Thursday, March 16, 2017

I've earned a break!

I started my paper on Saturday and made good progress sitting in a wonderful cafe (that caters for foreigners who want to work in a cafe).  On Monday I sent the first draft to my collaborators and on Tuesday I sent the next draft... which was close to a "final" version.  I ended up staying until almost 8 PM in order to get it done, and there were a final few details I wasn't happy with.

With a few final e-mail exchanges yesterday and today (Thursday), the paper has been submitted!  We'll see what the reviewers say.  I'm very happy to have turned it around so fast and to have it be relatively "easy" compared to past papers.  It still might get rejected, but we'll have to see why, if that is the case.  We might need to expand the data and make it a bigger paper, for instance.

After submitting the paper, I tackled the core of the simulation that is supposed to be my primary project.  I've been struggling with a very specific aspect, but finally had a few breakthroughs yesterday and today.  My breakthroughs actually involved reading papers on chicken meat.  I have some strange Google Scholar searchers in my history now.  So while I told my colleague (yesterday) that it might take me a few weeks to run a certain simulation, I actually was able to run it today.  I have data - in a way, I'm done!

Part of me feels like I'm really on a role with this simulation work (which is why I'm still going at 9 PM...), but I'd also like to take a break.  Luckily, a friend is coming to visit for a few days!  This might actually be my favorite weekend of the whole trip.  I get to show someone around Milan like it is "my" city.  Having a friend here means that I can do a bunch of things that are super awkward for me to do on my own, like go in fancy stores or go out to dinner.

With a month left of my trip, I've submitted a paper and made great progress on a number of my research projects.  My Italian is vastly improved and I've done a bit of traveling.  I even had one of my Italian colleagues compliment my outfit today, so that might be my biggest achievement.  Now I get to have a fun few days and wait for the response on the paper!

No comments:

Post a Comment