So...You want to do a Phd?

I know some people are rather lazy to click on a link...So I will still give the link..and copy paste those texts..original sources are still acknowledged.. :))


Source: http://www.nigels.com/jokes/phd1.pdf

SO YOU WANT TO DO A PhD?

    

The first in a series of articles on postgraduate studies by 10,000 monkeys.

Before you embark on a PhD, you should consider your reasons for choosing this course. If you make a conscious decision now that this is what you really want, you will be able to look back and chuckle over your naivety with genuine irony in years to come. If, on the other hand, you drift into it because it is assumed you will do it, you will have no answer to the inevitable question, “What in Dante’s seven hells could possibly have possessed me to think that this was a good idea?!”

Here are some of the most common reasons for embarking on a PhD: which of them apply to you?


• “I have a diagnosable mental illness”
It is a popular misconception that you would have to be mad to start a PhD. As we will show below, there are a number of other possible reasons for postgraduate studies. Still, this is a good one. If you are stark raving bonkers, you will fit right in to the academic world. If insanity is your main reason for wanting to do a PhD, however, there are a few things you should consider first. Have you sought treatment? Many mental illnesses are now curable or at least controllable with a simple course of medication. Others may be resolved with appropriate counselling in less time than it takes to complete a PhD. If, however, you are certain that your insanity will last the distance, go right ahead and sign those scholarship forms.


• “I can’t get a job.”
Perhaps your undergraduate degree was a BA. Perhaps your grades are good, but you have the social skills of a discombobulated iguana and don’t do so well in interviews. Perhaps the state of the economy is such that only job available is as a trainee kitchen hand in your uncle’s fast-food joint, and you are too proud to take it. Any of these factors may mean that you are basically unemployable, and further education may be a wise choice. It won’t change anything, but at least it will keep you off the streets for the next few years.


• “I can’t face the real world.”
You’ve been in some form of educational institution for upwards of sixteen years – probably most of your life. You’ve heard rumours that there is something beyond this environment, but you don’t want to take any chances. Heading out into the ‘real world’ can be delayed for up to five more years if you start a PhD now, and if you do well, you may be able to delay it indefinitely by becoming an academic. If this is your main reason for embarking on a PhD, you may wish to consider doing a Masters degree first – that way, you can add an extra year or two to your total study time.


• “I think it would be cool to have ‘Dr’ before my name on my credit cards.”
Well yes, it is cool. But not everyone thinks so. Judges and most jurors are unlikely to have PhDs of their own, and may not be understanding after you are found strangling with your bare hands a clerk who nonetheless insists on calling you “Miss”. “But your honour, ‘Miss’ is a demeaning appellation symptomatic of over a century’s subjugation of women and besides, I lived on ramen noodles and relied for hydration on nothing but my own recycled sweat and tears for four years, all the while enslaved

to the whims of an arbitrary, inconsistent and uncaring supervisor, just to earn those two fucking letters” is unlikely to go down well at your hearing.


• "I seek to further my knowledge and contribute to the advancement of science in this, my chosen field."
Bwhahahaha! Good one! No, why really? If this is truly your reason, well, it's all very noble and self-sacrificing of you and all, but in general, it's rarely if ever enough to carry you through. Somewhere, in the morass of inaccurate and fudged journal articles that constitutes the full sum of knowledge on your chosen topic, the overbearing visiting academics with condescending attitudes and bad ties, the fumbled seminars, the perky, over-achieving colleagues, the whole ramen noodle thing, and so on, you'll find that all you really wanted was those two fucking letters, and that they don't make a blind bit of difference in the real world anyway. But in the meantime, good luck with the advancement of science and all, huh?


• "I'm too ugly to be a model or an actor or a prostitute."
Well, you've probably got a point. Still, there are other possible career options, and, if
you've been down Oxford St. recently, you might want to rethink the latter one.


• "I am impressed by the example set by my television role model, and wish to follow in his/her/its footsteps."
This would be, what, Dr. Smith from Lost in Space? You're aware that Felicity is an undergraduate? I suppose it really does take all kinds.


