2016 has so far been quite successful when it comes to working focused on my PhD project: My second article is starting to look like the real thing, and it's not that long until I can send it to my co-authors (I hope - everything takes more time than I think it should), and after that to the journal where we'll try publishing it. I've also finally managed to "go back" to working on some stuff that will hopefully be part of an article with my extremely talented colleague, Cecilie. Together with my office mate, Fabio, I'll also probably have what we need for a third/forth article.
The key word is focusing, and that's what I want to talk about now:
I'm unfortunately extremely "good" at procrastination! In addition I a have an "illness" where I sort of tell myself that if I haven't started some task after a certain time of the day (let's say it's already two 'o clock, and I have to leave early, at four, to get Alexandra in kindergarden) then I might as well just not do anything - extremely stupid of me! However, often it's just not enough to tell yourself to get a grip - I'v tried that several times, but it's just so easy to fall into the old, bad habits again :/ Luckily, there are apps to help you with this, and here I want to present my three favourite apps, that are helping me on my path towards my degree (and world domination, of course 😛 ):
1. Pomodoro
The Pomodoro technique is a time management method, where you use a timer to break down your work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes, separated by short breaks. The "steps" in the method are as follows:
- choose some task to be accomplished
- set the Pomodoro timer to 25 mintes
- work on the task until the Pomodoro rings
- take a short break
- every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break
Of course, you don't really need this app - you can just start your own timer - but I prefer the app, since you keep track of what you've done (and what needs to be done), and it almost becomes competition with your self (for me, this is extremely motivating), and you learn more about how much (or little) time certain kind of tasks actually take, which is extremely valuable.
Personally I have 25 minutes where I work, and then a 4 minute break. Works like a charm!
More about the pomodoro technique HERE.
2. SelfControl
This is a very simple, but extremely efficient, app for your computer, that I just started using. Maybe my most important app, and it's already changed my life <3 SelfControl helps me not to procrastinate by blocking disturbing websites, mail, or whatever on the internet. You just set a period of time to block for, add sites to your blacklist, and start it - after you've started it you're unable to access any of the sites on your blacklist (no, it doesn't help if you restart your computer, or delete the app 😉 ).
So now I start every day with a quick trip to the websites that are on my blacklist, so that I sort of get it out of my system - then I start the app, and then I can work for hours without disturbing myself with stupid stuff on the internet.
More about SelfControl
HERE.
NB: When I first started it, I thought you could block different sites for a different amount of time. That turned out to be incorrect. If you block for 4 hours, you block everything on your blacklist for 4 hours. If you want to override this app you have to re-install your operating system. In other word: it's quite efficient - just the way I want it to be 🙂
Health
Maybe this sounds a little silly, but I truly believe that the Health app on my Apple watch will help not to completely become a physical wreck as I try to finish this PhD work. (I may become a mental wreck, but that's another story.) The feature I probably like the most just now as there are many hours sitting in front of the computer, is that it makes me stand for at least one minute every hour (unless I ignore it, of course) - "standing hours":
The thing is that "fitness" isn't just about going to the gym, but also about being active throughout the day. So the Apple watch measures all the ways you move, and keeps track of when you stand up and encourages you to keep moving <3 Because it all counts, and it all adds up.
Just now I don't have time to go to the gym, but at least this app on my watch makes me compete with myself, and I try hard every day to fulfil my goals, in exercise (you should be active for at least 30 minutes every day), standing, and moving around. I'm not saying this is better than actually working out, but when you actually don't have time to go to the gym, this is awesome 😀
Hope you like my tips, have a great week everyone!
...or something like that.
Yesterday I sent what I had on my draft for this article I'm working on to supervisor-Sunniva - you, know, according to what I wrote last week I'm supposed to
finish stuff and this draft should have been "finished" by Friday. Then guess what: it isn't! Even though I sent it away yesterday (2 days into this week, which is supposed to be about another article) there are so many questions about my results that I don't even know what to think. Today I asked everyone in our research group what I should do, and I basically got the answer that I have to do stuff again, several times, and just change some parameters and check if I can still reproduce my results...
Sometimes I hate science. Something about those
70% extra work for 5% extra quality - except just now it feels more like 90% extra work for 1% extra quality. Is it really worth it? Somewhere you have to draw the line, right...?
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BTW: Alexandra did algebra for the first time today! After we went to the dentist this morning, she was so proud since we figured out that she had already begun to get a new tooth, and her front tooth is becoming loose, so we had to go and visit Anders who was teaching the quantum physics students before she went to kindergarden. And we were goofing around at the blackboard (there were only two students there so early in the day, and they were working by themselves at this time) and then she wrote an A and a B ("AB") on the blackboard and asked "what is A plus B?".
I told her she had to put a plus between the A and the B if she wanted to write "A plus B". And she did.
"If A is 2 and B is1, then what is A+B?" I asked her:
So she looked at me with this face telling me "please stop asking such silly questions" and instantly replied "It's three!"
Well, that made me a very #proudmommy <3
På lørdag var jeg i Folketeateret og så Mary Poppins sammen med mamma og Carina. Det var årets bursdagspresang fra oss til Carina, og forestillingen absolutt meget bra, på alle mulige måter, og spesielt imponert var jeg over Charlotte Brænna som hadde tittelrollen - fantastsik! Detssuten var det veldig morsomt å se flere "kjente" fjes fra min egen dansetid, på scenen 🙂
Det som derimot IKKE var noen god opplevelse, var hvordan enkelte folk tydeligvis syns at regler er for alle andre unntatt dem selv, og dermed oppfører seg...!
