abnormalised

‘Post mortem’ implies my holiday was a dead a affair. That is partly true. My carefully crafted plans got blown up and away as I was just getting comfortable with the summer season back in July. One month worth of precious summer vacation evaporated like summer rain, after getting caught in the storm by surprise and drenched by it. Now that I’m back I’m still enduring aftershocks here and there, and these threaten to drive me crazy.

Nevertheless I was still able to do some of my research, having written a couple of pages of notes, and crawled through quite a few books (fine, I skimmed through most of them). When you look through my notebook (and if you can read my handwriting, a task even I find tedious) you may notice that the significant points are few and far between. At least I feel that way sometimes. I think you can call that ‘Researcher’s Insecurity’, the feeling that despite having done much thinking, nothing very significant seems to have been produced.

At other times, I feel that despite the small number of actually significant points, the whole paradigm that has been developed in the span of these two months (plus the large amount of time spent ‘binge-reading’ in the hope that someone else’s thoughts will tickle the mind into creating more of its own (hmm this actually seems analogous to masturbation) ), is by no means trivial. It truly is difficult to see things in a new light, and I would like to believe that I have made some of the darker corners easier to see.

Now since these fluctuations of mood occur very frequently, I’m inclined to claim that I suffer from Bipolar Disorder. In fact, I speculate that there’re many researchers out there who suffer from such debilitative moodswings (yes I’m trying to garner sympathy here) and recurrent bouts of insecurity. And the drive to do research may in part be explained by the urge to cure that insecurity, like shots of anesthetic to provide temporary relief from the painful wounds that self-judgement inflicts. I’ll admit that this is true of me.

This insecurity can be explained. How about growing up as an only child, and hardly going out to play with peers of the same age? How about not being as kinesthetically able as your friends? How about not having ANYONE to share your interests with? Having little or no opportunities to exhibit your abilities that you pride yourself in?

That’s why he comes across as stupid, absent-minded, blur, easily confused, shy, or worst, as anti-social. It doesn’t help that he comes from a situation that got him straddled between two generations, with the past looking like it disowns him, while the present thinks he is ancient and archaic.

Okay maybe I’m just exaggerating a little. Maybe this is one of those examples of myself experiencing the downriding part of the perpetual oscillation in the span of a single blog post.

At least if I know I’ve hit the bottom I’ll know which way I’m headed next.

I feel a little weird each time someone asks me what I’m doing during the vacation period. I have that strange feeling that the other party thinks I’m kidding when I say I’m busy with my research. That feeling is so strong that sometimes I think I’m kidding myself too. But of course I’m not, its serious business that’s all about having a bit of fun. (the experience of fun is subjective, but who cares, you’re not the one having the fun, I am!)

Lets try to sum up what’s going to keep me busy for the next few years (decades?! gulp…) here:

• complex systems (emergent behaviour)
• learning (plasticity in complex systems, and behaviour that exploits plasticity)
• theory of computation (an information perspective on things)
• alternative computing architectures (hmm…somehow this will be relevant)

These are the various areas of interest. The names do not imply the existence of boundaries. They are there because I wanted to try to organise the many interesting areas into a more manageable ‘research programme’ of sorts. I certainly don’t believe I have succeeded in this respect (some things have been left out, or subsumed under one of the four above), but for a start I’ll use these four bins to sort out my work and make my folders more manageable. The stuff in brackets could be regarded as the broader themes of those interests.

I know this looks like carpet bombing the whole place, but that is really not my intention. I don’t have that many bombs to drop. Currently I’m doing some preliminary work on complex systems, and I only seek to answer one very important question. Developing a proper account of a deep understanding will have to wait till some very important epistemological issues are resolved. I just hope I can sneak away with something useful for the biped / cell swarm projects before I am forced to work on the philosophical part.

got my exam results yesterday, everything’s kind of expected, i can say that im an average student, results wise. (that last qualifier is very important for my self-esteem)

Well, not like it matters so much to me anyway. Perhaps i will, if i do better next time. For now, all that i care about is putting my life in order and working on my research, because that’s partly what keeps me alive.

Its the holidays now, the university is much more peaceful and i can have the library all to myself, which is great. My cynical impression of the Singaporean attitude towards libraries is this: they are air-conditioned rooms which students take refuge in, seeking protection from the sweltering heat outside, an ideal environment for mugging away. To go to the library seems almost synonymous with revising or doing homework. Which might as well be the case, since the books are left alone, and the books are what i’m after.

That brings me to the next point about the use of the word ’study’. Suffice to say that ’study’ and ‘mugging’ are two different things, and for lack of a better word, i’d prefer to call the conventional use of the library ‘mugging’. The word ’study’ should be reserved for more scholarly pursuits, and should not be confused with the exam-oriented activities performed by some students, which are of a lower order.

Therefore, it shouln’t be a surprise to anyone that i would make multiple trips to the library in the holidays. The loan limit (for undergraduates) of 10 books i realise is a little difficult for research purposes (academic staff in NUS get to borrow 40!) , where an infinite amount of reading and sifting and filtering is required to distill a relatively paltry amount of wisdom.

The university library is a treasure trove of stuff, and that’s a good enough reason to enroll in a university.

Its been a long time since I last blogged, and on a different address. This place looks so much less depressing than the last. This post is just a space filler, so I might just take it down when I can think of something better to put up.

Just a quick update…
It is the second week of the holidays, and many busy days have passed. Of course, some were pretty uneventful, because I just couldn’t get myself to do anything productive. I will have to learn to forgive myself for these.There’s so much unfinished business to complete; I have almost 30 items on my todo list. Recovering from the trauma of the past semester is one of them.

The healing wound should not be exposed. I seek your understanding.