• "Smart chicks are hot."
There are two options here. Either you're a girl hoping to capitalise on the mystique of the intellectual woman, in which case I'm afraid to say that a pair of glasses and a library card will provide pretty much the same effect, or you're a guy, hoping to use that line to get some action with a lonely and undersexed bookish type, in which case, a better bet would be a six-pack of lemon ruskies and a sympathetic expression. A PhD will almost never help you pick up. And as long as I'm offering free advice, they don't really want to know about your research, they're just being polite. Make something up. You'll thank me.


• "It is a condition of late Uncle Fergus' will that his estate will only go to someone who can withstand severe psychological torture. My cousin is going to join Mossad for their training program."
I have it on good authority that the Israeli Secret Service prefers to recruit PhD graduates, possibly for this exact reason. Your cousin is out of luck.


• "PhD? I was just looking to put my application for the lab tech job, so that I can have a salary and job security and can still wear the funky white coat." 
Now you're talking.



Next week: Choosing a topic. 

Inside a mind of a desperate PhD

Okay, so this is my queue number for today: 4096
Well, I think I have to wait for around 20 to 30 minutes..

4096, quite a good number
Hey, it is 2 to the power of... 2,3,4,.. 12
2 to the power of 12; it means:
4 to the power of 6
8 to the power of 4
16 to the power of 3
64 to the power of 2
What a number..

Perhaps it can be good combinations for TOTO, right?

AYS
~atica~

John Davis - How to Avoid Herding in Research | Institute for New Economic Thinking

Easily extended to other fields outside economics.

John Davis - How to Avoid Herding in Research | Institute for New Economic Thinking

An individual fish reduces the danger to itself by swimming as close as possible to the center of the school. That is how schools hold together. John Davis says that researchers and fish are alike -- both engage in herd behavior. PhD production, the role of journals, the incestuous relationship between top universities -- Davis looks at it all with an eye to informing policy to promote diversity and alternative views in the profession -- this is new economic thinking.

Don't Become a Scientist!

Copied and pasted without alteration from: http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html
_________________________________________________________________________________

Don't Become a Scientist!
Jonathan I. Katz
Professor of Physics
Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.
[my last name]@wuphys.wustl.edu


Are you thinking of becoming a scientist? Do you want to uncover the mysteries of nature, perform experiments or carry out calculations to learn how the world works? Forget it!

Science is fun and exciting. The thrill of discovery is unique. If you are smart, ambitious and hard working you should major in science as an undergraduate. But that is as far as you should take it. After graduation, you will have to deal with the real world. That means that you should not even consider going to graduate school in science. Do something else instead: medical school, law school, computers or engineering, or something else which appeals to you.

Why am I (a tenured professor of physics) trying to discourage you from following a career path which was successful for me? Because times have changed (I received my Ph.D. in 1973, and tenure in 1976). American science no longer offers a reasonable career path. If you go to graduate school in science it is in the expectation of spending your working life doing scientific research, using your ingenuity and curiosity to solve important and interesting problems. You will almost certainly be disappointed, probably when it is too late to choose another career.

American universities train roughly twice as many Ph.D.s as there are jobs for them. When something, or someone, is a glut on the market, the price drops. In the case of Ph.D. scientists, the reduction in price takes the form of many years spent in ``holding pattern'' postdoctoral jobs. Permanent jobs don't pay much less than they used to, but instead of obtaining a real job two years after the Ph.D. (as was typical 25 years ago) most young scientists spend five, ten, or more years as postdocs. They have no prospect of permanent employment and often must obtain a new postdoctoral position and move every two years. For many more details consult the Young Scientists' Network or read the account in the May, 2001 issue of the Washington Monthly.
 
As examples, consider two of the leading candidates for a recent Assistant Professorship in my department. One was 37, ten years out of graduate school (he didn't get the job). The leading candidate, whom everyone thinks is brilliant, was 35, seven years out of graduate school. Only then was he offered his first permanent job (that's not tenure, just the possibility of it six years later, and a step off the treadmill of looking for a new job every two years). The latest example is a 39 year old candidate for another Assistant Professorship; he has published 35 papers. In contrast, a doctor typically enters private practice at 29, a lawyer at 25 and makes partner at 31, and a computer scientist with a Ph.D. has a very good job at 27 (computer science and engineering are the few fields in which industrial demand makes it sensible to get a Ph.D.). Anyone with the intelligence, ambition and willingness to work hard to succeed in science can also succeed in any of these other professions.

