The PhD post!
The past three years basically came down to this.
In fact, the 20 years of my education comes down to this- "Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science" aka Ph.D. ;)
So, herewith, the author of this blog should be addressed as Dr. Mythalez. :P
a post about disjoint unrelated whatever-comes-mind topics:
Electric showers are like M$ Windows. Very simple UI but assume that the user is stupid and only give him/her limited easy to use options. Manual 2-tap showers are like Linux. Smartly designed and gives the user the power to configure it just as he/she wants it to be.
I think I am finally getting tired of the blah concept. Yeah, I still believe that everything in the universe is just blah. But that belief doesn't get one anywhere. Of course, there is actually no point in going anywhere, since everything, as I had just reiterated, is just blah. But again, life doesn't seem very worthwhile if there is nowhere to get to. After all, given my attitude and given the social environment that I have been exposed to over the years, I need to be running towards something. And that something should look worthwhile enough, at least from a distance. All that this abstracty rant basically boils down to is this- I need a goal. The next goal. The goal towards which I can start my run, again.
Oh, by the way, is this what 20 years of "education" is going to culminate towards?
Oh, another by the way, it seems quite fun to act aka behave so as to leave someone guessing, slightly confused, somewhat puzzled and caught up in anticipation ;).
To find a relevant conference in Cyprus was quite a surprise. And it was quite at the right time with the right focus as well. However, even after the paper was accepted, a lot of issues cropped up, some arbit, some crazy, that continually questioned the trip.
£! Paper: On all my previous paper uploads, spread over 4-5 yrs?, I was very cautious and made sure it was perfect and satisfied all the formatting, protocols et al. This time, had to be an exception. The organisers complained to me about the camera-ready version (the version that is actually published in the conference proceedings) not fitting in with the requirements. I had forgotten to include the keywords and my bibliography style was all wrong! Okay, okay, I admit it was a easily rectifiable issue.
£! Hotel: Okay, next step to going to a conference would be registration (which was easily accomplished, thankfully) and accommodation. As there was no online form provided by at the conf. website, I first called up the hotel. They asked me to send a mail with the details. So I did. No response. More than a week passed! I mailed again. No response! I got tired and called them. The person complained that their servers had some problem but assured that my room will be reserved for me all right (since he recognised that I had called earlier as well). But another week or so passes and I still get no confirmation. The conference dates were inching closer and I started worrying that no places might be left at that hotel. So, I called again and this time the right person picked up, the one who is responsible for room bookings and she got it done in a few minutes .. whew!
£! Flight: Found the most suitable flight and gave the info (a clear printout) to the group secretary to make the booking for me. He got it done via a travel agent, as is the norm. All fine except that my name on the ticket had a typo. So, I had to pray that the security at Heathrow and again those in Cyprus do not notice the discrepancy in the names on the passport and on the ticket/boarding-pass.
£! Visa: I luckily had Schengen visa until beyond the conference dates, so I felt relieved that for once, I won't have to run around consulates. But, I did make a fatal assumption- that Cyprus was part of the Schengen. I did remember seeing it in countries list of Schengen and assumed that was it. Just 3-4 days before the flying date, Su aka Pseudeone questions me about the visa and I assure him that I have everything under control. Then, just to be sure I check only to recoil in horror! Though, Cyprus signed the Schengen agreement it apparently did not implement it yet! Which meant, that a separate Cypriot visa is required to enter Cyprus!! I was flabbergasted. Then I did more research and found a few websites including some consulates of Cyprus that stated in confusing jargon that residents of UK countries holding a valid Schengen visa and having visited other countries using it, are allowed to enter Cyprus. But then, did I qualify? Will I be allowed?
Cyprus looked quite familiar. In many ways, it was similar to India. Ofcourse, they too were under British occupation for a long time and have a similar sunny climate. All this meant, that everyone knew how to speak English (not necessarily perfect but easily understandable English). Every sign/notice/hoarding displayed the matter in atleast two languages- greek and english. The structure of the buildings were as modern and as ventilated as those in India. In fact, if you were just given a snapshot of some buildings without including any people, you can be easily fooled into believing that it belonged to some Indian town! Yes, it was quite in contrast to the rest of Europe that I had been to. Generally buildings seemed to be modern construction with open plans letting in lots of air, containing balconies and terraces and such kind. Next to the roads would be dry open sand and rocks and not wet mud covered with grass or concrete like in western Europe.
