-0/1 -23:01

Weather:

Mostly Cloudy: free +1UP ..

• School
  • Thesis Research: read the introduction of a paper.
• Work
  • Finished some beautiful refactoring. Now the code looked nothing like when it was handed to me.
  • Work plan for next week in place.
  • Weekly meeting revived again.
• GRE
  • Reviewed 50+ words.

Was practically ordered to live next week by boss .. overworked today about 9 hours into next week. Also finally caught up with the potential thesis advisor who has been too busy to respond to my email. Have to schedule an appointment with him next week .. at least I will have more hours for thesis by then.

Well, 1UPs were good surprises, except that now my days would have to remain to be counted by week for an extra two weeks after next .. :-\

-0/3 -0:07

Weather:

Partly Cloudy: suboptimal productivity -> Rain: caught by work.

• School
• Thesis Research: wrote down some creative thoughts.
• Work
• Finished activity report.
• Lots of maths solved, dug a lot more new problems up. ^_^
• GRE
• Pushed forward by work.

---

Got a new work environment set up at the office desk .. best IDE configuration I've created so far. Also set up an remote desktop server forwarding from the office to the lab, so now the work environment is ubiquitous. :P

-0/4 -1:29

Weather:

Partly Cloudy: unsettled business

• School
  • Thesis Research: read 4 more chapters of the book from 2 weeks ago.
• Work
  • Worked on some math problems. :P
• GRE
  • Reviewed analogy problem of the day.

The weather might get unpleasant for a while ... need to catch up.

-0/5 -1:49

Weather:

Clear -> Overcast: did not go to school early -> Clear -> Rain: unsettled business.

• School
• Thesis Research: contemplating on methodologies again, with some slight progress.
• Work
• Activity report meeting, demonstrated some pleasing work.
• Helped people in the migration effort to enhance code-sharing.
• Set up a work machine.
• GRE
• A few new vocabularies.
• Missed an analogy and a math problem! >(

---

Could have been doing thesis and work at the same time today - while setting up Vista. At least got an extra hour of GRE study done. Need to gain some sleep back, though .. maybe by going to bed early today.

-0/5 -23:55

Weather:

Overcast: got up late, sleep debt -> Clear

• School
  • Thesis Research: contemplated methodologies a little bit without much progress.
• Work
  • Code refactoring
• GRE
  • Vocabulary gathering

Seemed like I've built up some sleep debt over the past weeks .. paying a little bit of it back today. I'm not staying up all night though, which is a good thing. Guess I'll have to get as much sleep as I could this week when I don't have to be up.

Fun week ahead

Weather: Rain -> Overcast: survival race

But it finally cleared up ^_^

• School
• Thesis Research: emailed out thesis proposal draft.
• GRE
• Vocabulary gathering.
• Solved analogies of the day.

---

Pheww.. really the tightest week to survive thus far. But the fun part is about to begin. A lot of exciting work and thesis research to expect next week. :)

-21:20

Weather:

Overcast: tight weekend -> Clear

• Housework:
  • Finished laundry.
• School:
  • Thesis Research: Read another paper. Pretty much worked out an idea for the proposal.
• GRE:
  • Read a little bit of Shadows of the Hegemon, collected a few words and decided to keep reading for now.
  • Solved some analogy and antonym problems.

Realized the need to do laundry today .. seemed like some more chores needed to be scheduled for next week, if it comes.

The thesis idea is getting some good progress towards formalization. Some more input is definitely needed.

-0/1 -22:38

Weather:

Rain: unsettled business -> Clear

• School
  • Thesis Research: Read one paper.
• Work
  • Had a small meeting with two others. Seemed to have pleased the boss with the work.
• GRE
  • Finished Ender's Game, an interesting novel. Got about 20 new words out of the last two chapters.
  • Added a few new vocabularies into my wordlist.

Still could not catch the professor for a thesis discussion, but plan on sending an email out in the weekend. Only 3 hours to spare if I don't finish the chores early .. this week is actually really tight ^_^;

-0/2 -23:42

Weather:

Clear

• School
  • Thesis Research: couldn't catch the professor today, but finally got some time to make amendments to the proposal.
• Work
  • Great new progress in many things, even though the meeting was still not held. Seemed like there's always work to do when you look for it. :)
• GRE
  • Collected more words from Ender's Game, almost finishing the novel now.
  • Posted my first comment on TakeGRE.com. But made a mistake in one of the problems. :(

Actually got done with work the fastest this week among the past three, at the sacrifice of thesis research time. It'll be thesis and GRE weekend from now :P

-0/3 -19:47

Weather:

Clear

• School:
  • Thesis Research: pushed forward by work again.
• Work:
  • Finished everything from yesterday.
• GRE:
  • Gathered some more vocabularies
  • Got up to 19:2 win/lose ratio on the GRE hangman game.

Pretty much done with all tasks at work .. although still have quite a few hours to fill. Have to find something new to do now.

-0/4 -22:31

Weather:

Rain: unsettled business -> Clearer

• School
  • Thesis Research: pushed forward by work.
• Work
  • Not able to set up meeting. Did some bug-fixes for other people.
• GRE
  • Did Analogy and Antonym of the day.
  • Word gatherings.

