October just passed like a day

- I have a very very generous boss! She acknowledges everyone's work l, specifically mentioning each of them, and says she knows everyone is busy with so much to do and that everyone should take a vacation after this semester is over. It's been a crazy semester indeed; I've never been this busy in my life!

- Going to the choir really helps me re-energized and refreshed. I'm so glad I have now friends that talk to me when we see each other. The social aspect is as great as the singing part. 

- Just finished making slides for next week. I knew I should have started earlier, but so many things come up and can't just do them all. 

- I was very productive for the past few days because I was just doing one thing. At the end of the day, it's the best to focus on one task, finish it before moving to the next so that you'll minimise the switching cost.

Autumn leaves

It'll be winter before you know it!! 

Grand Woods Park

Grand Woods Park https://goo.gl/maps/kckF1Td2aXmPkERT6

The leaves were beautiful surrounding the pond. There were many groups of people doing disc golf, cycling, fishing... but I did not feel super safe here unlike other parks because the trees can hide people and it's hard to see what they are doing. The paths are not so open, and it's just hard to see what is around you. Hmm.. 

Fall colors on campus

Roses and begonia in the autumn sun

The strong roses still there - a few days before the first frost of the year hit the garden. 

Tollgate Wetlands

Beautiful pond, birds and colored leaves.

Tollgate Wetlands https://goo.gl/maps/3p52PFH1JA6qpStj6

Michigan apple season!

I love the crispy ones.  So glad they are in a wide range of variety! 

[Note to self] How to clean install Windows

Know your Microsoft account name and password.
Create an installation media in a USB drive with at least 8GB.

Disconnect keyboard, mouse, other cables. You only need power cord and the USB flash drive with Windows10 in it inserted.

Turn on your computer and Hit F12 repeatedly.

Chose selet your USB drive (So, know the name of it) under UFEI boot. Not Bios Setup! 

Highlight each drive/partition in the list and select Delete. When the Windows Setup notification appears, select OK. 

Delete every drive in the list except the one that says Unallocated Space. 
When you’re finished, only Drive 0 Unallocated Space should remain.
As of Oct 12, 2019. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000735/windows-10-reinstall

Install DellSupport system
Dell Support website that has your computer information --> Find Drivers. It will find necessary drivers for you.

Download and install Chipset and Sereal ATA.

Check for Windows update.

Restart as needed and it's good to go!

[Note to self] How to make jupyter notebook work upon first installing Anaconda

How to deal with ERROR when first starting to use jupyter notebook.

After installing Anaconda3, type “jupyter notebook” on command line prompt on Windows and it gives an error “jupyter is not recognized as internal or external command.”

You need to go to the controlpanel\System\Advanced system settings\Environment Variables\Path, then hit edit and create 3 new paths:

C:\Users\Anaconda3\Scripts

C:\Users\Anaconda3

C:\Users\Anaconda3\Library\bin

to the end and restart the command line.

This will prevent an SSL error that is bound to happen if you're performing this on a fresh install of Anaconda.

Source of help:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44515769/conda-is-not-recognized-as-internal-or-external-command

Juggling tasks

- Symposium website is to be launched in 2 weeks, but still we are waiting for information from various committees. It's just about sending emails- I don't know why it takes forever.

- Grant writing is close to the final stage, and today nobody was in the office. It's a shame that we can't focus and write in our own office. There's too much distraction around. Then what's the fast computer and the desk for?? Anyways it's true that I'm more efficient under a quiet environment.

- Finished a nice slide thanks to my labmate who made a beautiful template! I like how it looks, and it gives me a sense of achievement. It's amazing how she makes materials that others can use as well. It's not just doing your own job but helping others to do better. Whether you can do extra or not - that's the difference between good and great, I think. 

- It's hard to look for copyright free materials with no attribution requirements. If I put attribution for each image on my side, it'll be very crowded with text and will be hard to read.  How do people deal with it and who should I ask, even?

- It was 50F or 10C today. Suddenly it's winter, even though I wore a short sleeve on Monday. What a Michigan week. It feels very cold especially when I bike!!

- Hopefully it'll be the last note taking day in the field! 

- Too busy to fix my audio issue of my laptop. Now I need to reinstall the OS? Gotta find time for that..

Opening the Earth - the Potato King

Watched a short documentary on potato farmers in a village in a high mountainous area in Peru.

There they are leading a self sustaining life growing potatoes, vegetables, and farm animals. The landscape is stunning with lush mountains, hilly gravel roads, and vast grassland that people trespass. 

For a long time western countries thought those villages are poor and need help. But they didn't see the richness that is not monetary - sure they don't have a lot of things, but their naturalistic lifestyle and strong community bonds are something that the western countries tend to overlook. 

I hope this documentary will help restore self esteem in the villagers and be proud again of their tradition. It's urgent - those villages are disappearing because too many young people are moving out to big cities. It's their choice, and I don't know if encouraging them to stay is another opposite way of intervention, but at least I hope they'll make a decision based on what they want, not because of what they are ashamed of. 

http://openingtheearth.com/

Study, class, & writing

- Sought help in writing a cover letter. It's hard to know what I need. But I got some insights to add to it, so that was good.

- Finally submitted proof of my review paper. I want to be able to edit it now, but that's fine. I'm glad I'm done with it now.

- The flowers of the garden what all pulled up even though they are still blooming and beautiful. I guess it's the end of summer, officially. It has rained so much for the past few weeks. It's making havas difficult. We need to sunny days to let beans dry and another sunny day for us to harvest them. But now it seems like it's hard to get sunshine for consecutive days.

- Went out to run for 20 minutes. Running allows me to forget everything and empty my mind. It's refreshing. It's funny that you can counter mental tiredness with physical tiredness. Just after running, I'm exhausted and catching my breath, but I feel very good. 

- "Starting doing something is the hardest - once you start running, it's easy to do it 5 more minutes. You need the same mental strength that forces you to get out of your bed every day."

- I'm learning a lot about crop breeding for food qualities nowadays. It's interesting to know what consumers want out of a particular crop. The best moment is when what I read about crop qualities connect with what I studied in plant breeding classes.

- This semester I'm reading one paper and one chapter of a book every day on average. It's a lot of reading and I hope my reading speed will improve.

- It's nice to have classmates to talk to. If I were studying for exams alone I would be too stressed. It helps to have this question because I can always learn new perspectives from other people.