The Raven and the Stormcrow

Ah, procastination. Sometimes it can save you time and effort.. sometimes it just makes you look like an idiot. I guess in the case of our blog, I got a little bit of both. Here's something that happened a month ago:

During the sembreak, I went to the beautiful island of Bohol. It's part of a standing tradition: the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas congress, a gathering of physicists from all over the Philippines. Mostly to have lunch, but also to present our most recent research results and listen to others. Well, it's also something to put in a resume, though the congress is far from being a IEEE journal.

The research in question was my undergrad thesis, which I defended in the last schoolyear. It was about the fabrication and testing of semiconductor lasers.. not very intellectualy challenging, but it takes a bit of skill since each laser is about the size of the head of an ant.

Bohol itself was great. I like being in the provinces.. stuff is so cheap compared to what I'm willing to pay in the metro, particularly the food and services. I also got to swim around a bit at the resort the conference was held in, though I didn't stick around for the tour.

When I got back, I quit my lab.

Not that I had anything against the lab.. I enjoyed it. It was one and a half years of late night experiments to do my thesis, and that kinda grows on you after a while. But for some reason I never appreciated the science of semiconductors, and it's not satisfying to be just an experimentalist without understanding the theory behind it. And I guess there's also the nagging feeling that I was only in the semicon lab because Pat's lab wouldn't let me in, years ago.

So now, I'm in the process of jumping over to Theoretica, and trying out the other side. I'm also wondering whether I should leave physics entirely, and try my hand at Economics, or CompSci.

It's a little late to be indecisive about my career path.. or maybe a little early to have a midlife crisis. Either way, don't ask me what I see myself working on ten years from now, because I'm still thinking about it. Because it's important to be true to yourself... and it's only work if you don't enjoy it.

Labels: photos, vacation, work