Cyprus is a popular tourist destination. But you would mainly find British and Russian tourists only. Infact, apparently lots of Russians have moved there and settled permanently after the breakup of the Soviet Union. As I was told, these Russians accumulated money during the communist era and brought it all with them to Cyprus when they left after the end of the Union. Thus, all the hotel menus list the dishes in three languages- Greek, English and Russian ;)
Another similarity with India would be the unending political problem of the division of Cyprus, invasion by Turkey and all that. Rings a familiar bell? :P
It is a very expensive country. Yeah, it is much more expensive than even UK. And very touristy as well. Oh, and there are a huge number of Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants who work in these touristy hotels. It was quite surprising but then when you think about it, not so much. English is the language spoken and hence they are employed, and hence they migrate for a better lifestyle :P.
Now, we can get down to specifics of my trip :P. The conference was in this 4-star beach resort and thats where I stayed for 4 of the 5 days. It was very posh. The poshest hotel I have stayed in until now, ever! It had its own private beach, 3-4 restaurants, a couple of more bars and so on. And all that extravaganza made sense as we realised that many tourists seemed to just stay in the hotel for the whole week and so. They would just lie by the beach, swim for a bit, lie a bit more, use the swimming pool, and lie around more, while using the dining facilities around. They never ventured out to do the other touristy activities like sight-seeing :P. Ofcourse, most of the tourists were basically old retired rich people. And then, there were a few other kind of tourists. British couples, along with their families and friends, who came all the way to Cyprus, to this particular resort to get married by the sea, on the pier. Everyday, a wedding took place there! Insane!
For the first 3 days, when the conference was being held, I couldn't do much other than enjoying my room or by the beach in the evenings. On the last day however, a friend (from the conference) and I hiked for 2 hours along the beach to reach an archaeological excavation of what is supposedly the oldest city/port of the country called Amathaus. Oh btw, We were in Limassol- the second largest city of Cyprus, after the capital.
The second last day, I was picked up from the hotel by the family of my friend aka ex-housemate, who is originally from this city [lucky me ;)] to be taken to their place. That's where I spent the weekend. My friend wasn't there obviously (she being in the UK and all) but her parents were excellent hosts and showed me around the city, the castles, the ancient town nearby and all that. That evening, another friend (cousin of my ex-housemate) came by to take me to her house and also show around a bit more of the city.
The last day, I left early to go to Larnaca, another city, the one which contains the airport and went around a bit, enjoying the marina and all before flying back to Heathrow.
So, is Cyprus worth visiting? Definitely yes, if you want a relaxing break by the sea side. The intense blue sea is serene, the waves are gentle, the air is refreshing and the food is good. Most of all, it is completely hassle-free. Except for public transport which is practically non-existent. Everyone there owns a car apparently, so rent one if you want to go around a lot :P.
the typical trip:
£ as usual, book the flight tickets less than a week in advance. and book them right immediately on the same day that the decision to go home was made.
£ as usual, go home for a little more than 3 weeks.
£ as usual, have a really strong reason to go home. this time being, having nothing to do after submission of the thesis :P
£ as usual, blog about it just the night before the flight ;)
i don't remember since when i have been waiting to announce this, and write a post regarding it. definitely more than year! yes, people everywhere and nowhere, the PhD thesis is now sealed and desposited for 'examination' aka 'viva' aka 'defence'. this procedure involves professors both internal and external to the university grilling me regarding all aspects of the thesis and beyond for as many hours as they choose. my supervisors would be just mute spectators in the room. the examiners apparently tend to question both the higher purpose of the thesis (like why it is significant or novel) and also the minute details (like how and why this particular parameter was chosen). anyways, since this is scheduled for end of october, I pretty much have more than 40 absolutely free days staring at me :D .... yipppe !!
\begin{bragging}
£$€ - 123 pages of PhD thesis [quite on the smaller side but as is said, the smaller the thesis, the better and more precise it is ;) ]
€£$ - 3 years 14 days [would have been much less than three years if not for the vacations my supervisors and I have taken over the past 2 months]
$€£ - consumed approximately £37,000 as stipend and more than £40,000 was paid as fees on my behalf by the school to the university [yeah, it is a strange system :P]. also several thousands of £s were spent to provide for my various conference attendances ;).
€$£ - considering the problems and ill-health faced over the last many months, the fact that i still managed to complete on time deserves applause :P
£€$ - there should be more points to brag about, definitely. but i don't seem to be able to recollect them right now :P.
\end{bragging}
okay, now that we are done with this, let us evaluate my current position:
%& am jobless and workless and thus not even being paid a penny by anyone.
&% am going to become homeless soon as I have decided to give up my room/house at end of this month.
%% have no job offers yet, haven't actually applied anywhere that i might want to, don't even know what kind of job i would like.