If work stays busy like this, might be difficult to catch the professor for a thesis discussion … need to work it out.

-0/5 -23:46

Weather:

Rain: got up late -> Sunny

• School
  • Thesis Research: minor thoughts on the proposal.
• Work
  • Discussion with coworkers over some big task.
  • Read some reference materials.
• GRE
  • Started my own wordlist on GoogleDoc.
  • Practiced reading comprehension. 10 minutes for a passage. Missed 1 problem.

Lost many hours today :( But still got some done. Need to go to bed earlier tonight.

-0/7 -0:31

Weather:

Sunny : Vacation Day

• GRE
  • Passed quizzes for about 50 words.
  • Found a neat version of Barron's word list with pictures, a free GRE question of the day, and even a GRE hangman game. (only maintaining a win/loss radio of a little above 2 so far ..)
  • Bookmarked a couple of GRE vocabulary sites on roommate's WII, now the whole house is studying GRE now. ^_^ .. guess anything on TV is just more fun.
  • Since it's hard to find a suitably-tuned vocabulary list, building my own is starting to sound like a good idea.

The Renaissance Fair was pretty interesting. Too bad I didn't end up making up my mind to buy anything (besides a slab of teri-yaki-yaki beef jerky ^_^;;). But met an amicable musician and got to try playing a really nice harp. It was a good time indeed.

And yes, got a new life extension half an hour ago. Need to make time to plan for next week tomorrow. :)

-21:22

Weather:

Sunny~

• School
  • Did a little more writing on thesis proposal.
• Work
  • Researched on materials for next week's task.
• GRE
  • Got rid of 100+ words from the vocabulary list.

With some really kind help, managed to study GRE at the same time as I archive my old schoolwork. :) Both were accomplished with satisfactory quality. As a reward, going to take a break at the Renaissance Fair tomorrow. Only 2 hours of GRE study is left for this week. Life expectancy is high, hope it would continue to carry on.

-0/1 -21:09

Weather:

Clear

• School
  • Thesis Research: overworked on it a little bit today. But there was some good inspiration.
• Work
  • Meeting still not held. Helped some other people with their work.
• GRE
  • 8 hours left for the rest of the week. Tomorrow is going to be GRE day.

If tomorrow goes well, I might get a vacation on Sunday as well as an early life extension! ^_^

-0/2 -23:56

Weather:

Sunny

• School
  • Thesis Research: learned new things from a book, too much study to do, move GRE to tomorrow.
• Work
  • Meeting cancelled. Reserved three hours tomorrow for the meeting and follow-up tasks. Pretty much finished everything else that was left.
• GRE
  • Pushed forward by thesis research.

Finally got some time and inspiration to work on thesis .. if only my office has a couch...

-0/3 -22:28

Weather:

Sunny -> Overcast: playing piano

• School
  • Recorded an interesting choir sample in my kitchen. (under a very coincidental situation)
• Work
  • Finalized one big technical document.
  • Finally worked on some code again for the first time since last week.
• GRE
  • Studied 25 more words with WordHacker

A lot of thesis research got pushed forward due to work ... need to work hard on that in the next three days.

-0/4 -20:57

Weather:

Clear

• School
  • Thesis Research: found something difficult to analyze. (Hmm ...)
• Work
  • Fun indeed! Almost finished with a big chunk.
• GRE
  • Studied 25 words with WordHacker (found it extremely useful).

Landlord sending people to handle the opossum (O_o) supposedly living in our garage … need to vacuum the living room again tomorrow morning : (

-0/5 -21:10

Weather:

Sunny

• School
  • Thesis Research: wrote a new sample to demonstrate variation.
• Work
  • Good communication makes good progress.
• GRE
  • Searched for vocabulary building tools. Found some flashcards, and a huge ftp archive.
  • Started using WordHacker.

It seems like work is going to be fun tomorrow. : )

One more week of life

Weather:

Nice: as I hoped

• Personal
  • Got over the phobia and started on the emails.
• Housework
  • Roommate volunteered to throw out the trash – kudos to him.
• GRE
  • Studied vocabularies from the Ender's Game novel (there are quite a bit, actually)

Well, it seemed effective a couple of minutes ago, that I received an extra week of life. Got some help planning it out, too. So now I can see to my thesis progress a little further. Two hours of extra work in the job will be needed next week in order to complete some lingering task. The rest of the paper and books in my room need to be sorted, and since I get a little more time in the week, I can double my GRE study hours. Let's see how well I do on that.

22 hours 37 minutes till my death

Weather:

Sunny all day

• Housework
  • Vacuumed the whole house
  • Sorted through all paper mails … shredded four years' worth of bank statements -_-' I should be throwing some mails away from now on … if I can get any more of them.
  • Collected garbage paper in a cardboard box.
• GRE
  • Found something hilarious on the internet, it actually has a lot of good words in it …
  • Read some experience-sharing about Argument essay writing (hey, that kind of problems might actually be useful – even though overdoing them might make you a little logically paranoid)

A pretty nice day … I mean, the weather. Hope it'll be this nice tomorrow, too.

