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Product Backlog

An update is long overdue, I am more than aware! I do have several drafts from over the past year, which I haven’t actually looked at since drafting. I am going to make one large retrospective post and then publish finer details as much as I can over the coming weeks; there’s a product backlog! Right now though I want to say THANK YOU to supervisors, colleagues, peers, friends and even academics outside of my school who read the last published blog entry back in March 2013 and offered many kind words and much support over the past twelve months. I was especially taken aback when one friend said it [I am avoiding the litteral I for it!] was “brave” to even attempt to blog about mental health. To you all, truly, thank you. PS- Berlin was brilliant, you should go. edit: silly typos- one day I’ll proof something, eh!

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Sabbatical-Sequester

I’ve had a sabbatical from here of late. Well without checking, since August. I’ve been hard at work, sometimes. Once I did feel a little guilty when my monthly bursary came in, “What would the taxpayer think if they knew I wasn’t productive for even 50% of the past month, let alone a week?” then I realised it’s me who’s made a significant sacrifice. Saying that, I’ve definitely felt a lull in motivation over the past eight or so months, which one couldn’t combat in the real world by refusing to cogitate or even do mundane tasks in it. Whilst working towards my MPhil to PhD transfer, of course- doubting my own critical thought or even self-worth. Lets get it right, I’ve been depressed. Trouble was I didn’t realise I was depressed until I’d been depressed for a significant portion of the time spent. Despite me knowing the signs. I guess I wasn’t spending long enough with anyone (or the right people) in order for them to ask (wallflower side affect?) “What’s up?” but fortunately Christmas came around and it was only then, when taking a week off from working, or trying; that my brain farted out to myself. “You’re depressed!” Identifying a cause is simple, I’m…

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It’s not a holiday!

What can I say except it was not my intention to leave the blog for so long. And that’s the last time I feel guilty for not publishing a blog post again. Guilt is a dangerous emotion and more so if one is severely critical of himself in the first place. A recent guilt trip, back in June was related to skipping chunks of a conference presentation because I was likely to run over. (That wasn’t the guilty part. The guilty part was the likelihood of presenting past my slot.) Again that is another last time, I feel guilty about running over. It’s been four months after all, I’ve not been on holiday or anything! We’ll pick off almost immediately where we left off. Essentially I bombarded myself further research into software aging and rejuvenation, petrinets, artificial neural networks, load balancing, sundry and a paper to write for my first foray into academic publishing. As I was (and still am), into my analysis stage I was making notes and brief ideas on my observations and so wanted to make a new point in the upcoming paper. Eventually I realised this was a gargantuan idea given the amount of background literature I would have…