&& ................. ...... .... .... .... .... [intentionally left blank to represent several points ;) ]
fine, now let the celebrations, packing+storage, travel etc etc begin !!
so, after 20 days, we revisit the thesis process.
in the meantime, that is, while Nr was reading the thesis version, i was busy doing other things, also going to Cyprus, attending a conference, presenting a paper, enjoying the calm sea and so on. and i return today to find his commented version on the desk.
and no real comments! even the abstract which i expected to be mauled had only one word-change suggested! working on these comments took less than 30 mins. and I was ready with the thesis version to be submitted!!
ofcourse, i had skipped writing the "acknowledgements" section until now. even Nr pointed out that atleast something should be written there ;). and so i manufactured one in a hurry and voila!
here we are, with the ready pdf .. for 5 copies to be printed, bound and submitted!
and that will be done tomorrow ..... !!!!!
day49 - tuesday - put up the appendix graphs and describe the results and why they don't matter, hence why they ended up in the appendix intstead of the main part.
day50 - do the small itsy bitsy changes that were noted down in the process over the last 50 days but never acted upon. and ofcourse, write the abstract .. finally! and done!!
the second version of the thesis is now ready for your perusal :P.
so the statistics:
£ around 125-130pages depending on how i compile it.
£ 50 days of procrastination + work + weekend
£ 35 posts of this blah!
next post might arrive when Nr and Nj look at this version and suggest any final changes..... am sure they will, especially for the abstract .. it is quite amateurish ;)
day43 - revised chapter 5 aka Empirical Evaluation ... had to battle with lots of justifys, whys and why-is-the-graph-so warriors .. tackled them all except for the easy one requiring a figure to explain how a parameter works ..
day44 - revised chapter 6 aka Conclusions/FutureWork .. the earlier version of future work was somewhat massacred by Nr, but his questions did help in the process of raising it from the ashes again :P. the last paragraph has been left out .. apparently, world peace, cure for cancer and time-travel arent enough .. we need more wider and general direction for future work as well .. will work later when in the zone ;)
day45 - the example for chapter 4 .. something that has been delayed for so long .. and we find what? that a somewhat preliminary version already exists in the minithesis .. it is just a matter of copying and updating it .. and so we do .. not much of a task at all !! and follow that up with revising all the figures that demanded touch ups and the new figure that was left out yesterday.
day46 - saturday .. what do you expect?
day47 - sunday .. why do you even bother?
day48 - anti-appendicitis = generating graphs for the second part of the appendix. also generated input and started running the final set of experiments for this set of graphs. also took a look at the abstract that is to be written and gave up for the day.
\begin{abstract}
It is all blah!
\end{abstract}
soon the day will come when this blog will tire of these pathetic thesis posts and rebel against the author. it will not let him login, not let him add more of his asinine daily commentary onto the burgeoning web. it will try to banish all those incongruous posts and hope to go back to its original state of bliss. and it might fail and fade into oblivion. or i might finish with the thesis before the blog loses patience with me. let us hope for the latter :P.
revision of chapter 4 wasn't tricky. well, almost. all of it was done except for the example part. yes, we are back to struggling with the infamous examples. we need to extend the running example to explain this part of the thesis as well. i knew it was coming, even while i was writing this chapter and consciously ignored to add the example. and now i will have to do it .. tomorrow?
also started the revision of chapter 5 aka Empirical Evaluation. most of the comments seem to be "why" or "justify". blah, i say.
i took a skewed weekend break, that is, friday and saturday and half of sunday. no, i didn't sincerely go to lab on sunday afternoon, but i did make attempts towards work and revise some of the second chapter aka Related Work. however, i was being too lazy and too smart for my own benefit and skipped most of the tough comments and tackled the straightforward bits only.
that meant, my work today turned out to be much larger than it looked. the morning was anyway devoured by references for the camera ready version of the workshop paper. an annoying issue i cant care to elaborate :P. and the afternoon, this chapter was revised to what i now hope is 'almost' perfection'. and attention can now be focussed on chapter 4 aka Adaptation.
finally, we have the pleasure of creating a new directory. and copy files carefully and lovingly :P. yes, the work on the next version of the the-sis has begun!
and i chose chapter 3 for the honours. it had the least number of comments and Nr had even praised it. yeah, it is an extremely rarely occurrence of Nr appreciating my writing. in fact, anyone's writing i think ;).
also, didn't have to stalk Nj for his set of comments. luckily, found him in a nearby bay, discussing something with some student and waited patiently with a keen eye for him to get ready to leave and then caught his attention and then put forward my demands :D.