Typical postdoctoral salaries begin at $27,000 annually in the biological sciences and about $35,000 in the physical sciences (graduate student stipends are less than half these figures). Can you support a family on that income? It suffices for a young couple in a small apartment, though I know of one physicist whose wife left him because she was tired of repeatedly moving with little prospect of settling down. When you are in your thirties you will need more: a house in a good school district and all the other necessities of ordinary middle class life. Science is a profession, not a religious vocation, and does not justify an oath of poverty or celibacy.

Of course, you don't go into science to get rich. So you choose not to go to medical or law school, even though a doctor or lawyer typically earns two to three times as much as a scientist (one lucky enough to have a good senior-level job). I made that choice too. I became a scientist in order to have the freedom to work on problems which interest me. But you probably won't get that freedom. As a postdoc you will work on someone else's ideas, and may be treated as a technician rather than as an independent collaborator. Eventually, you will probably be squeezed out of science entirely. You can get a fine job as a computer programmer, but why not do this at 22, rather than putting up with a decade of misery in the scientific job market first? The longer you spend in science the harder you will find it to leave, and the less attractive you will be to prospective employers in other fields.

Perhaps you are so talented that you can beat the postdoc trap; some university (there are hardly any industrial jobs in the physical sciences) will be so impressed with you that you will be hired into a tenure track position two years out of graduate school. Maybe. But the general cheapening of scientific labor means that even the most talented stay on the postdoctoral treadmill for a very long time; consider the job candidates described above. And many who appear to be very talented, with grades and recommendations to match, later find that the competition of research is more difficult, or at least different, and that they must struggle with the rest.

Suppose you do eventually obtain a permanent job, perhaps a tenured professorship. The struggle for a job is now replaced by a struggle for grant support, and again there is a glut of scientists. Now you spend your time writing proposals rather than doing research. Worse, because your proposals are judged by your competitors you cannot follow your curiosity, but must spend your effort and talents on anticipating and deflecting criticism rather than on solving the important scientific problems. They're not the same thing: you cannot put your past successes in a proposal, because they are finished work, and your new ideas, however original and clever, are still unproven. It is proverbial that original ideas are the kiss of death for a proposal; because they have not yet been proved to work (after all, that is what you are proposing to do) they can be, and will be, rated poorly. Having achieved the promised land, you find that it is not what you wanted after all.

What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyone who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue another career. This will spare you the misery of disappointed expectations. Young Americans have generally woken up to the bad prospects and absence of a reasonable middle class career path in science and are deserting it. If you haven't yet, then join them. Leave graduate school to people from India and China, for whom the prospects at home are even worse. I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs.

If you are in a position of leadership in science then you should try to persuade the funding agencies to train fewer Ph.D.s. The glut of scientists is entirely the consequence of funding policies (almost all graduate education is paid for by federal grants). The funding agencies are bemoaning the scarcity of young people interested in science when they themselves caused this scarcity by destroying science as a career. They could reverse this situation by matching the number trained to the demand, but they refuse to do so, or even to discuss the problem seriously (for many years the NSF propagated a dishonest prediction of a coming shortage of scientists, and most funding agencies still act as if this were true). The result is that the best young people, who should go into science, sensibly refuse to do so, and the graduate schools are filled with weak American students and with foreigners lured by the American student visa.

This doesn't sound so good

http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/08/13/renown-biomed-couple-leaving-s%E2%80%99pore-for-the-us/

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7325/full/468731a.html

Doctor

I still prefer my colleague and my students calling me Mr rather than Doctor. Actually I don't need to be called Doctor or Professor. I just need to be accepted the way I am... :-)

But then, some of my colleagues have introduced me to students with a title Doctor in front of my name.

Actually I don't really care nor bother whether they want to call me Doctor, Professor, or whatsoever.

As long as they are comfortable with it, so be it.

* * *

" You have Doctorate degree, so why are you here? Why don't you go to any research institution or medical industry?"

Hmm, I'm quite used to that question already for the past four months. So many people have asked that same question.

I wonder does Doctorate title really sound that great?

If you are inside PhD field for some time already, maybe you will understand my decision why I choose to change my "destiny" away from the "normal academia pathway".

