Just ask and ye shall receive

I just have to say - life does work out in the end. And really - my motto really is just "ask - what could it hurt?" That's when I want something that's not particularly easy/convenient/expected from others. I do fight for what I want even if it's not always appropriate. I've heard that I do this from tons of people - even Kung Fu instructors, classroom teachers, friends, etc. And yes, I can get in people's faces. But I still think it can be a good characteristic.

For example:

I was going crazy up here with research goals. Because basically I have a paper deadline for a project I've been doing at school for the last couple of months - the deadline is August 7th. Besides Erica, if you are thinking of visiting - don't suggest any dates before that :-). So yeah, I was going to work on that on the side (at night) besides an ambitious project with IBM during the day for my internship. Oh yeah, and still exercise, spend time with Naveen while we live in the same city, and actually try to experience this wonderful city while I live in it. So, I know, I'm insane. I do too much, I make myself crazy. All true. But, since I was pulled so tight, well, what do I do? I simply ask if someone will let me make it easier on myself. In this case, Naveen has been helping me at home a ton, I'm limiting some of my exposure to New York (although if a play I want to see is only playing in July, I still will go see it). And since I get to work ass-early because of my carpool, I've been trying to use the extra time to exercise. But the coup de e'tat came when I talked to my advisor, and she thought it was reasonable for me to work on my school project at IBM - sorta make it my internship project for this month. Given IBM had initially told me I could bring in my own project. And what we are working on in the school project is related to the work we eventually want to do for my internship. And we are waiting for infrastructure stuff to be ready for the IBM work - which is the job of people besides me and could take a couple of weeks anyway. So... I was really nervous, but I asked. And today, I got permission to do my school project basically as my internship until the deadline! The guys were totally reasonable - they said they'd rather see good research done and rather see me get an ASPLOS paper than waste my time. And they are willing to talk the work over with me and give me some suggestions, but don't necessarily need to be added to the author list of the paper unless they really contribute a lot. So they are awesome! I'm so excited - that makes my life a lot less stressful than it could've been. And hopefully it'll be great for all of us and my PhD in the long run. And I think this project is worthwhile - now I feel I have added incentive to really work hard on it because I want to prove myself not only to me and Kathryn (my advisor), but also to these really well-known researchers that I admire here at IBM. They are always the ambitious guys who get really good research into top publications. And I want to be worthy - to some extent (while keeping my sanity). But I cannot entirely judge myself based on them, because I could just never be good enough. That'll just lead to me feeling bad all the time. But I'll try - I'll try my hardest. I might be a researcher yet! (A researcher with a life on the side) A researcher who still wants to work with people - who wants to make connections with people. As much as I feel I can be a researcher - I think it'll make me happier to work with people in the long run. But the PhD will open doors and get me to be able to teach anywhere I think. Who knows what the future holds, but I gotta try. I gotta really give some good effort to this computer science PhD. It's important; it's important to me. And yes, I'm still figuring out the whole balance between relationship-research-exercise-life (and sleep I guess). I really didn't believe that you should have to sacrifice all (n-1) of these for the nth thing. I don't think that's healthy. And while it really isn't healthy, people do it - people sorta expect it. So, "shit or get off the pot". I'll try... But of course I'll do it sorta in my own way. You can't deny the streak of stubbornness in my family - come on! :-)

Ok enough rambling - more work. Happy weekend!