done with chapter 3 and then turned the attention to chapter 2 aka Related Work. it is always the most hated part of anything i write. somehow. even just revising it seem to be quite annoying :D and that made me quit for the day.... lagging quite behind in the revision process
hey .. that rhymed so naturally :D
so the not so particularly important glossary was made proper. the other part of appendix that are those no-value-adding results. you see, sometimes while describing an experimental setup, i claim that i am showing results with these parameters only and not those because their results are also similar. thus, i was doing the good thing of not adding redundancy. however, these redundant results need to be included in the appendix for the sake of completeness and to prove that we weren't fibbing and being lazy :P
also, i can now start the revision. but where are the comments of Nj on all the chapters? haven't received them yet. should i start stalking him now? ;)
due to the post-chapter-completion-lethargy disorder, my feeble attempts towards work were mostly futile.
the only saving grace was that i managed to clean up the bibliography, and cite the references in the proper format now .... was using a stop-gap arrangement before ;)
tomorrow, we shall 'gloss' the thesis :P
finally, after 20 days, i am back to the great task of continuing the thesis writing. the last chapter awaited. given that it had been effectively postponed for 3 weeks, it kind of deserved some respect. or so we thought. but less than 5 hours after i sat down to tackle it, it was done. there it lay in front of me, staring expectantly at its own fate :P.
the first part of the chapter was the "Conclusions", which was basically a summary of the summaries of all the chapters until then. wasn't too hard to write. the second part is the more interesting "Future Work". i wonder why we need that in a thesis. do i really intend to continue working on this topic beyond my phd? also some not-so-well-acquainted-with-research might question, if you do have future work, how come you are already done with your phd? :P. Nr had advised me that the future work should be written such that it is not too close and too small to the thesis contributions. otherwise, we would be making the task of a nagging examiner easier and he/she would question why this future work is not already part of the phd thesis ;).
anyway, i looked to Su aka nikheel for inspiration and he suggested the "cure for cancer" and "world peace" as two probable tasks that i might consider listing as part of "Future work". i also wanted a third task. he suggested "warp speed", whatever that meant. but i felt that "time travel" would be more suitable. as you see, once time-travel is solved, there will never ever be any need for listing any future work as all work of the future can be easily obtained by travelling to the future. thus, the problem of "Future Work" can be resolved once and for all, if only someone takes up my suggestion of "time-travel" as future work ;)
oh, by the way, the last chapter has also been sent to Nr and Nj. tomorrow, might be the day to work on the glossary, refine the references, and ponder about the appendix!
no, i did not miss out posting about this yesterday. there was nothing to post! thesis writing has been put temporarily on hold. so we stop this phase at day33. next phase might begin after 2 weeks!!
until, the blog will be back to its normal duty. that would mean rare posts and completely non work related posts :P.
and not really my fault. due to other appointments, only managed to go the lab in the afternoon. and soon thereafter, had to leave the lab for other appointments :P. so no work.
oh, by the way, there is a problem regarding the expected submission time for the thesis. yeah, writing it as quickly as i seem to be, doesnt seem to help much in the long run. that is because, i will be taking 2 weeks holiday starting next week. and soon after i am back and all set to work on draft-2, Nr will be on vacation for 2 weeks. So, he wont be able to read my draft-2 until he returns at the end of august. and since i will be on vacation next 2 weeks, i wont be able to give draft-2 to Nr before he leaves. so, all in all, the chances of submitting the thesis before september have almost evaporated now. but yeah, according to Nr's estimate, the work required to be done from now on until the submission time of the thesis needn't be more than 3weeks !!
but since, we dont have overlapping 2-3 weeks until september, there is no point, is there? :P
i surprise myself with my sincerity :P. as i ought to, read through the results section in the morning. edited the simulation parameters section. generated good colour version of the graphs and then went through it all together and then mailed to Nr and Nj.
what to do next is the question? one chapter is remaining - the "Conclusions and Future Work". Future work? what should i write in future work? i don't intend to do any work in the future. and i dont expect anyone to extend this work for the future either ;). even if someone's wants to, he/she can go make up his/her own research questions. why should i blabber something now for his/her benefit? notice how i have painstakingly used both genders while referring to this hypothetic future researcher? given the extremely "large" number of women in cs research, i guess am being a bit too hopeful :P.
i had a look at another thesis's last chapter to see what should be written in these concluding chapters. it was huge, 15 pages long. my main meaty chapters are of such length. even, if i dedicate a page to every section in my thesis, i won't end up with such a big chapter. anyway's will look at this chapter work later.
so instead of that, considered writing the appendix, basically a glossary of all the terms. also considered making a camera ready copy of the workshop paper. yet, did nothing. completing the chapter seemed enough achievement for the day :P