PhD vs work

Had a talk from two people, who change their position, from PhD to work or the other way around. Since I was so curious about the reason behind that, so I just ask simply question "why do you choose PhD/work over your previous position?"

PhD --> work
- Simply that I think I don't really like the pure research thing and feel that PhD is really not into me. When I was PhD, I felt that everytime I woke up, thing in my mind was just "Ahh.. Another day needs to be passed again". After I work now, I just don't feel like that anymore. Simply wake up and go to work.

work --> PhD
- Good question. I also don't know why.

Note: The person who choose PhD over work has just started his PhD program. Let us wait for a while, and later see his response =)

So? what do you think?

Scold me for no reason

>> You scold me for fun, man
      Let me feel really down man
      Scold me for no reason
      Or a reason contrived <<

How do you expect I would like to do your favor out of my personal interest?

Graduate on its own

A little conversation on the way back from lunch:

A: Oh my, it seems that everything I've done didn't work. What should I do?
B: It's okay. Just do whatever you usually do, enjoy your life like usual. There is a time when you will graduate on its own.

Perhaps it is an interesting hypothesis that the time you spend in grad school does not have any correlation with your effort, your talent, or your intelligence. It is simply a constant which value depends on your supervisor and his/her budget.

~AYS~
lamabangetnungguconfermentdoank

4 Tipe Boss

Kecuali kamu adalah anak orang kaya banget yang begitu mulai kerja langsung dapet perusahaan sendiri, dalam suatu titik di hidup kamu, kamu pasti akan punya yang namanya bos. Nah, bos sendiri ada macam-macam tipenya. Berikut adalah tipe-tipe bos:
Bos yang Berwibawa, Menyenangkan, dan Pintar

Ini adalah tipe bos sempurna yang menjadi idaman semua pekerja. Bos tipe seperti ini biasanya ramah, punya visi yang jelas, bisa ikut becanda, kalo lagi serius dia serius banget, dan bawahannya respek sama dia. Bos tipe ini biasanya dicintai oleh para bawahannya dan para bawahannya bisa loyal banget sama dia. Kalo doi ultah, biasanya para bawahan dengan sukarela hati akan ngasih kado/kue/surprise.

Bos yang Menyebalkan Tapi Pintar

Ini sepertinya adalah tipe bos yang paling banyak ada. Orangnya sangat menyebalkan, banyak maunya, suka marah-marah, tapi harus diakui dia pintar sekali dan punya visi. Bos seperti ini biasanya disegani dan ditakuti oleh para bawahan dan biasanya para bawahan gak mau berurusan langsung sama si bos ini. Suasana kantor akan langsung tegang setiap dia ada di ruangan. Biasanya sih orangnya gak asik.
Bos yang Menyenangkan Tapi Kurang Pintar

Bos tipe seperti ini biasanya banyak becanda, suka melucu, bisa bergabung dengan bawahan, disukai oleh banyak orang, namun ketika berurusan dengan pekerjaan biasanya dia malah tidak pandai. Visinya tidak jelas, tidak tahu banyak hal, suka dikibulin bawahan, pokoknya kasian deh. Biasanya bawahan dari bos semacam ini terbagi dua: ada yang simpati tapi ada juga yang malah berniat jahat untuk ngebego-begoin si bos.
Bos yang Menyebalkan dan Tidak Pintar

Ini adalah tipe bos yang paling tidak diinginkan semua orang. Tipe bos seperti ini biasanya suka marah-marah untuk urusan yang dia sendiri tidak tahu solusinya. Selain itu, dia juga suka marah-marah untuk problem yang random dan marah-marahnya bisa merembet ke hal2 lain, bukti ketidak-profesionalitasannya. Bos seperti ini biasanya sangat ingin diakui ke-boss-annya dan dia seringkali secara implisit maupun eksplisit bilang ke bawahannya kalo dia adalah boss dan para bawahan harus menghormatinya. Ini adalah bos-bos yang paling sering berusaha digulingkan oleh bawahannya.

Ya begitulah kira-kira. Termasuk tipe yang manakah bos kamu?

Sumber: http://malesbanget.com/2011/05/4-tipe-bos/

supervisor ~ fishing

Interesting way.. in how to relate your boss with fishing. :)
Got this idea from one of my collaborator while we were having a conversation during my experiment period (since he was a teacher from his home country).

