158 lines
8.3 KiB
Markdown
158 lines
8.3 KiB
Markdown
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title = "October '25"
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date = 2025-10-31T08:40:43Z
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draft = false
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# 1st
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Ok, let's start the month by declareing some goals and agendas.
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What do I want to do this month?
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- Finish previous semester.
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- Pick the last of the course work for my prep phase.
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- Finalize the CoNEXT student workshop paper.
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- Finish my second RIL.
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- Start my 3rd and last RIL.
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- Learn more Go to become more comfortable with it, but how do I set this as a measureable goal?
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- More literature review, persumabely all of FOCI related papers this month.
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- Work on my codebase:
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1. Do code cleaning
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2. Add comments for code
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3. Start working on ICMP stuff
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- More socializing! :-)
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- A fun pet project? Maybe with Go? Maybe with 3d printer? Idk.
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- Enhance your routines and add exercise to it please!
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Alright. Now that the goals are set, let's start the month strong!
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My last exam for pervious semester will be on October 7th.
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I have done 74 ECTS, another 6 will be my last RIL.
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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.
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I then just need to do my QE for which I should submit my first paper for which I'm doing work!
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I have started to take SSRIs again.
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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.
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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.
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After being all happy and things working very well, we started to cut the last piece of the puzzle.
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We agreed to reduce the dosage by 0.25% of the max and wait for one month.
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Things were going really well for the first two and a half month, and then it happened.
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The catastrophe that put me in my worst mental and physicall position happened to me.
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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.
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It's so sad that things happened the way they did.
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I never really fully recovered.
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But... time has passed.
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Almost 8 months now.
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I should not have continued to cut my medication, but I did.
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I damaged myself badly by being stubborn.
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My brother who knew everything insisted that I should continue the usage, but I didn't listen.
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My parents didn't know anything, but could see thier happy son turning into the saddest, most depressed thing of all time.
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I was scared of my own shadow for more than one month.
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I eventually started to go out, but seeing some certain people made me uncomfortable.
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This is another thing I haven't been able to figure out.
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In the end, I just endured pain, a lot of pain.
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I'm glad I didn't break, but I do think most people would've.
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To deal with this pain, I decided to take many courses.
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Cure pain with more pain.
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What a fool I was.
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I just tore myself up mentally and added much more unneeded stress.
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Did I mention I didn't show up in office for 6 weeks?
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And that when I came back I was hit again with things I didn't understand?
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Sometimes in life shit happens, but this was a whole new level.
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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.
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I've been trying to just lay low, stick to myself, and stay the hell out of trouble.
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# 3rd
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Today is the German unity day, and we have a long weekend ahead!
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Other than that, last night was one of the most fantabolous days of my life.
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I'm feeling more content and secure.
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I'm feeling true happiness.
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I don't know how much the SSRI is affecting me, but I know one thing for sure.
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I'm just like I used to be 9 months ago.
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Just as jolly, positive, and feeling like I'm on top of the world.
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Thinking about it a bit more, I do think I'm being a bit less passionate about my work.
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What could be the reason? Different priorities? Nah. I really love my research and care about it.
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I think it's just that there is no pressure on me, and no deadline.
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I will try to set small deadlines for myself and force myself to be more productive.
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Oh, and the SSRI adverse effects are visible! Yeah... But it's going to be alright, I'm sure of it.
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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.
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# 5th
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My student workshop paper to CoNEXT '25 was rejected.
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It got one weak accept and one weak reject, with both reviewers claiming to have somewhat familiarity with the topic.
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First review (wa) provided two suggestions for improving the work.
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However, as this was a workshop paper, the goal was to talk about the research in the presentation and afterwards fine-tune details.
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Second review (wr) asked for more details.
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In the end they suggested only focusing on one approach and it's evaluation.
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This kinda defeated the purpose of what I was trying to do, to provide "tools".
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Another thing they mentioned was how ML-based traffic analysis can be used to detect evasion.
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This is indeed something I like to work on and look at in the near future.
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# 7th
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Stressful day.
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I had my last exam, the exam for Interactive systems that I did not attend the main exam for.
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I tried to study over the weekend, but some weird things happened throughout the weekend, making my very distracted mind even more distracted.
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I don't know how I did, but I'm glad I did the exam.
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Hopefully I did alright, although I kinda do know some of the mistakes I've made, which is a really bad sign...
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I hope I won't have to take another extra course in the next semesters, that would just be annoying.
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I really do hope so.
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# 8th
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I'm back at work, still very distracted with life.
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I do need to do literature review, expand my framework, and focus on my work.
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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.
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I hope I can get myself together and start being productive again.
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# 9th
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I will be doing literature review today.
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Yesteday I didn't manage to get myself together. Drat.
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There will be a nice social event later today too.
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I can rest and socialize with my group's amazing people!
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It'll be fun! :)
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Another fun thing is that I will get my very own physical GFW box today.
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It's probably the most majestic thing that could've happened?
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The reason for it is that a month ago there was a leak for GFW.
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Lucky us I guess.
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# 13th
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Last week was again not a productive week.
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I will start to plan my days from now on.
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The important things are literature review, working on the code base, and looking at the box a bit.
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Unfortunately the new semester also starts from today.
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I'll be having one, at most two courses.
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# 17th
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Another unproductive week.
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I think this was the worst one actually.
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I can't focus on reading the papers, I get distracted easily or lose interest.
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Tobias suggested USENIX's 3-slide slide deck to enhance my focus, I'll give it a try.
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I also need to address the elephant in the room, and start working on the codebase.
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I also need to look at the GFW files more, and try to find useful stuff there.
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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.
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---
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# 31st
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It went by.
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It went by quickly.
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I wasn't able to pick myself up this month, but I won't let it happen in the following.
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I want to be truthful, so I won't hide anything.
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the only thing is I should've let myself grief a bit, and I did. I'm proud of it. It's fine.
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For next month, I will start strong, try to get myself together, and pick myself up. I will make progress.
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I promise.
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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.
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Ok, let's set some goals for next month in advance, then we can see how good we did.
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- I want to work on ICMP stuff and make it work nicely.
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- I want to do more literature review, maybe read all 2025 and 2024 censorship papers. Cross your fingers for this.
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- I need to keep up with my courses, including the German class.
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- 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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{{< sigdl >}}
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