Fasting

Bill Bright of Campus Crusade once said that fasting is the “atomic bomb of the spirit.”

Grad School

ASA presentation, “‘Diversity and Its Discontents’: A Report on Graduate Student Experiences in PhD-Granting Institutions” (see the Powerpointhere). 

Wise Words from Kurt Vonnegut

Bruce Lee quote

“Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile[Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile].

So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.”

I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” –and we’re still running-” if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.”

He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles.
Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?”

He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”

From The Art of Expressing the Human Body by Bruce Lee and John Little

PhD notes

I'm considering getting my PhD and have been doing a lot of reading. I got into Georgia Tech and Columbia University for their EE programs (fully funded!)

PDF
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/grad-school.pdf

Videos
Why is getting a PhD so hard? eloquently answered by Threemonththesis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHdZRPDvgt8

How to get through your PhD without going insane
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MkRMp3roKQ
Notes:
An idea has to be original but it also has to be founded in current research in the field.
You need to know the field to know that your work is original, aid your own results, and give your work context and justification. You need to know the field before you can make meaningful contribution to it.

Literature is a resource to u can't learn a subject by reading a research paper b/c it's written to folks who already know the field.

To filter, focus on the best and most relevant papers first. Look at the # of citations (~500).
Then, look at relevance. There may be only 3 other research groups in the world in your field. You can easily become the 5th world leader on a topic.

If you know the outcome in advance, then it's not research.
It's often when things go wrongs that is the best results.

Constantly adapt to the things that happen. (the guy who created antibiotics)

The determining factor of success: what you do when things aren't going according to plan. That's a vital skill in research.

PhD is not inherently difficult. It is your personal reaction from within you to the situation.

You have to give yourself time to think. That's what makes you valuable as a researcher.

Writing:
1. content - data  (this is your foundation)
2. structure - how do you frame it
3. words - how you express it
4. your voice

You have to write as an academic to other academics.

You should see stress as a signal that something is not right.

Success or failure in the PHD is not a value of who you are.
If I fail, I fail. I've at least given it a good shot.

Sex & the Christian Woman

     I think one of the reasons why many young Christian women are so tormented by these desires is because today’s society is expecting men and women to wait until their education is complete, their careers are started, and their bank accounts are padded until they marry. This means that most will not marry until their mid-20s to mid-30s. I am certainly not in favor of Christians just marrying the first person who comes along so they can have their sexual desires fulfilled. I’m also not advocating that young Christians marry at 18, 19, 20 before they have had time to mature and figure out who they are and what they want to do with their lives. However, if at some point in your life, God brings in a person with whom you relate well, share common values and goals, and grow to love, what’s the point of waiting to marry until you’ve finished college, your master’s, get your first job, can afford a big wedding, etc.? Interminable waiting will just subject you to greater and greater sexual frustration and temptation. Better to marry at the court house and strike out together with faith in God, than to fall into sexual sin. 

--Comment on an interesting blog post "Sex & The Christian Woman" by Cassi Clerget