There are several types of supervisor.. let's we describe them in a picture of these.. We want to get a fish, and our boss is the one who is supposed to help us obtain that fish. Several methods that are applicable for them are described as follow:

1. Boss "gives" you the fish.

2. Boss shows you "how" to fish, "where" to fish and "gives" you fishing equipments.

3. Boss shows you "where" to fish and "gives" you fishing equipments.

4. Boss "gives" you fishing equipments.

5. Boss "tells" you to fish.


So.. which type of your boss you have?

Undergrad's enticement

PS: I think the post is more relevant to those who are working on computational studies or such.

A: Do you ever get stuck
B; No!
A: Are you sure?
B: Well, actually, I am stuck now.
A:. Okay, then at one moment, imagine you find a paper, pretty similar with what you are doing. All that remains are changing the numbers or formulas. Once you are able to replicate them, you’ll graduate, okay
B: But, how do I replicate them? I am laz, oops. stuck! Okay, may be I will email the authors of this paper to see if they can send the code.
A: Then your problem is solved?
B: Of course! I will graduate! Hooray!

Okay, let’s draft the email:

Dear Prof (well known, very senior Professor in the area)

Hi, My name is *male is worst *, I am currently pursuing PhD degree in *well known university in first world country* under Prof. *rival* and I am doing project on *alien stuffs for the addressee, familiar only to his “golden boy” PhD who had self-studied them*. Recently I came accross your interesting paper *come on, you’re bluffing, aren’t you* titled *I will rephrase it for my thesis title* and I found it is quite related to my research interest. (etc.. etc.. ask for the source code and thanks)

Note: Hey, you have to be very lucky if the addressee did not delete it instantly. Then, you will spend another fortune so they read your email, another for replying it and the last your ‘already dry’ fortune to receive what you want.

Okay, let’s make another draft.

Hi Professor (well known, very senior Professor in the area)

I am a student from *third world/developing country*. I am doing final year project on *general stuff* which is really interesting yet challenging task. Recently, I was given an interesting paper, titled *yes, it is really interesting* that is quite similar with what I am trying to do. Thus (etc.. etc.. ask for the source code and thanks)

Note: Good, he/she would give it once he/she opened his/her email.

Done. Remember to send an email saying how grateful you are.

10 ways to get your creative juices flowing

Click on this. It is worth reading.  :)

http://lifehacker.com/#!5792708/top-10-ways-to-get-your-creative-juices-flowing

I just stumbled upon this article titled "10 Signs It's Time To Quit Your Job". Let's assume for a moment that PhD is a job... Let's try to apply this to PhD life, and see if it's time to quit your "job"!

1. You Aren't Learning Anything New : Well, I learnt quite a lot, but most of the things that I've learnt so far has nothing to do with my "job". But still, there are some things that I've learnt from this "job" that may be applicable in the real life such as how to pretend it's impossible to work any faster.

NO.

2. You Never Have a Day When You Wake Up Excited To Go To Work : Well there are those times where I am excited to go to my "office", but that's because I've met my supervisor the day before... and in those times I am excited I don't do anything (related to work), so technically it doesn't count as "to go to work". The rest of the day are !@#$%^&.

YES.

3. You Spend More Time Surfing the Web Than Doing Your Job : Obviously this no need further explanation. Every PhD students know this.

YES.

4. You Don't Like Most of Your Coworkers : I don't really have coworkers, coz my "job" scope doesn't include wet labs or any huge collaboration thingy. All I need is a computer, really. So I can't comment on this one, although I must say I think most people who are trapped here are nice people. They just make wrong life choices.

ABSTAIN.

5. You Aren't Making Enough Money to Pay Your Bills : Ok, I have just enough to pay my bills (for now), but this is because I'm single and banks here don't give student credit card... So too bad I can only spend what I earned... I still think I am underpaid, and if I am in U.S. I think I may be going to file for chapter 11.

What the heck, YES.

6. You Spend Time Looking For Other Jobs : I'm spending most of my time looking for other activities as well... Shall not elaborate further. lol.

YES.

