Riding bikes of carbon fiber and horses of math...

Small victories are important. They can make a difference in how I feel day-to-day. To use training language, everyone needs periodic reinforcement. Since the beginning of the spring semester, my reinforcement to work ratio was very low, particularly with several very time-consuming assignments that I never finished. The past couple months, my running and biking also fell off. I’m not training for anything in particular. (If people ask, I “joke” that I’m training for middle age. Not entirely a joke, right? It may seem far off, but it’ll come soon enough.) I’ve set no specific goals. I even figured out eating habits that maintain weight without much exercise. At this stage, my exercise has dropped enough that simply getting out is a victory. I realized this today while I spent a quick hour on the bike ride to burn off some extra energy and make it easier to mount up back onto the study horse this evening. As my Goshen physics professor Carl Helrich has been known to say, "Math is the trusty steed we ride." But now I'm back off the bike so it's time to get back on the study horse. Or maybe it's a study train, I never was sure.

These days I need to use exercise to give myself these small victories, in the absence of feedback from the academic side of things (those pots all have to simmer longer term). In several weeks I’ll get course grades from spring semester (hopefully passing), and hopefully along the way make measurable progress on my thesis. Right now I’m simply figuring out the mechanics of the data processing I do in MATLAB - what order to do things in, how to pre-process data, how to measure changes. So for every step of progress I make toward the explicit goals of the thesis, it usually means figuring out several behind-the-scenes issues. It’s not always the most fun I could imagine having ever, but I enjoy getting into the process of actually doing science, and learning what exactly that means.

Well, back to more studying so I can actually earn some positive reinforcement for all the time I’ve spent on this course in the past few months.

Edit: bikes of aluminum. I guess only the fork is carbon.

Quick as a cricket!

That's how I have to write this post. It's Tuesday, and my last exam is Thursday. It won't be a thing of beauty, but with luck (and successful studying through today and tomorrow) I should (might?) pass. Probably. Linear regression, PCA, reinforcement learning, inverse models, and Bayesian estimation theory. Fun stuff. But after that it will be the thesis full-time.

Summer's in full swing in Zurich. For a city that's supposed to average only 3 days a year above 85 degrees, we've been there (or close) for almost 3 weeks, with a few days above 90. Also, Switzerland doesn't believe in air conditioning. It does cool down at night though - often down to 70 or so. Aren't you glad you're caught up on Swiss weather now?

Beyond a couple hikes and a couple bike rides, I haven't been outside too much this summer, though the heat has driven us (and much of the city) to spend weekend days at the river and the lake, enjoying sun or shade or water however you see fit.

Rachel and Darin get here tomorrow morning, which is exciting, but for today, well, that studying isn't going to do itself! Happy August, folks.