Ved siden av oss hadde vi feks en gjeng bestående av kanskje tre voksne damer, og det jeg antar var barna deres - i utgangspunktet ikke noe annet enn hyggelig med det. Så, etter at forestillingen er godt i gang, reiser en av damene seg opp, snur seg mot venninnene og barna, tar opp telefonen og tar bilde av dem. Med blitz! Det er altså helt mørkt i salen, og vi andre prøver å følge med på hva som skjer på scenen, men blir avbrutt ved at vi i prinsippet får en lummelykt rett i ansiktet. Den samme gjengen tok også bilder mot scenen, med blitz, flere ganger ila forestilling - rikitgnok hakket "bedre" for oss, siden vi da "bare" ble lyst i øynene sånn halvveis fra siden, men hvorfor gjør de det når alle har fått eksplisitt beskjed om å IKKE bruke blitz?!?
Det var også ganske mange som brukte blitz når de tok bilder senere i forestillingen.
Hvorfor tenker en del at "jaja, det er regler, men de gjelder selvfølgelig ikke for meg"? A**h****s, altså.
Men for å gjenta det; det var en veldig flott forestilling, og jeg syns det var kult at Folketeateret faktisk oppfordret publikum til å ta bilder ila forestilling, og bruke marypoppins-hashtaggen - men det er selvsagt IKKE kult hvis folk ikke klarer å oppføre seg som følge av det. Jeg syns det er utrolig merkelig hvordan noen bare ikke syns de trenger å ta hensyn til andre...
I går var det skikkelig kos dag for Alexandra og meg: Vi sov begge hos mamma og pappa fra lørdag til søndag, så først hadde vi skikkelig kosemorgen med mamma, og så dro Alexandra og jeg i det fine været innover til byen og Naturhistorisk Museum - siden jeg hadde lovet Alexandra en tur inn i Zoologisk museum. Fra giftshoppen måtte selvsagt den fine boken "Ida" av Jørn Hurum bli med oss hjem, sammen med en fin plakat med norske, giftige planter 🙂
dette ^^ er SÅ bra!
Etterpå gikk turen til Sagene Lunsjbar, før vi kom oss hjem. Dagen ble avsluttet med at vi begge to krøp opp i sengen til Anders og meg (han har jo vært bort i nesten en uke nå men kommer hjem i kveld, da <3) og så filmen Malificent. Den kan absolutt anbefales - enten du er barn eller voksen! Såååå gøy at Alexandra har blitt så stor at vi kan se litt mer ordentlige filmer. Elsket tvisten de har laget i denne filmen om Tornerose, og ikke minst den onde feen; som kanskje ikke er så ond allikevel, når alt kommer til alt...;)
Nå er det tid for å sende avgårde artikkelen min til veiledere, og kanskje kan den sendes til medforfattere ila en to ukers tid? Det hadde virkelig vært noe!
Friday again - facts again <3
You know the drill, say no more:
- a neutrino is a en elementary particle
- a neutrino is not a neutron - neutrons are made up of quarks, and are thus not elementary particles
- there are three types of neutrinos: they're called electron neutrino, muon neutrino, and tau neutrino (they all also have an antiparticle)
- the name neutrino actually means "little neutron", but I have to tell that story another time...;) (In short: Pauli proposed that there should be a particle called a neutron, before the actual neutron was discovered. Then, what we know today as a neutron was discovered before the neutrino, and by that time the term neutron was taken, and this particle became a neutrino).
- neutrinos don't have any electric charge (so they are not at all affected by the electromagnetic force), and they're almost massless - but only almost...! They do have a tiny tiny tiny mass: the heaviest one is more than 4 million times lighter than the electron (the next lightest particle). Since they are so light, neutrinos move at a speed more than 80% of the speed of light at room temperature
- neutrinos are created in radioactive decay (like beta-decay), nuclear reactions (like in a reactor when a heavy nucleus fission, or in the sun when light nuclei fuse), when cosmic rays hit atoms, and in supernovae. Most of the neutrinos here on Earth come from the nuclear reactions that take place in the Sun <3
- every second, a trillion trillion neutrinos pass through your body, and since they do have (a tiiiiiny) mass, this means that there's a constant flow of matter through your body ALL THE TIME. Since their mass is so small, they don't add up to much mass - about 0.0000000000001 kg of neutrinos will pass through your body in a lifetime 😀 (If you add up the mass of all neutrinos that have passed through every single person who ever lived, over everyone's total lifetime, the sum is 0.15 kg)
- neutrinos are extremely difficult to detect, so you need really huge detectors if you want to try... For example, the OPERA detector (a good neutrino detector) consists of 1000 tonnes of mass to try to catch a neutrino, but even if this detector was a block of lead a light-year in length, you'd only have a 50% chance of stopping a neutrino!
- they are often called ghost particles, since they can actually change from being one kind to being another - an electron neutrino changing into being a muon neutrino changing into being a tau neutrino (this is weird: like if you went into a Mercedes and drove for a while, and then suddenly the car changed into being a BMW, and then when you arrived at your destination you were driving and Audi. W. E. I. R. D.)
- in 2011 neutrinos were sort of detected to move faster than light - which shouldn't be possible. Of course it turned out to be an experimental mistake, and we are still very very certain that Einstein's theory of special relativity is true <3
Bonus facts: According to my colleague, Cecilie, neutrinos fabulous 😀 Happy Friday!