7. You Haven't Gotten a Raise in the Last Two Years : Ok, once. But that is already stated when you get your enslavement contract, and the amount is exactly the same for the whole batch of mass-produced commoditifed cheap labor... Your boss cannot increase your salary further no matter how hard you work. So that raise doesn't count.

YES.

8. Your Boss Sucks : My current boss is the best boss I can have in the world! (Just in case my boss read this posting and realize it is me!)

NO.

9. The Company Isn't Doing Well : Going down 100 spots in 1 year, the president resigned, what else can you expect?

YES.

10. You are Stressed All the Time

YES!!! A BIG YES!

Ok so we have:

7 YES , 2 NO , 1 ABSTAIN

With 7 YES out of 10, this is a supermajority that can even allow U.S. congress to pass a bill without president's approval. So I think I need to rethink what I am going to do now...

How about you?

(Do) I hate Monday?

Once I entered the working life, there was one thing that came to my mind, “I hate Monday.. Why there is such a day called Monday, when weekday starts?” Seriously, you know, I never had such a mind, well, at least not as severe as, what I am feeling now.

When I discussed it with one of my fellow, she said, “Well, you’d never been working, had you? It is natural. BUT, it should not be that fast.”

“But, PhD is also working. Moreover it is not different with what I am doing now”. I replied.

“No, PhD is a student. So it is different.” she said.

Later on, I got this “enlightment”, literally. I would not expect that the “possibly best” answer for my question would come this fast. Thanks to my ‘previous’ PhD supervisor who made me come to the office on Sunday. You know? The thinking came to my mind when I saw my office and PhD students’s one.

And I think the “possibly best” answer on why I hate Monday now is..

***
PhDs have no weekends. Why they should bother on what day or time it is (even what season or year it is). It does not make any difference. The work always waits you, whenever and wherever you are.
***

Now that I realized that though I hate Monday, I also happier to look forward to weekends.

NOTE:
Sometimes I go to my office on weekend to work on my thesis and I always find the same thing. The lights on staff office are off. PhD office and labs’s lights always ON!

AYS
~gataunasibthesisguasekarang~

Professor = Smart?

If you think all PhD advisors are smart, it means you've never seen mine..... =)

So the story goes like this..

For the past week, I worked full 7 days for a report that is to be meant for a school's biannual update. The report is actually a compilation of 3 persons' works (a Junior's, a Senior's, and mine), and at first, I was supposed to be the one who collate all the works. I was told this on last last Sunday (20 Feb) and Prof said that he "would like to see it by last February", which I assumed that today it should have been submitted to him.

So, since that last last Sunday, I totally put myself into making the report. Because I believe that the deadline is rather tight ahead. It was quite tiring work (making the report), because firstly, Prof asked a review of a current building design guideline to be put in the report, and since Prof never asked to whom, I assumed that's my work, and I found no previous work about that that I could copy (:P), so I gotta work on it, and secondly, after my colleagues' part arrived to me, I found even more troubles, because it seems that my colleagues did not see how the report is going to be "logic". So, my brain was totally working on "how" to make the report logic, and it really absorb my time. Collating works is totally not easy, esp when you really want it to be good. (Anw, this is the first time my Prof ask me to be responsible of such thing, so of course I'd like to use this time to boost my performance).

Well, days went by, (and I worked fully in Saturday and Sunday too, making table of contents, number of pages, creating abstract and such), after a few editing after comments from my colleagues (the junior and the senior), the report was submitted to the Prof by my senior colleague at 2 pm today (and I feel my body is having fever today, I know I'm going to be sick). And of course I know that my work doesn't end just like that. Since it is just submitted, I expect some update in my email regarding editing of report after Prof's comments.

So, as expected, an email came regarding the report from my senior. But I felt so angry after reading the email. My senior said:

************************

From: "Senior"
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 2:09 PM
To: "Me"
Cc: "Prof"
Subject: report


Hi "Me",

Can you please send me the report of Word format. Prof. asked me to check the English and I need to edit the report. Thank you.

Best regards,
"Senior"

From: "Prof"
Sent: 2011年2月28日 15:47
To: "Senior"
Subject: report

Dear "Senior"

Have you read through the report and sort out the English part?
Please try to do that first before I read it. How is your family?

Thank you.

