[Almost] two months... already?!

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to do a challenge -- a 30-day drawing challenge -- where I would draw anime characters everyday. I enjoyed it. In fact, I managed to explore anime I have already watched years before and anime that are currently running. I also got to test my patience and ink pen skills. Yes, I loved it.

But I didn't finish the challenge.

What happened?

Well, a lot of things happened.

1. I got lazy.

I mentioned this in a couple of posts already. When I start something, I tend to not see it to the end. I get demotivated easily. I get lazy. It's crazy!

2. I attended a 3-week training.

This one took a lot of my time and energy. I wasn't part of the training at first, but one of my colleagues canceled his slot, and I stepped in. I didn't know it would run for three weeks, but it did.

Image credit to Helloquence on Unsplash.

The training was on data analysis and processing using Matlab. Matlab is a programming tool generally used by scientists and mathematics alike for data analysis and processing. Other tools like Matlab -- for comparison -- are Maple, Wolfram Mathematica, and Scilab. Operations-wise, it improves just as much as Python does over the years.

During the training, we explored a lot of things including image and signal processing, machine learning, object detection (we literally just learned how to identify objects in a video!), and neural networks.

As much as I learned so much, I also enjoyed the whole thing. The training was hosted at our workplace by Matlab (they were courting us to have Matlab installhed in our HPC facility), and we were trained by instructors and prominent professors from the UP Diliman-EEEI. It was a blast.

3. Work happened.

Trainings took up the whole days of 3 weeks, so my work-related tasks had to be done outside of work if I wanted to get them done soon. Said tasks include a lot of data mining and data wrangling. I also had to do a lot of journal and forum reading, and let's not forget coding with Python.

Image credit to Chris Ried on Unslpash.

Work wouldn't feel like work if without complications. I had to rerun my scripts many times because of my own errors. I had to revise and experiment so much there wasn't a day I wouldn't suffer from sever headaches (or were they already migraines?). Once during training, I blacked out for a few seconds while in the middle of talking. It was such a surprising and weird situation that I was weirded out the whole day.

4. Got hyped up by other things.

First by the deployment of the Philippines' first ever cube satellite, MAYA-1. Of course, this wasn't the country's first space venture, but it's still worthy of attention, in my opinion. I plan to write about this one of these days, but I think I'm severely biased. Hehe. I am proud to say that I work for one of the organizations that made this venture possible.

1:1 replica of DIWATA-2 during this year's National Science and Technology Week.

@coarebabes before exploring the World Trade Center, Manila for the many scientific exhibits. @charlocked and @mind-candy were both preparing for their hosting gig in a science forum for that day.

Then there's this year's National Science and Technology Week (NSTW). It isn't new to some of you how big of a science person I am. I love new innovations. I love new ideas. And this year's NSTW truly captivated me in a lot of ways. I plan to write about this in one of these days, too.

I missed a lot.

In the long time I have been absent, I know that I have missed so much. I can't excuse myself enough. However, I vow come back soon. (Not now, unfortunately. I am in the process of starting to write a new scientific paper and this part always gets me shook for life.)

So much has happened in my life, and there are many things that I have also learned while I was away. I can't wait to share them with you.

I miss Steemit, and I miss you, you who reads this.

Love,

Aira