48 hours and 3 minutes till my death

Weather:

Clear: got up early -> Rain: not sending emails yesterday … -> Sunny again: work/thesis progress

• School
  • Thesis Research: got a new theory book; written down some ideas for proposal; learned something very useful from a friend! Not telling until the proposal is finalized. ^_^
• Work
  • Gotten in all required hours for the week, definitely achieved more than authorities would expect. Working a little more in the weekend might help to clean up enough things to make most near-future tasks really comfortable.
• GRE
  • Did two one-page reading comprehension articles in 20 minutes, missed 1 out of 10 questions. Still have room for technical improvements.
  • Read half a chapter on the Logic Section.
  • Bookmarked one practice test site.

Fulfilled all 30 allocated hours for work and 20 hours for thesis (hours so solid that even bathroom break compensations were included). Personal goals mostly accomplished in work, and thesis research progressed beyond expectations. GRE progress has been steady. Now, a weekend for me to handle personal chores and resolve my emailphobia. Maybe I'd be worth living for another week then.

Ah..forgot to comment, got up at 6:30 today without an alarm clock, my sleep seemed mystical..

69 hours and 25 minutes till my death

Weather:

Overcast: got up an hour late -> Sunny after a moment

• School
  • Thesis Research: talked to potential advisor, set 7/1 as proposal submission date. Most importantly, my ideas might be viable – nothing makes me happier.
  • Met department chair and discussed my graduation plan.
• Work
  • My professor was very interested to hear what I learned from the Internet. So I told him all about it. It actually came around and helped me, too.
• GRE
  • Got all exercise problems correct in Sentence Completion!
  • Read one chapter on Reading Comprehension

Okay, I probably expected this when I changed the format of yesterday's title, but I will probably get up two hours later than usual tomorrow. Unplanned things can happen, and that should not necessitate any deterioration of my ability to stay on track. See myself tomorrow!

96 hours and 17 minutes till my death

Weather:

Overcast: had to work in bed again -> Sunny

• School
  • Thesis Research: Refined notes from yesterday, and wrote another variation (okay, there was a pun :P). Moved the rest of the work to tomorrow.
• Work
  • Studied the giant 370-page IFPUG manual, skipping the examples. Still finding it difficult to apply to some specific cases that are not database-oriented.
• GRE
  • Missed 4 out of 12 Antonyms. :(
  • Read one chapter on Sentence Completion.

Took two small naps in the middle of the day .. an hour and a half total. Nevertheless, if I start criticizing myself for taking naps, I'm probably doing better. Sleep really takes up a great percentage of life, but I guess I would not be able to live at all without it … Now that I finished writing before midnight, hope I can fall sleep earlier, too.

Hopefully...

4 Days, 23 Hours and 16 Minutes till my death

Weather:

Overcast: got up half an hour late -> Sunny: pulled over laptop and started working in bed ->about to rain -> Sunny -> about to .. actually rained: took a nap after lunch -> Sunny again!

• School
  • Thesis: finished 1/3 of an online reading and wrote some interesting notes .. and couldn't believe I might actually be doing it for thesis. Enjoying every minute of it, of course.
• Work
  • The Internet teaches more than my professor does sometimes.
• GRE
  • Missed 3 out of 12 Analogy questions .. wish at my obsequies some bluestocking friend could write me a paean for my foray into the argots of ETS today ..

Great, spent almost 15 minutes of the last hour reading my spam. It's hard to get some spam that gmail doesn't filter out these days.

5 Days, 23 Hours and 39 Minutes till my death

Weather:

Sunny -> about to rain -> Sunny! -> .. about to rain -> Su~~~nny, in the end

• School
  • Thesis: Read one journal article
• Work
  • Got a new assignment in the morning, finished it in the afternoon. Worked a full day's worth on top of that. Had two very productive meetings. That's almost accomplishing the equivalent of two days' work + one day of non-work, in the worse days. Still, that is what to be expected, I performed normal for once.
• GRE
  • Read one chapter on Analogies, looks like I can try to finish a book in less than two weeks. Shouldn't try to be too optimistic about it right now.

.. pondered about the idea of switching places, but decided to come back. It's embarrassing to return to a wasted blog .. but there's only so much you can embarrass yourself when you only have a small amount of time left. At least this time, as long as I am still posting here, I'll be alive, and being alive means everything.

Honestly, it was a little exhausting to have a 16-hour schedule. But I won't have to make it this tight for long. It was nice to know that I also get to appreciate even little things like small talks in my breaks much more. And this time I could almost tell myself that I wasn't working on it alone (almost .. well, I still can't shake my insecurity). In any case, I was enjoying every bit of what I was doing. So good, looks like I can do it.

Thinking about which, two years ago it I ran for the last time before I got sick. I was almost not sure whether it was running that made me sick. But anyways, I knew in the last two years it was me who really made me sicker than I was ever supposed to be. Hopefully, I might be able to start exercising again. Not right now, but maybe some time later.