the machine that runs on madness

okay, now that this whole aweful awful saga seems to have finally come to a close (i hope i haven't hexed myself by saying that), i finally have a moment to explain the frustrating pain in the ass that has been indicative of work since i got back.

the fundamental problem is just that we've been devoting nearly all of our time to this stupid class we're teaching, and haven't been able to really focus on research since before september. but, of course, we still need results, for several reasons. the first (and most annoying) is the discussion i had with alcherio last summer when he mentioned that he was disappointed that we didn't yet have any results. while i also was disappointed, i found this more than a little unnerving, seeing as the primary reason for us not having decent results is that neither he nor i have any background or experience in the things that he's asking me to do. the second is the fact that we are helping to organize SIS2005 (a new conference specifically dedicated to swarm systems that alcherio proposed and is co-chairing), so we should probably submit to it. and the [original] deadline was january 15. so, that meant that i had to take my work home with me over christmas, which was annoying, and also that the one week between my return and the deadline was basically guaranteed to be a living hell. i worked like a dog for that week, and still didn't have anything i really felt comfortable with. probably this is a personality flaw of mine, but i find it frustrating and difficult to present/pitch/sell ideas or information that i don't really believe in myself yet.

and then what happens? well, the deadline gets extended, of course, thereby prolonging my misery. :) here we go again, another week of 12 hour days, and it wasn't until finally on thursday morning that i was able to actually prove logically that what we were trying to do simply would not work (ever). while in a way this should have felt slightly vindicating, it was also a real spirit-breaker, since i was then left with about ~36 hours to start over from scratch. i explained all of this to alcherio in our meeting that afternoon, and we worked on it together for about an hour, and were finally able to come up with an alternative that seemed more reasonable, and he also said he knew no one would look at the submissions until monday, so we could continue to work on it over the weekend (oh joy). by the time the second extention came around on saturday afternoon, i was really starting to think that there was some higher power out there who hated me.

luckily, markus somehow knew that i desperately needed a break, and called me asking if i wanted to go up in the plane with jean-christophe, him, and christine (jean-christophe is a pilot). it sounded like fun, so i accepted. i had never been on a non-commercial aircraft before; it was quite amazing. even more cool than i could have imagined. almost enough to convince me to try taking piloting lessons, if it wasn't for the little detail that they're so damned expensive... now he's trying to convince me to go up in the stunt plane with him sometime, but i'm sticking to my story that i think my body needs more practice getting used to the unnatural accerations of "normal" (in a tiny plane, even normal is intense) flight first. :)

and then i spent the third week (up until this morning) trying desperately to pull something reasonable out of thin air. what i eventually submitted wasn't nearly as terrible as i would have originally thought, but it's still basically a piece of crap. at least it's something that i don't necessarily have to be ashamed of, even if i can't be proud of it.

in any case, it's more than time for a breather. ski weekend starts tonight. should be fun.