Right
Monday was a normal day in work. I had said a while ago I would do an
analysis for a senior academic who had had a paper bounced. I am
beginning to have one of the fabled skills of some of the older
statisticians. That is to look at data and say what is going on with it.
This actually only comes from have looked at lots and lots of data and
getting a feel for when things work. So I did the analysis but my brain
still nagged me so I looked at what I thought was going on. It showed up
a much neater model indeed. In the end I sent in the report, and I will
have to see what the outcome is. Anyway it does mean that I am starting
to develop some skills in using R. I must remember to put that on my
professional development log.
Actually
it is ridiculous how much logging of professional development I have to
do. Three different processes, none of them interlinked! One for my
job, one for my study and one for my professional accreditation. The
daft thing is the same thing can count in all three settings. The use of
R is both for work and professional development, modeling using GAM
techniques counts just for professional development. Thesis fortunately
is not interested in either. I don’t object to developing
professionally, I thrive on it, I don’t object to keeping a log, that
seems sensible but having to keep three separate ones seems overkill.
In
the evening was writers group. I was glad to be back. There are once
again more poets in the group. Over recent years since Faye left we
were down to tow, but we are now back up to three and maybe slightly
more. Actually it is also a surprise to realise I am not the junior poet
anymore. I am begin to know my own voice, and to have some feel for
what works and what doesn’t in my opinion. This moves beyond the stage
where I can say “I like that” or “I don’t like that”. However to choose
successful poems for reading is difficult. I should have made up my mind
mid week but I am dithering.
Tuesday
I awoke feeling as if I had a seasonal bug, I am not even going to call
it a cold as apart from making me feel off colour it otherwise has only
created the occasional coughing bout. So I have been battling that. It
so far seems to have responded to basically me landing on top of it, so
plenty of vitamin C, echinacea, throat infection lozenges and hot lemom
and honey cordial with ginger wine to send me to sleep when I went to
bed early. I have not much idea what worked but it certainly has not
boiled out.
Also I have been writing thesis this week. So one week down and at least forty left to go. You can read about it on my thesis blog . Actually the process of doing timed writing most mornings seems to
generate a rush of energy for me. I give myself half and hour to write
400 words (I have re-set that to 500 as I am easily writing in excess of
that each day and doing it for four days a week (still aiming at 2,000
words a week). It will be interesting to see if the pace keeps up.
Actually I also suspect that at long last I am beginning to get some
idea of what my thesis is. Some of this I suspect that a lot of my
analysis actually occurs during writing.
This
is officially a writing weekend but as I am ahead on the writing I
really should be doing something about catching up on the readings. So I
hope you will excuse my brevity.
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