Week 2: Slooow

Research:
Finished interferometry processing. Layerstacked and PCA'd results to aid in decisionmaking. Narrowed down area of interest for South African multi-temporal study based on interferometry results. Prepared data & calibration reports for stereo processing of 2003 Reunion aerial photography but ran into software issues. Contacted "tech support".

I am purposely not going into the details of the research I am doing since there is an amount of intellectual capital involved, and I don't want to give everyting away on the internet :-)

Writing:
Didn't write enough. Read the three seminal works that will support Chapter 1, but only wrote few sentences of "Problem statement" section. Fell into the trap of trying to write and edit at the same time instead of just writing. Have to get over this.

Week 1: Small step for man

Research:
Been processing ERS, ALOS and ASAR interferometry this week and creating derivative products. Updated the existing DEM of Réunion with a more up-to-date one to assist in correct geocoding of radar imagery (which necessitated redoing a lot of the inteferometry). Studied the concept of interferometric coherence (still some stuff I don't understand, but getting there).

Writing:
Not much, having only decided yesterday that the time for writing is NOW and not "later". So (embarassingly) belatedly, I have written the first sentence of my PhD today - as in sentence 1, chapter 1. After much deliberation about where one should actually start a PhD (some are of the opinion that chapter one is the last thing you write) I have decided that I need chapter 1 finished and done as soon as possible - if only for my own sanity. And, as always, the "Do it badly, but do it" rule will apply. In fact, I will need to tell myself to "Do it really, really badly, but do it", otherwise I won't ever get anywhere... Damn perfectionism!

Introduction

A warm welcome to visitors, friends and family

Two-Ten is a blog dedicated to the final 30 weeks of my PhD. The defense date has been set for 19 March 2010 - 210 days from today, and one week before my 30th birthday.

Every week, I will write a short update of the progress made during the week, specifically with regards to the writing of the thesis manuscript. View it as an "accountability blog", if you will, and use the comments section to reprimand me if you think I have been slacking (or just use the tick-boxes). For my part it will help to keep me focussed and moving.

Hope to hear from you all soon! First update due tomorrow
Up, up and away!

SJ