Self-Isolating

Something I've noticed over the years, and again more recently, is that my interests and my way of thinking are a bit odd. In social situations, I can rarely find common ground with other people. For example:

• Someone might want to discuss whether the city should install traffic lights at a certain intersection. I'm only interested in the meta-question: what is the best rule-set for determining where traffic lights should go, and what pattern they should use? Does anyone else really want to spend 15 minutes discussing traffic flows?
• Given my Australian background, people expect me to have an interest in rugby, cricket, and drinking beer. I'm expected to know the rules for AFL. I don't. I have an interest in flying stunt kites and drinking Jones soda.
• I find it relaxing to develop software. When I get stressed, I turn on the computer and start coding. Even many of my workmates find this odd, and it probably is.
• I attend a Christian church, and a Christian "small group", yet I am adamantly not Christian. I struggle to find anyone else who understands this.
• I get frustrated by TV and books that leave the audience in suspense. I'll read the synopsis from Wikipedia, understand the point the writer was trying to make, and then stop.
• On most Saturday nights I go for a social swim, but there are very few people in my age group or who are at the same point in life. Why am I there? I don't even know.

Maybe I've got it all wrong... but a lot of what I do and think seems to set me apart from the people around me, or at least is different from their expectations. I don't try to be odd (yes, I've known others who try to be eccentric, try to be different). I know that I want to be part of a group, but I struggle to find somewhere that would welcome me and where I really fit.

Anyway, this is just a question I'm asking myself. What should I be doing differently? What should I change so that I'm not self-isolating? Should I change at all?

Thesis Progress

We've been very busy here in Vancouver. Wedding preparations, moving stuff, building stuff, meeting people, inspecting houses (more on that later). Work has also been very busy with some pretty neat developments, though still light on customers. In general, I've been a pretty happy camel.

But today I was reminded about my thesis work, and it felt like the last straw. My mood went from "decent" straight to "crap". The thesis is a rather large chunk of work, and I'm really not looking forward to doing any of it. Still, I got home and got into it.

I've prepared a long email for one of my reviewers, asking questions and checking some details. I will need to edit it tomorrow before sending; I don't want my mood seeping through into the email. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day so I can edit it with a clear head. I'm hoping to get a quick response, and avoid doing a whole heap of work in the process. :)

In other news, I've been playing Mah Jongg while Stella and Grandma Mak are visiting. I'm picking up some random Chinese words, like "miao miao" (cat) and "shee-la" (you lose!). I'm also winning more often than I should be. ;) Mah Jongg is all about guess-timating probabilities, and I'm using that to my advantage. One day I'll sit down and work out whether the 5-valued tiles are really the best ones to have...

Anyway, off to bed. We've got a lot of Australian wedding invites to send out in the next few days. We'll see whether they get done tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after... Or whether the thesis "poongs" my time away...

Thesis Results Are In

... and I am required to resubmit the thesis in revised form for examination after a suitable period of study and/or research.

I can't say that I'm particularly surprised, but it is also a pain. Technically, all the original work was fine. However, there are insufficient comparisons to existing algorithms. Specifically, the reviewers want to see CPU time results, and want comparisons to backtracking algorithms that use variable reordering. My thesis only includes algorithms and comparisons that were state-of-the-art when I wrote it...

On the plus side, I'm not getting the worst possible assessment. Here is the list of possible assessments I could have received (I got the 3rd assessment from one reviewer, and the 5th one from the other):

1. Acceptable, no changes.
2. Minor revisions, checked by head of postgrad studies.
3. Major revisions, checked by head of postgrad studies.
4. Major revisions, checked by examiners.
5. Major revisions, re-review by examiners.
6. Oral examination to check you know your stuff.
7. Accepted, for Masters.
8. Revise and resubmit, for Masters.
9. Fail.

Now I just need to decide on a time for me to restart thesis work. As I have to reimplement a bunch of algorithms, I think I might port all development over to Java and run them on Emily's beast of a computer. :)

Update: Trying to list out the positives... They didn't criticise the rather "unique" approach of my literature review. (I'd been having nightmares that they'd toss the thesis out for that chapter.) They appreciated the original research component. They liked the intuitive explanations. The hypertree decomposition work wasn't integrated into the thesis, but only small changes are required. All I need to do is write up a few more algorithms and run a new round of experiments. My algorithm doesn't even have to be better than the other algorithms. I just have to compare it. All in all, things could have been a lot worse.

Mission

It's been a while since I've blogged. I keep waiting for something important to break this silence. I've now found it.

I was raised to believe that we should give what we can, what is in our capacity. The people I most want to imitate are those who give out more than they keep for themselves. There are people like this throughout my family (immediate and extended), Emily's family, and some I know abroad. Jane and Daniel Toole have been especial inspirations for me. They've been living in Ethiopia for a while now, with their own children, doing what they can to help the kids there. I barely dare to read their emails as I must contrast my life with theirs.

There are common religious teachings like "I have been filled up so that I can be emptied again". Or this all-time favourite of mine from Anthony de Mello:

A man walking through the forest saw a fox that had lost its legs and wondered how it lived. Then he saw a tiger come with game in its mouth. The tiger had his fill and left the rest for the fox.

The next day too God sent, the tiger to feed the fox. The man began to wonder at God’s greatness and thought. “I too shall lie in a corner trusting the Lord to give me all I need.

He did this for a month, and was almost at death’s door when he heard a Voice that said, “O you who are on the path of error, open your eyes to the Truth! Imitate the tiger not the fox.”

To be clear, I don't believe in "responsibilities" or "directions" passed to us by God. Not at all. But I still believe that I should give what is in my capacity. Have I done this? Hell no. I do give... but there is still a large gap between "what I give" and "what I can easily give". I am not the fox, but I feel I am just a shadow of the tiger.

I have wrestled with the question: should I go abroad myself, or should I try to fund others? I try to have money spare for good causes. If I go abroad myself, to volunteer in places which need help, I would not have that money spare. And what am I able to do anyway? I have occasional wrist and back pain. I burn easily. I've used computers all my life. What use could I be?

We will find out. Before I reach 31 years old, Emily and I are planning to go on a few missions trips. Preferably something not associated with the church. We will try something short first - a 2-4 week post offering assistance wherever. After that, we will try something longer - a 3-6 month post trying to do something more.

Whatever we do, it must be completed before we start having children of our own. I know Jane and Daniel had the strength to raise their children abroad, but I know I do not have that strength. And I expect we will start managing Timothy's care in a few years, and our first priority is to him.

This is an important decision for me. Not something I take lightly. But something I feel I need to do.

Mario Kart Has Windmills

We're in Edmonton at the moment, making various pre-wedding preparations. It's also a chance to spend time with Timothy (he's my best man, by the way :).

We recently purchased a copy of Mario Kart for the Wii and brought it with us. He's enjoyed driving games in the past and we wanted to see if he would enjoy this one. Turns out that he can drive reasonably well until one specific point in the track. The point with a windmill...

Timothy has a fascination with things that spin, and immediately spotted this windmill off the side of the Moo Moo Meadows track. He refuses to drive past, and keeps turning his kart around to look at it. The plus side to this? It reinforces how the controls work as he cannot find the windmill without correct steering. :)

We also brought Excite Truck, another driving game. It's a lot faster than Mario Kart, and Timothy has a lot more accidents (eg. crashing into trees, falling off cliffs, etc). He's been laughing as he plays this one simply because of the animations as his truck crashes into things, flies through the air, or sinks beneath the water. We'll try with both of these games tomorrow. :)