A day in Gainesville

 Today I throwback to a day that stands out in Gainesville, FL. When I lived in Gainesville, I was working towards my PhD. My days were filled with lots of work. I enjoyed  my PhD courses and tried to do my best at assignments. I made time for other things too. I have several videos from Gainesville. One is a video of a busy highway close to my old apartment. One day, when I went for a usual walk up the road from my apartment, I recorded the video. I remember a police officer came to see what I was doing. Link to video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mbdzNZW5R4A&t=2s.

#ThrowbackThursday

Appointment

 I had an appointment yesterday. It was good to be out and about. The appointment (with my doctor) went well. My blood pressure was normal again. The changes in my blood pressure are worrisome. I am gaining weight again. It is a problem. 

Reviewing

 I spent some time reviewing my information in ResearchGate, Academia.edu, and Google Scholar. The profiles show my school/university as Northcentral University. I would like to update the school/university to National University (Northcentral changed its name to National University) but there is one important issue. I am not enrolled at this time and therefore unable to verify my institutional email address. The school can verify that I am a PhD student on a break. The school is also aware of my publishing efforts.

I noticed a new feature in Academia.edu - podcasts for listening to research papers. The podcasts led me to some interesting research. One is a paper on Designing the User Experience for C4ISR Systems in the US Army. The paper indicates that user experience is important for even military systems. I am happy that this information is shared with non-military professionals. Link to paper: https://www.academia.edu/76955353/Designing_the_User_Experience_for_C4ISR_Systems_in_the_U_S_Army.

I also noticed that ORCID now allows featured works on a profile. I featured some of my papers in my ORCID profile. 

 

Update

 It is a cold, quiet Saturday (49 degrees Fahrenheit). Everything seems still. I will not be doing much today. I am currently enjoying some green tea. Maybe I'll watch TV or watch a movie on YouTube. 

Yesterday I found an interesting paper on happiness -- The Secret to Happiness Lies Within You, Or Society - Or Both (https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/secret-happiness-lies-within-you-or-society-or-both) by A. Fell. A quote from the paper:

"'But we all know people in our lives who experience traumatic events yet seem to be happy,' Beck said. ... This suggests a 'top-down' perspective, where happiness comes not from external circumstances, but from personal attitudes and qualities, implying that we can improve happiness by improving our mental states through practices such as mindfulness meditation or therapy, rather than by targeting external factors."

Thoughts on a Friday

 I am feeling less stressed and burdened today (some may say lighthearted). My eye still feels weird and I have other issues but I feel good. Listening to music also does this. 

I found a deck of cards in my home. Similar to my current situation, cards may be viewed as evil (associated with gambling and so on) but cards could also be used for fun. For example, snap using cards is a game of matching and fun. I remember playing snap at President's College. The girls enjoyed it. (See more on snap here: https://bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/snap/).  I also found a post that shared positive lessons learned from cards (https://grammargoddess.com/lessons-learned-from-playing-cards/). Isn't it interesting? What does this all mean?

I need more days like today. 

A little active

 It is a new day. Today I decided to continue sending my papers to journals for publishing. I did just that. I also need to continue working on the compensation paper. I like that I am active in some way (on a good day such as today).

Update

 I had an appointment yesterday. There were problems all over. Even the check in kiosk behaved in a weird way. My blood pressure was high again. I never had high blood pressure. Are these signs?