Updates (Paper, Iron Ring)

The conference paper that I wrote about earlier is now done. Great way to spend a Friday night. I actually hit a huge writers block slog these past few days; finishing off the conclusions was bloody well painful. It's really frustrating to feel as inefficient as I do... it shouldn't have taken up this entire week to write this thing. Also my mental trick of it doesn't matter all that much started to get overwhelmed by thoughts of are the reviewers going to tear this sentence apart, and how can I defend against that?

Well, anyway, it's done... at least until my advisor reads it, and I need to address his markups. We're meeting on Sunday; the paper is officially due Monday, but I'm guessing that a day late submission won't be a big deal if I need it. Then on a plane on Wednesday for the Chicago trip.

On another topic, I won't be getting an Iron Ring this year, since I'm not getting my degree in time; the ceremony is in February. Oh well... I'll just apply in the next cycle, and shoot for February 2008. It's still very important to me--the vast majority of people in this field are Canadian engineers, so the rings are pretty ubiquitous--including the transplants to the U.S. Folks who wear them include my mentor, his academic advisor (Yoda to his Obi Wan), my advisor, chief grad student, most of my grad group, and one of my coworkers back in Boston. Yeah, it's all about da bling, yo.

Oh wait... obligatory photo. I've been experimenting with polenta baked in a 350 F oven, as per Alton Brown's method, and the one from the Atlantic Monthly (sorry, behind a subscriber page--let me know, and I'll email it to you). Most of this came from Dan's recommendation to try it out--thanks lots! I've been pretty happy with my experiments so far--no more stovetop stirring, or blub... blub... blub... AAAHOUCHYAGH scalding polenta burn. Very tasty when you saute up some onions in the pan first, and pregrease with butter--a yummy brown crust forms on the outside.