# October '25

October 31, 2025 · 8 min · Iman Alipour Comments

# 1st#

Ok, let’s start the month by declareing some goals and agendas.

What do I want to do this month?

- Finish previous semester.
- Pick the last of the course work for my prep phase.
- Finalize the CoNEXT student workshop paper.
- Finish my second RIL.
- Start my 3rd and last RIL.
- Learn more Go to become more comfortable with it, but how do I set this as a measureable goal?
- More literature review, persumabely all of FOCI related papers this month.
- Work on my codebase:
  1. Do code cleaning
  2. Add comments for code
  3. Start working on ICMP stuff
- More socializing! :-)
- A fun pet project? Maybe with Go? Maybe with 3d printer? Idk.
- Enhance your routines and add exercise to it please!

Alright. Now that the goals are set, let’s start the month strong! My last exam for pervious semester will be on October 7th. I have done 74 ECTS, another 6 will be my last RIL. If they give me Router Lab, 4 of it would count as ungraded along with an advance course such as either NN, ML sec or EML I would be done with the requirements for my prep phase. I then just need to do my QE for which I should submit my first paper for which I’m doing work!

I have started to take SSRIs again. I used to take them before I came to Germany to start my PhD, but after coming here things were going really well for many months, and I wanted to cut the medication. I was taking more than just SSRIs actually, and my psychiatrist agreed to cut all other three medications but advised me to keep taking my SSRI. After being all happy and things working very well, we started to cut the last piece of the puzzle. We agreed to reduce the dosage by 0.25% of the max and wait for one month. Things were going really well for the first two and a half month, and then it happened. The catastrophe that put me in my worst mental and physicall position happened to me. It’s not something I want to talk about in my blog, well at least for now, but I’ve tried to talk about it with my closest friends. It’s so sad that things happened the way they did. I never really fully recovered. But… time has passed. Almost 8 months now. I should not have continued to cut my medication, but I did. I damaged myself badly by being stubborn. My brother who knew everything insisted that I should continue the usage, but I didn’t listen. My parents didn’t know anything, but could see thier happy son turning into the saddest, most depressed thing of all time. I was scared of my own shadow for more than one month. I eventually started to go out, but seeing some certain people made me uncomfortable. This is another thing I haven’t been able to figure out. In the end, I just endured pain, a lot of pain. I’m glad I didn’t break, but I do think most people would’ve. To deal with this pain, I decided to take many courses. Cure pain with more pain. What a fool I was. I just tore myself up mentally and added much more unneeded stress.

Did I mention I didn’t show up in office for 6 weeks? And that when I came back I was hit again with things I didn’t understand? Sometimes in life shit happens, but this was a whole new level. I don’t know how much of this I want to talk about publicly, but I do want to just say that I was hurt really badly. I’ve been trying to just lay low, stick to myself, and stay the hell out of trouble.

# 3rd#

Today is the German unity day, and we have a long weekend ahead! Other than that, last night was one of the most fantabolous days of my life. I’m feeling more content and secure. I’m feeling true happiness. I don’t know how much the SSRI is affecting me, but I know one thing for sure. I’m just like I used to be 9 months ago. Just as jolly, positive, and feeling like I’m on top of the world. Thinking about it a bit more, I do think I’m being a bit less passionate about my work. What could be the reason? Different priorities? Nah. I really love my research and care about it. I think it’s just that there is no pressure on me, and no deadline. I will try to set small deadlines for myself and force myself to be more productive. Oh, and the SSRI adverse effects are visible! Yeah… But it’s going to be alright, I’m sure of it. I have an exam I need to prepare for on 7th, but I’ve been procrastinating. I should plan my days and stick to it. Hell yes.

# 5th#

My student workshop paper to CoNEXT ‘25 was rejected. It got one weak accept and one weak reject, with both reviewers claiming to have somewhat familiarity with the topic.

First review (wa) provided two suggestions for improving the work. However, as this was a workshop paper, the goal was to talk about the research in the presentation and afterwards fine-tune details.

Second review (wr) asked for more details. In the end they suggested only focusing on one approach and it’s evaluation. This kinda defeated the purpose of what I was trying to do, to provide “tools”.

Another thing they mentioned was how ML-based traffic analysis can be used to detect evasion. This is indeed something I like to work on and look at in the near future.

# 7th#

Stressful day. I had my last exam, the exam for Interactive systems that I did not attend the main exam for. I tried to study over the weekend, but some weird things happened throughout the weekend, making my very distracted mind even more distracted. I don’t know how I did, but I’m glad I did the exam. Hopefully I did alright, although I kinda do know some of the mistakes I’ve made, which is a really bad sign… I hope I won’t have to take another extra course in the next semesters, that would just be annoying. I really do hope so.

# 8th#

I’m back at work, still very distracted with life. I do need to do literature review, expand my framework, and focus on my work. It’s a Wednesday unfortunately, meaning I have my German class until 9:30, which today it lasted until 9:45, and then we have cookies at 14:00. I hope I can get myself together and start being productive again.

# 9th#

I will be doing literature review today. Yesteday I didn’t manage to get myself together. Drat. There will be a nice social event later today too. I can rest and socialize with my group’s amazing people! It’ll be fun! :)

Another fun thing is that I will get my very own physical GFW box today. It’s probably the most majestic thing that could’ve happened? The reason for it is that a month ago there was a leak for GFW. Lucky us I guess.

# 13th#

Last week was again not a productive week. I will start to plan my days from now on. The important things are literature review, working on the code base, and looking at the box a bit. Unfortunately the new semester also starts from today. I’ll be having one, at most two courses.

# 17th#

Another unproductive week. I think this was the worst one actually. I can’t focus on reading the papers, I get distracted easily or lose interest. Tobias suggested USENIX’s 3-slide slide deck to enhance my focus, I’ll give it a try.

I also need to address the elephant in the room, and start working on the codebase.

I also need to look at the GFW files more, and try to find useful stuff there.

But first I need to work on HTDN’s papers, and craft the slides. That is the highest priority on my list. I’ll do it.

# 31st#

It went by. It went by quickly. I wasn’t able to pick myself up this month, but I won’t let it happen in the following. I want to be truthful, so I won’t hide anything. the only thing is I should’ve let myself grief a bit, and I did. I’m proud of it. It’s fine. For next month, I will start strong, try to get myself together, and pick myself up. I will make progress. I promise.

Also I think there is no point in me ranting everyday or every once in a while in my PhD journey posts? Maybe it’s not a bad thing. The problem is I don’t have much to present, and that’s why this is the content. Idk if I change the structure or not, but for now it is what it is.

Ok, let’s set some goals for next month in advance, then we can see how good we did.

- I want to work on ICMP stuff and make it work nicely.
- I want to do more literature review, maybe read all 2025 and 2024 censorship papers. Cross your fingers for this.
- I need to keep up with my courses, including the German class.
- I might work more on the GFW leaked data, but I think it’s not a priority for me for now. So… scrap this last one.

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