Bragging thread September 2015

I finished a novel.

Taught my first molecular biology lab class as a TA and got complemented for my enthusiasm.

Putting together my response to peer review of my first first-author publication with my advisor.

I found a job. A crappy, low-paying job, but one which will improve my interacting-with-random-people skills and which will give me the financial security to work on my other skills

Shut up and did the impossible:

In the course of seven office days, I browsed through 139 scientific articles and wrote an extremely dense, 8-page summary (actually 5.5 pages of text and 2.5 pages of citations). I ended up using 69 articles and discarding the rest as not useful for my chosen subject.

In July I started a Caloric Restriction Diet, fasting for an entire (calendar) day twice weekly. I did this out of a desire for the potential longevity benefits, but since then it's had a rather happy (albeit utterly predictable) side-effect: I lost 10 pounds!

Crossed Genres published Ants on a Trestle, my first SFWA qualifying short story, in their 2065 themed issue.

SF Comet published For Your Safety, another near future, hard SF short story.

Both are available online in their entirety.

I defended my thesis. Send me a private message if you want to read it

With 95% confidence, I believe it is the first doctoral thesis anywhere that contains a Litany of Tarski in the acknowledgements section.

With 99.99% confidence, I believe it is the first doctoral thesis that both contains a Litany of Tarski and cites Michel Foucault. However, given the context of the citation, I'm hoping for a pass on that one..

Got a job. Finished a PhD program without defending a thesis (for several reasons) and actually managed to explain to my mom that it didn't make me unhappy (though she doesn't believe me yet).

For six months straight I've kept up a routine of coding a little bit - 10 lines, two lines, just a refactoring - every single day. In the process I've picked up some fluency in the new(ish) language Elm, functional programming in general and functional reactive programming in particular.

I passed the Project Management Professional certification exam.

I made the leaderboard for the first time ever! Been waiting for a bragging thread to come out so I could actually yay-myself. I don't want upvotes to this post; because that would unfairly skew the natural upvote-y county thing that I was using as a metric of reward on myself.

I have made a poll so that people can "yay" at me without upvoting this status.

Hopefully I can get more posts out soon which help people change their lives for the better!

[pollid:1021]

I tidied up a lot of my space. about 6 months ago I estimated 40 hours of effort to do so. I have since done 35 hours of effort and can access my floor. I also have to thank a friend who taught me an organisation system. I trust him greatly and its working incredibly well so far. I have 5 hours to go on my original estimate; and I now think another 7 on top of that; but I can see my floor.

Still to go are: A functional desk Kanban board in the right place The getting rid of a few possessions that will have to happen after I have organised them all.

The bragging I am doing is that I thought I would never do it. It's something I didn't want to do on so many levels and only wanted to do on one. It's after a 8 hour day of only examining my posessions that I wonder if it was worth it. But then to do that 4 times so far. And still feel like there is roughly 1/3 to go. I have come a long way. Will share the end result if I feel like its publish-worthy.

Aced an interview for a high-paying job in a field in which I had no previous experience. A while ago I had asked what jobs that don't require domain-specific skills get a large boost from intelligence – well, it turns out getting interviewed is one of those "jobs". Spent some 2 weeks preparing a resume and answer sheet for the proposed questions, showed up to the interview very well-dressed and tried to put my best self on display without outright lying through my teeth.

Now, all I have to do is not prove myself to act like a five-year-old burdened with adult responsibilities, while waiting for payday in my best Frito Pendejo impersonation. Okay, it's a little more complicated than that, of course – but for now I'm very glad to just get my foot in the door.

Today I cut my very first self-grown in a pot hokkaido pumpkin. It's 270g and I'm bursting with proud-ness (is this a word?).

That was also my first year of growing any kind of plants and I had some strawberries, nasturtium flowers, lettuce and sweet peas (those formally belonged to my daughter). I also had a tomato plant, but that didn't grow any fruit.

Did my first serious bit of Minecraft modding, and learned how to use Blender in the process. It's not as impressive as the things I do at work, but it's fun.

Power poles

Well this didn't all happen strictly in one of the calendar months, but over the past 4 weeks I:

• Moved states and started my first job out of college, which pays well and I'm enjoying.
• Found a great apartment with a great roommate in a city where I knew no one, and have been meeting lots of people.
• Took the GRE, doing better than expected and much better than needed.
• Started and finished applying to grad schools for master's programs.

On the flip side, somewhere in the middle of this I found out I broke my toe during a run. It's been a whirlwind, and probably the most productive 4 weeks of my life!

Implemented another layer of detail in my food tracking/analyzing project. Specifically, I went from a single sentence in the specifications document that said "Based on the accumulated data, rank the various eating places from least likely to cause bad reactions to most likely to cause problems" to a completed table with counts obtained from sample meals in the document and a worked-out Bayes Theorem equation that gets as specific as:

P(no reaction | ate at the Castle in the Air) = p(...| ...)p(...|...)...etc.
p(...|...) = such-and-such-sum / such-and-such count
p(...|...) = ...
and so on.

Next up: plug in #s, work through 4 more sample analysis questions, and then implement the whole lot in software.

Made a daily checklist for myself. It reduces my decision fatigue but makes me a bit more neurotic.

Here it is:

• bookmarks zero

• inbox zero

• sms zero

• calendar zero

• business cards zero (get rid of a set of business cards everyday)

• asssessments zero

• RSDmotivation

• brush, floss

• poop, pee, repeat as needed

• shower and soap

• diet as needed

• stretch

• run or walk

• mental skills checklist: scanning, avoidance coping, performance emotions, positive self-talk, acceptance and commitment, theory of mind, euphoric recall, cognitive distortions, memory skills, expectations, mnemotechnics, relaxation, forgiveness, flow, self-efficacy, extinction bursts, rationality skills ('the sequences', leave comfort zone optimal anxiety, self-esteem, role models, gratitude, groundedness, smile, laugh, confidence, gratitude, novelty, fun loving (like J.C, that girl I crushed on!), solution focussed therapy, decatastrophise, don't victimise, time perspective, selfhandcapping, generic solution space refresher(e.g. economics etc), hypotheseses, modelling and simulation, planning and executive functions, attention, ambition, goal-mindeness, aggression, dominance, compassion, empathy, honesty, personality, mindfulness

• eat and/or restock: spinach, carrot, eggs, lettuce, quinoa, salt olive oil spread, peanut butter, yoghurt, tortillas, banana, mandarin, strawberries

• drink water

• change clothes

• declutter (e.g. donate stuff you don't use)