I'm having a hard time right now. Since I wrote last, there have been multiple additional reasons for me to be frustrated both with my field and my country, but I am choosing to follow the words of the serenity prayer.
Instead of throwing myself into frustration forever, I have chosen two alternate routes for directing my attention: research and recreation.
Research
In the last two months, I have received an accept I didn't expect, a major revision that I had no hope for, and a reject that I thought was a surefire accept. All in all, a thoroughly mixed bag.
I'm now working on that revision, extending the reject (originally 4 pages) to a full paper (by adding 12 pages!), collaborating with someone else on a third project (albeit limitedly), and preparing a position paper. Some of these are due within the next week and the rest within the month, so that's quite a bit to do.
The revision is due the latest, so that's sitting on the back burner for now; to be honest, I'm not quite sure what to do with it just yet, anyways. I'm thankful that I have multiple colleagues for this paper, because it's gonna be a doozy. This work is one I'm really proud of, even if I'm not sure it'll be the most earth-shattering.
The reject is not as hard as it sounds to bring back from the grave, as most of this is a storyline problem. The original submission was the densest piece of writing I've ever committed to page, and presented a solution with effectively no corresponding storyline. As a result, while I'm disappointed that the value of the work didn't stand on its own, I can't be too mad; the paper really didn't give enough context as to why it's important. Hopefully the new version I'm preparing will be more palatable. The use of "I" throughout is intentional: this paper is single-author, not as a point of pride, but as a test for myself. I'll be done with my PhD soon, and I want to make sure I have a "vibe" for good technical writing nailed down for post-doc time. That being said, I'll still hand this off to be reviewed for editing and content purposes; no researcher is an island.
The collaborative work pains me slightly. This is a project for which I've been a collaborator pretty strictly in brainstorming and as devil's advocate. I think my contributions have non-trivially improved the work, but I wish I could do more; it irks me to have no code contributions, and irks me further that I've been pretty AWOL on the writing part as well, simply because I've been otherwise occupied by stress from other work and everything else going on in the world.
The position paper is a curious one. I've never written a proper position paper, only voiced my opinion on the internet in this blog. The idea of a peer-reviewed position paper is somewhat amusing to me, because this implies that unpopular opinions are likely to be rejected at face -- especially when it comes to the topic that we plan to discuss. If accepted, though, I think it could be quite important, as it generally addresses a lot of what I've been talking about in the last few years. Not sure how impactful it can be, though.
Past all of these, there are many other projects I want to pursue in the following months, once all this submission chaos is over. Some of them I've shared with colleagues, who have already achieved impressive results with only a short period of development. These may become the first papers on which I am a supervisor rather than a first author or collaborator, but I'll admit I'm too excited to commit code to some of these to let them be a strictly supervisory role.
Recreation
There are two major events that have direly affected my time usage in the last two weeks: first, Netflix added the Bond films to their catalogues, and second, I bought Stardew Valley.
The Bond films are a bit of a nostalgic bender for me. In the last few days, I caught up with some of the newer ones that came out after I stopped really going to films in theatres, and man, they were bad. Casino Royale: spectacular. Quantum of Solace: alright, but I've already forgotten the plot. Spectre? So horrible that I didn't bother to watch the most recent one; I just popped on some older ones and laughed at the novelty of it all.
Except, things aren't so contrived anymore. I watched some of these old films and realised how prescient they were, and how ignorant I was to global political shenanigans as a kid. Global superpowers and greedy individuals fighting over resources, manufacturing crises, etc. Ironically, the older films captured this far better than the modern ones. In some ways, it was cathartic, and in others, saddening; we've always been this way, haven't we?
Then, of course, the protagonist does some crazy chase scene, defuses the bomb, gets the girl (presuming she isn't killed in some manner that somehow ends with a nude body obscured by some material incompatible with life), and drives off into the sunset. The overtly masculine themes hit different nowadays, of course, but even back when I watched them as a kid we'd roll our eyes and fast forward through the ridiculous male fantasy nonsense. It still makes me reminisce of "easier" times, though.
Stardew Valley, on the other hand, is a new experience. I don't normally play "maintenance" games, but I had heard good things about it for relaxing purposes and decided to give it a go. It's certainly fun, but I would not call it de-stressing whatsoever; I've become too used to optimising in games and ended up stressing myself out to squeeze out the last few cents, at least at first.
After about 30 hours of play time (context: I bought this game a week and a half ago), I realised that I didn't need to be so nitpicky, so precise. I planted less to reduce my watering load, I sold some animals, and otherwise put the controller down more often. That all said, I fear I may have somehow burnt myself out of playing Stardew, so I'll have to come back to it another time.
Why
Today's research rant is less about a precise event in research or anything. Hell, I didn't even mention what my papers I'm working on are about. This one is more of a follow-up to my last, which garnered some check-ins from colleagues. Honestly, I'm surprised to know that several of you even read this; you know who you are!
I am very angry about the state of the world. But this is merely one part of existence; I can't meaningfully affect that now, so I'm not going to dedicate more of my (already limited) time to it than it needs. I'm very proud of my countrymen for their work in holding power to account, to the degree that they can, and thoroughly frustrated with their representatives who are utterly failing to represent them. I wish for better times and hope that everyone remains safe, not just in the US, but everyone fighting for their rights. The backdrop of what is happening in the US pales to many of the crises elsewhere, and it's not even new in the US, just expanded in scope.
I hope you all reading this can find your solace, whether that be in the busy hands of work or in the somehow busier hands of recreation. See you in a couple weeks.