PS

March 23, 2009
1.28 am


I am missing sleep again. My back has been aching for days now since I have been sitting in front of the computer for more than 15 hours a day. And I have been doing this for weeks already.

At first I was so delighted to know that what I have this semester are all programming courses. I was so happy because I know that understanding the algorithms and the actual coding stimulates my brain cells. But having more than 6 problem sets to be passed in a week makes me think that maybe life is easier if I opted for pure mathematics.

But my interest in pure math is smaller than any epsilon greater than zero, no matter how small and I could not increment it.

Might as well get started with this long list of programming to do:

1. Optimization using Genetic Algorithm (2 reproduction, 2 crossover, 2 mutation probability, 2 population sizes, 3 fitness functions)
2. Optimizing Machine Flowshop Scheduling using Simulated Annealing
3. Signal Denoising using Genetic Algorithm
4. Solving the Knapsack Problem using dynamic program
5. Solve a steady state problem and get the boundary conditions
6. DP over markov chains
7. Discrete Allocation problem using dynamic programming
8. Traveling Salesman using Dynamic Programming
9. Using DP to do a periodic review production planning model of a deterministic inventory problem
10. Deriving the optimal policy of a stochastic inventory problem using DP

I want to breathe!

10 Things About The New Life

23 March 2009
2:57 P.M.


The moment I, uninvited, presented myself to a government funded graduate scholarship screening committee made a major tweak in my life. I wanted the scholarship but I was not included in the list of interviewees. Out of desperation I went to the screening, all shame put aside. And yes! I got it. I was awarded the scholarship and off to grad school I go. Not to get easy with life but to work hard to make myself worthy of what was given to me.

I am trying to embrace the new life I am having right now. I have to live it, otherwise I have to pay back 3M to those who sent me here.

What does this life mean?  

• trying out a geeky life (oh! You should hear my new friends talk and joke about things! Math is everywhere! Do you know that my brain is as the size of the integral along a closed rectifiable curve?

• read read read! ( I used to convince my friends that reading is fun! I even picked books for them to enjoy. My month was never complete without a good pick to read on. But now? It’s my hour that never gets completed without a reading done. None are my picks and they make me sleep!!!! What is a steady-state system again? Oh, wait! I’ll get the paper!) 

• needing glasses (my new life makes me avoid but miss my contact lens. Yet it also makes me appreciate my eye glasses – to cover up the eyebags!) cutting off the social life (the days run so fast and i never noticed that my week has come to its end but a long list of problem sets are still waiting to be done. I started reading on a paper last Monday. Today is Sunday and I am still on the introduction! Time must be picking on me…) 

• learning to laugh at my mistakes (we were coding something in class. When my prof approved of my results some of my classmates copied it. But one wasn’t able to get it right (since our results did not match). I told our prof that my classmate couldn’t get it right. And oh my! It was my classmate who got the coding right and mine was the buggy one all along! hihihi.) 

• completing all programs aired on tv from 10 am till sign off (when I am so pressured to accomplish a long list of problem sets yet the pressure is not enough to keep me up, I run to the tv to have something to keep me company. But I realized that even the tv has given up on me. All stations have signed off already but my problem sets? I don't think they'll ever sign off!:( ) 

• no talking (when I am too focused on a problem set and too pressured because i need to pass it in an hour, all the world is lost. I realized that I am able to sense nothing, see nothing and hear nothing. I didn’t even noticed that my roommate has come home and was already talking to me and ranting bout her day) 

• ice creaming (when the pressure becomes so hard to handle it is always nice to stop for an ice cream for awhile. I always call for a delivery of chocolate sundae) 

• paying for an overdue of unread books (when it’s a high time for deadlines and the library has only one copy of a certain book I couldn’t fight the urge to hoard it. I rent it for a month even if I am not reading it yet, for fear that someone might get it first) 

• lovin’ nonsense(sometimes when everything becomes too math-ish and its getting me tired already, watching a very light movie or hearing a a very corny joke is relaxing. Time really comes when I need to grab an hour or two away from thinking) 

Farewell, mornings

22 March 2009
12:57 AM

It is past midnight and I should be in bed very sound asleep. I am a morning person and I need to get to bed early so that my mornings could start right. But being almost a year in grad school changed everything. I fought hard for my right when it comes to sleeping but I never win! Things just won’t let me. Now, there is only one choice left for me – ADJUST!

When things about my rights bother me, uncountable thoughts come flooding my brain. They rush and flood me in a fraction of a second that sometimes I could not control them, making me give up and either collapse or cry...

Once, I fainted while on an extension activity. I was feeling something weird. I didn’t know what it was but I didn’t like it. Since I was in a public place I tried diverting my attention and told myself that I am well. However, the pain was so intense that I panicked and gave up the control. Hence, I fainted. I only got myself back when I heard the doctor tell someone to take off my bra. I got up and told them that I will do it and I want warm water.

My neurologist told me that I have the tendency to control my brain about my emotions; that I can make my brain stop myself from feeling something. And she (the neurologist) strongly told me to STOP doing it!

But how do I do it? Should I stop controlling my emotions and choose to get hurt and end up crying later? I am such a cry baby that is why I try hard to perfect self control. If I let go, will there be an assurance that I will not feel pain anymore?

My case seems hopeless, isn’t it? That is why I desperately updated my vocabulary. I added to it the word ADJUST. That is the word for the season. My roommate sleeps late and wakes up early which distract me for I am a light sleeper. Oooops! Sleep is really a big deal for me and I am obsessive compulsive about it. Since I do not have the right to control other people’s schedule and since I have to learn to ADJUST, then my sleep will just wait until my roommate is already up. Then up and away to dreamland I go and my day will have to start at 1 PM.

Farewell, mornin