Today for the first time I really went to University to work. I've been there a few times this week for various things but today was the first time I really got to sit down at my desk and work. I don't actually have a computer yet (I used my own laptop), but at least I have a desk, and an office.
And that's just weird. It takes an enormous amount of effort just to open the door to my office without knocking. Sure, there's other people in there too, but I don't need to knock on their account. It's just, for six years if I wanted to get work done at Uni, I'd go to one of the computer labs. The only time I spent in an office is in meetings in someone else's office. And now I've got an office myself. It really helps to drive home the fact that although I'm still going to University, I'm not a student anymore; I'm an employee.
Even weirder perhaps was when I had to fill out some forms for personell services regarding my employment. It was basic stuff: name, first name, title, date of birth. Suddenly, I realised I actually have something to put for "title" now.
Oh my, it looks like I might actually have to do real work the upcoming time. The kind you get paid for. I'm not sure I'm ready for that! :P
With my studies finished, and because I'm still waiting for the final word on if I can go to Japan in April, I sort of fell into a black hole. What to do in the mean time? Because I'm no longer a student, I lose my public transportation pass, and I'll lose my creditcard if I don't start making money. So a source of income will definitely be nice.
At the same time, there is interest from the University for me to continue some of the work I've been doing for my thesis, but getting paid for that was definitely out of the question.
Fortunately I haven't had to stray too far, because the University is in fact employing me. I will work on the DIAL database project. In particular I'll be building a web-based GUI for the biologists who'll use the database. Piece of cake. :)
This I will do for 0.6 FTE (24 hours), and the remainder of the time I will be able to spend on continuing my thesis work.
The big advantage is that I'm getting a workspace and a PC at Uni I can work on for both projects, so it works out nicely.
From "nearly done" to "done": last Friday I received final marks for my thesis: 9 (out of 10).
This mark is for the research I've done, the written thesis itself, and the presentation I gave last Thursday as I said in my previous post.
I do not often boast about grades, or mention them at all really (with the possible exception of my grades for French class, which I only mention to indicate how truly hideously terrible I was at that), but I just had to mention this. I mean, it's not every day I finish my final project, and I am justifyably proud of that mark.
Unfortunately I am once again going to have to promise you to reveal my thesis work at a later date. But soon! :)
Update 2006-10-31: My thesis is now available in the University section of the site.
If you're a regular reader of my blog, you're probably a spam bot. :P In any case, you might've noticed that certain parts of the site have been neglected a bit. I haven't posted on the blog much, and the EGS statistics are horribly out of date.
The reason for this is that I've been busy on my master's thesis. Today, I did a presentation about my work, which went pretty well I think (I don't have the results yet so I can't know for sure). I've been sick for the past week and still hadn't recovered completely, but it still went well regardless.
Now the presentation's done and my thesis pretty much complete, which means that finally, after more than six years, the end is in sight. If all goes well (and I don't see why it wouldn't at this point) I will receive my master's degree on November 24th, a day before my birthday. In a way it's almost scary; I've been a student for six years, then suddenly I won't be anymore. There's also some practical concerns. Students can get a creditcard regardless, but once I stop being a student I'll need an income to keep it. Since I'm still waiting for the final word on my scholarship for Japan, I'm not sure how that's going to work. I'll also lose my 100Mbps Internet connection, which is for students only. But, c'est la vie.
I've been writing my thesis in Office 2007, and I must say, I'm really impressed. MS managed to make Office more powerful, yet far easier to use. Of course there's still some bugs (it's only Beta 2 TR after all), but I have very high expectations of the release version.
Today's presentation in particular I gave using my laptop, running Windows Vista RC2 (build 5744) and PowerPoint 2007. I was pleased to see that my favourite (but very underused) PowerPoint feature, presenter view, hasn't been neglected in the new version. With presenter view, you get the regular presentation on the VGA out (attached to a beamer usually) and a special view on the LCD screen that shows the current slide, a thumbnail list of slides, the duration of the presentation, and (most importantly) the notes you added to the current slide. Far more useful than just mirroring the LCD and VGA displays, since it allows me to get a better idea of where I'm at, and I can keep notes without having to use cards or put too much information on the slide itself.
In PowerPoint 2007, presenter view has been reorganised a little. In previous versions, the slide thumbnails were on the left, and the notes on the bottom. Now, the slide thumbnails are on the bottom, and the notes on the right. This means there's more room for the notes. Besides showing the presentation duration, it also shows the current time, which is also new.
Considering I'm studying computer science, I'm surprised there's not more students who know about this very useful feature.
And by the way, if you're curious about what my thesis is about exactly, I'll have to keep you in suspense for a bit longer; it's simply too complicated for me to effectively explain in a blog post. But rest assured that once my thesis is officially finished, I'll put it up here so you can read it for yourself.
Earlier, I wrote about how I'm trying to get the Monbukagasho (MEXT) Scholarship to go to Japan for two years.
As I briefly mentioned in that post, the next step in the process was to get admission to the University of Tokyo. After all, what's the point in getting a research scholarship if I don't have a university to go to?
Yesterday, I received an e-mail from the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Office of International Relations, saying that my application has been processed and I have been accepted! All that's left now, if my understanding is correct, is to get final approval for the scholarship from Monbukagakusho itself in Japan, meaning that I'm actually starting to believe I could really get it.
So, as the title of this post says (for those who can't read Japanese), "boku ha toudai-sei desu", I'm a Tokyo U student!
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