of a task. This state is known as burnout. Here’s some articles on the subject [1] [2] [3] [4].
One of the factor that affects personal relationships is the level of assertiveness.
Assertiveness is a communication skill that can be defined by:
- the ability to clearly identify and express thoughts and ideias
- the ability to defend ideas by supporting then in valid arguments
- doing the previous while respecting the limits of the self and the others
One should be able to improve their assertiveness by always communicating open and honestly, about every aspects of work or life. This kind of communication is based on a balance between the time you are speaking and the time you are listening.
Please notice, this post is not a complaint, just a statement of acceptance.
I’m a weekend blogger. After analyzing the more recent posts, and the dates in which they where added, everything indicates that this a place is managed by a weekend blogger.
Why do I only add new stuff to the blog in the weekend? This question has a simple answer… During the week, the workload amounts to more that 10-11 hours per day, which leaves very little time for anything else.
This doesn’t mean that the blog is completely abandoned during this period. New posts are drafted, design is improved, comments are approved, but the publishing of a new post is an event that needs more attention (and so, more time).
The lack of time also has impact on the amount of research done for each post. According to some blogging tips, the research is important and for me that implies photography time. Today is raining, but usually during the weekend my SLR become my faithful companion.
As my workload doesn’t seem to be lowering anytime soon, my posts will continue to be added during the weekend…
All children events, like the one I attended yesterday, are to be enjoyed by the family. But every time I attend such an event I start wondering if I’m too Big to attend. Notice that I didn’t wrote I’m too Old!
I left the Disney on Ice - Aventuras na Disneyland feeling sorry and a little sore… My seat was just in front of a small girl, which spent the duration of the show trying to look over what she certainly thought to be a huge head. I known the feeling and don’t enjoy it either, when someone has his or her huge head in front of my movie or concert. To avoid standing in front of the little girl, a big part of the show was spent lying flat in my chair or almost crawling under it. All that hiding exercise left me with a sore bum…!
The show was very interesting, with a nice set of special effects, but we were expecting something more. I guess we’ll have to go directly to Disneyland Resort Paris to watch the grand disney spectacle.
