mirastudiesphysics

[mirastudiesphysics]

careers in science & academia are so Cassandra-coded. you possess a Great and Burdensome Knowledge (at heavy cost*), which is both its own reward and its own punishment. and no one fucking listens to you

[mirastudiesphysics]

8.6.25 (5/100 days of productivity)

final physics exam tomorrow & it’s 4 hours idk if i can lock in for that long

[mirastudiesphysics]

22 June 2025

Hay fever is killing me this year and the OTC stuff is doing a 3/5 star job. Guess I'll have to start seeing an allergologist again (for the first time since I was like... 11? lol). I don't let it stop me from powering through chem tech though!! The final is tomorrow and I'm feeling pretty confident about it - I've studied quite a lot and I think I'll manage to fill in all the gaps in my knowledge today :)

[mirastudiesphysics]

it's the start of the week, there's still time!

[mirastudiesphysics]

i dont give a FUCK any more man this has gone TOO far i'm deleting ALL the exclamation points from my work emails. that's right. i hope you have a good weekend. and no more than that

[mirastudiesphysics]

[mirastudiesphysics]

Astronomers are just a little insane for the amount of work we will do to keep things free and accessible. Anyways, here's this almost ~700 page textbook on statistical machine learning for astronomy: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.12230 , by Yuan-Sen Ting

The book starts with the basics of probability (what is a random variable, Gaussian distributions, etc.) and works from the ground up to MCMC and neural networks.

[mirastudiesphysics]

do you have any advice for reading journal papers? sometimes the material is so dense I find them difficult to read!

some of these coincide with general study tips but here's a list from my experience:

Printing out papers—I tried using a computer and it just doesn't work for me

Reading in the order of abstract—introduction—conclusion—results/discussion—methods. Reading the conclusion towards the beginning helps me connect things more easily

Having a "scrap" notebook to just jot down thoughts—It can be important stuff or just figuring out basic concepts or doodling. Allowing my brain to wander helps me process what I'm reading. Nothing needs to be neat or organized since I write up notes after anyways

Having a "scrap" notes doc for citations or links with brief descriptions of what it is. You can also use this to copy/paste important quotes and put a link/pg #. I get overwhelmed having too many tabs open—if you are not reading for a specific research project this is not usually necessary and can be too much if you are just starting to read journal papers

I recommend looking up things you are unsure of, even if they seem elementary—however if it's taking too long, just put a question mark and come back to it... Its a process to know your limits

Having a pomodoro-like timer—mine is set to 32m, with 8-16m breaks. Reading continuously makes it harder (at least for me). Sometimes I'll put it down and restart the next day if it feels like a bunch of jumble

Changing environment, being in public study spaces (e.g. library) helps me focus and other people studying puts pressure on me to not constantly check my phone

Check if your school has a journal club in your subject area. It can seem like a lot at first but it exposes you to the language and eventually you'll be able to connect the dots. Also don't be afraid to ask questions, journal clubs are specifically made for discussion of papers!

You can also ask questions to professors in that field, whether in class or by email (although a lot of professors tend to not be great at answering emails)

Trying to do too many things at once will overwhelm me so its mostly me finding ways to organize my brain. It's going to be different for everyone but hopefully some of these helps!

My current reading is centered around the same topic so I started with an overview paper (like a "review" paper) then I started reading more specific papers. Reading about the same topic goes faster since you are familiar with the language / concepts.

I will say some physicist (or some STEM people) are not... the greatest writers so it does make it a little bit more difficult to read. It's okay if it takes you a few days to read a paper, as with most things you'll get better/faster with practice.

[mirastudiesphysics]

Three things that I could work on today:

Media prep

Write technical document

Validation tests

I need to just pick at least one. What usually happens when I have such a broad range of tasks to do is I end up choosing nothing. Not the best scenario.

[mirastudiesphysics]

Above image is a pride flag with every color band represented by a NASA image. White is Earth clouds, pink is aurora, blue is the Sun in a specific wavelength, brown is Jupiter clouds, black is the Hubble deep field, red is the top of sprites, orange is a Mars crater, yellow is the surface of Io, green is a lake with algae, blue is Neptune, and purple is the Crab Nebula in a specific wavelength.

[mirastudiesphysics]

Dear theory of everything anon, I see your ask and will reply. I'm just extremely busy the next week or so and would rather put together a decent answer when I have more time

[mirastudiesphysics]

20 june 2025

I've probably read a solid 10 papers and skimmed a lot more in the past 2-3 weeks 😃 surprisingly I'm not tired enough from reading journal papers and I started a new book haha, its called "six crimson cranes" by elizabeth lim

🎧 | hollow - stray kids

[mirastudiesphysics]

It's kind of jarring being called a PhD candidate at this point. It's been months since my preliminary exam, and the status didn't take affect until this summer due to the timing. So I've spent half a year effectively at candidacy without the formal title. It has mattered so little that I basically forgot. Is this a bigger distinction in other fields? I just don't really get the point besides updating your email signature (of which I don't use one since most of my communication is on slack anyway)

[mirastudiesphysics]

guys. please

[mirastudiesphysics]

the twisting road

[mirastudiesphysics]

"just write a little every day" ok but what if i write nothing for 3 weeks and then suddenly type like i’m being hunted by god

[mirastudiesphysics]