How to learn from your supervisor
When you are in a PhD program like mine, in which virtually no course work is involved and you are supposed to spend 40 hours a week in your little room with your stack of papers and a computer, you…
When you are in a PhD program like mine, in which virtually no course work is involved and you are supposed to spend 40 hours a week in your little room with your stack of papers and a computer, you…
The past year, I've been conducting an enormous amount of large-scale experiments (my funder is quite generous). Tomorrow I'll have finished large-scale test number 98, and I will have tested 14 slabs (half-scale slab bridges) and 9 wide beams/slab strips.…
Today, I attended a workshop on Online Networking and Social Media by Floor Drees at the PhD Event 2010. One of the most striking observations was the reluctance of young academics to social media. I was surprised to see that…
Today, I was reading an article on an online newssite. The article was about a company that offers training courses to demotivated and burnt out employees. I thought that sounded interesting (I enjoy reading about personal leadership and development), and…
My first blog post here was all about writing down my new academic year's resolutions and making them public and thus pushing myself to actually do something about it.One of the "problems" I wanted to tackle is that my work-life…
One day, about half a year ago, I was browsing around on the internet during my workhours, and reading the news of the day. One of the articles of the day was about time management software. I read the description…
Before last February, I used to feel a sort of panic on Friday afternoons, thinking: "Oh no, this is the end of the week, and I have done so little!"What I changed last February is that I started to make…
Since August, I have my own Day zero project ( http://dayzeroproject.com/ ), which consists of my 101 goals in 1001 days - ending around April 27th, 2013. I've gradually started to accomplish small things that simply make me feel happier…
Yesterday afternoon I had difficulties concentrating. Instead of being mad at myself and disappointed, I've decided to try to look for the possible causes of yesterday's reading failure (while my back-up is running and Scopus seems to be down).So I've…
Friday means the end of the workweek and the beginning of the weekend. Or at least, it means that for the next two days I can sleep in a bit and work/read from home. Naturally, my energy level is lower…