"Prof"

*******************************

My senior said he needed to edit the report. I found it so rude. How come he can just say he "need to edit" the report. Hello! Those are my words in the report that I have spent my time just to write nicely and in orderly manner. At first when I sent to him for him to see (I finished yesterday night (830pm) actually, so I have sent to others by then in "pdf" format, cos "Words" format seems messy), he said nothing about the language usage. Means, he WAS OK with what I wrote. But, just because Prof asked :"Hello, have you checked the language usage in the report?" And he said he wanted to edit it? NO WAY!! How if he really edit and change the words composition I have worked on?!?!?! And furthermore, Prof DON'T ask us to EDIT! Hello.. he just asked whether the report HAS BEEN CHECKED AGAIN. Ok, so I replied "nicely" to him saying that that's not what Prof meant. But he replied to me like this:

*****************
From: "Senior"
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 4:28 PM
To: "Me"
Subject: RE: report

As shown below in the email sent by Prof. , he asked me to check English first before he reads it. If you are very confident that there is no English errors in this report. Please tell Prof. directly that there is no need to check again for me. If not, please send me the Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5. Thank you!

Best regards,
"Senior"
*****************

What the %$^&#$^%! Of course, I am confident. He even asked only my part that is to be sent to him. So, you think yours don't contain logic error?? I am the one edited the report, including your part, so that it would be logically sound, you know!! (ok lah, disclaimer: overall his part contain no logic error, because it is an excerpt of the paper he has written before, however i need to edit them to fit into the report). And furthermore, you have cc-ed Prof asking about the works to be sent to you at the first time (see above first email). So, I believe (if my Prof is "really" clever), Prof knows that it is me who do everything, yeah! But still, as my senior said, I said directly to the Prof that I'm confident about the report, and that I am the one who collated the report, bla bla bla. Huff.. no comment reply from Prof yet, I hope it really means good. #expectingfor"important"emailtomorrow

Hm, it's 530pm now. The conversation between the senior and me has stopped. Just need to wait for Prof's comments about the report. Still need to present this Wed, akh, no update yet! Works, works, works.. I hope that it is right for me to defend myself in front of my Senior #onlybosscancorrectme

***


Anw, has any of my friends here wondering how come from Prof ask me to collate the work at first then my senior is the one in the end seem to be responsible?

So, on last Friday morning (it means almost report deadline), Prof emailed (I translated to human language so that everybody can understand) like this:

*****************
From: "Prof"
Sent: 2011年2月25日 7:40
To: "Senior"; "Me"; "Junior"
Cc: "Another Senior Going to Write His Thesis"
Subject: RE: Design guideline

Dear "Me", "Junior, "Senior"

ALARM! ALARM! ALARM!
There is a change in current design guideline. We have to put it in the report.
*Panic**Panic**Panic*
"Senior", I assign you to be in charge of the whole report.

Regards,
"Prof"
*****************

Prof sent that kind of email after 5 days I have been working on the report and reviewing the guideline as what he said to me firstly. The review of the guideline has been finished by me, hey! And how come Prof can say like that, has he forgotten that he firstly asked me to do all the works?? How come he can ask somebody else to be responsible without even asking me?? Well, there was some kind of misunderstanding with him since the beginning of my PhD, so actually, though upset, I'm not surprised that he still doesn't trust me. So anyway.. I replied "to" my senior "cc-ed" my Prof the parts that I have finished working on saying that I'm still working on other parts and hope to be able to be sent to my-senior-in-charge by time.

Well, on that Friday, because I was really still working on collating the parts so that the report would be logic, I asked for discussion with the senior and the junior about the direction of the report (I was stucked then). And meeting the Junior, only to find out that actually the Senior is not in town since that last last Sunday, until the next ONE MONTH!! And my Prof still asked him to be in-charge, while I know that by middle of this month, the report has to be submitted to an organization, means that the in-charge will still be not in town. HAHAHA, I JUST LAUGH at that! This is EVEN FUNNIER than GAGS! Works can't stop following you even you are in holiday, hahahaha! Oh, no, I dun't wanna be like that one day, but I can't stop laughing!!

Disclaimer: the person writing this has no bad intention or bad relationship with the Senior, basically she was just angry about the way the world treated her works. #worksonlyonweekdays

So me!!