- 8 February 2022
- 25 January 2022
- 7 December 2021
- 23 November 2021
- 26 October 2021
- 12 October 2021
- 14 September 2021
- 17 August 2021
- 3 August 2021
- 22 June 2021
Sophia & Kirstie meet every 2 weeks on Tuesdays
- SL with prepping for their presentation.
- 👫 with a trip up to York to see their family.
- SSI kick off event was last week, had some backchannel chats with others who were feeling nervous.
- Neuro/VR group in NZ was having trouble with setting comp env up for data analysis - I send through some resources and gave general support.
- 🧠 have asked if I want to do some more contract work which keeps the heat on wonderfully - am helping them sort out an SBIR application which feels super useful!
- AB with some excellent advice during co-working that helped me feel like I was going in the right direction
- The entire co-working team on Slack huddles (the sound of folks typing away made me so productive!) ⌨️
- 👫 with support and checking over my document drafts (and everything in between).
- SG with some sanity checks and helped so so so, so so, so much as a sounding board.
- KW (obviously!!) with very actionable advice on how to to get the document focused and across the line.
- COVER LETTER AND CV WERE DONE AND SUBMITTED!!
- Had an awesome SSI kick off (internet was patchy so I was camera off but it was SO FAB!)
- GA & I started brain storming and making a plan for MozFest.
- Spread the good word of Binder (to the neuro/vr folks in NZ doing hyperscanning work).
- Writing!!! Was 100% in my own way and struggled with getting out of my own head.
- Felt like spending most of Jan sick has eaten away at time that I didn't exactly have loads of.
- Interview prep
- 2 other job apps (less high stakes ones this time 😅)
- Documentation updating for AutSPACEs' Design + the View Experiences plan - I'll need to do some deep thinking which will start later this week and feed in to next week.
- MozFest & SXSW prep.
- possibly a non-specific mock interview: to practice answering questions and thinking on my feet.
- Syncing up about MozFest presentation.
- 👫 with freezer meals
- KW: Oh GOOD, I'm glad 🥣
- Contract work got completed where it felt like my contribution had a massive impact
- KW: How cool is THAT?! Fabulous 🙌
- EK with a coffee chat about what they did during their SSI fellowship and generally about the cool work they do as a Community Manager
- KW: Lovely!! 💜
- Friend coworked with me for a while which gave a super productivity boost
- KW: Mega helpful ✨
- 👫 did so much work at home while I was unwell
- KW: Oh yay, and you deserve to be taken care of 🧹
- ✅ 2 draft CVs that I ran through an ATS to check (and now have concrete things to improve)
- KW: REALLY helpful to see what biases the AI propagates 😉
- ✅ Sent a visa extension request over to the Home Office
- KW: Fingers crossed! COME ON UK Home Office!!! 🤞🤞
- 💬 had a DSG debrief with the team about how the DSG facilitator role went
- KW: Love the discussion in the meeting - how fun. I'm really glad that you were able to give this feedback!
- SSI FELLOWSHIP WAS ANNOUNCED!! 🎉
- KW: LOOK AT YOU!! https://www.software.ac.uk/about/fellows/sophia-batchelor
- Congratulations 🎊🎊🎊
- Really bad illness. Have been off work since 7 Jan and am at a bit of a reduced capacity now.
- KW: Booooooo - keep taking care of yourself!! 🤒
- CVs
- View Experiences page for AutSPACEs
- Need to manage workload as I'm still a touch under the weather and don't have as much capacity as usual this week.
- Feedback on a CV (ETA: Fri 28rd || Deadline: Thur 3rd). I'll be specific about the feedback, right now the struggle is formating/readability.
- KW: Good chat about the CV - cover letter more important to focus on at this point 👀
- SSI brainstorming. Strategic brainblast to see where opportunities to feed into TTW, AutSPACEs etc are. No deadline and I have not thought deeply about it yet so would be open to seeing what could be possible.
- KW: Ah - we didn't get to this! Shout if you'd like a dog walk chat one evening before the kickoff!
- Retro/recap of the SL-KW-SB meeting (feedback would be helpful in order to improve future collaborative meetings)
- Was sending the email and agenda ahead of time useful? (would a PR be better in the future?)
- KW: Doing the thinking ahead of time is the MOST important point. I like the PR personally, it demonstrates best practice that I'm keen for TPS team members to showcase.
- Personally I don't need the email and agenda ahead of time but I know colleagues for whom that is VERY useful. So I think my steer is to keep up with that good practice!
- Was the balance of chairing and sharing effective for communicating between everyone?
- KW: Yes - I have no memories of the meeting being anything but smooth 🚀
- Would you have expected summary notes or action items written somewhere to be rechecked over by you?
- KW: Yes, ideally in GitHub issues, but I wouldn't need to see them. But see my note above that others would likely really appreciate this opportunity so if you can fit it into your workflow then that's fantastic!
- Do you have any general requests or things that would have made the meeting better?
- KW: Discussed in meeting - I thought the meeting was excellent! The preparation and collaborative working with SL really shows!
- Was sending the email and agenda ahead of time useful? (would a PR be better in the future?)
- AC with getting set up with the DSG
- AB/TPS giving a small presentation on using github to manage projects (made my first Zenodo upload!)
- SG with ideas for how to set up templates for presentations
- DSG - somehow ended up being tech support (to a very limited extent!) for the first day 🐛💻
- SL with some feature prioritization for the AutSPACEs homepage
KW: THANK YOU - so helpful!
- FN with scoping out what the Data Safe Haven can (and can't) do
- JD with a supportive note on the daily check in
- AC with the organization and getting messages to our DSG group
- AB and DC with a great discussion during lab meeting during GA's exercise. It was cool to hear DC's thought process and how they're approaching their project.
- EK with a lovely lovely message about some group work I was part of last Thursday.
- The DSG's PI who was so helpful in understanding the project and gave great feedback on our ideas.
- Whitaker Lab's Christmas catch up. It was so lovely to see people and to share some holiday joy (AB's cookies were incredible), so a massive thank you to KW for organizing it.
- SL has been doing a lot of work keeping up with github comment threads, they've also started doing the prep notes for meetings which has been so helpful.
KW: These are delightful 🎇
- MozFest talk go accepted! (I've blocked off the calendar)
- Started DSG 👩💻!! It's really cool and the group is awesome.
- Had an AMAZING collaboration day last Thursday which I learnt a lot from (implicit skills of collaboration and communication, and explicit knowledge of tools).
- Finished a feature prioritization workshop for AutSPACEs' homepage (using MoSCoW method - info about what MoSCoW is here) which will help move the design forward.
- Got overwhelmed with the amount of socialization and seeing people. I haven't really done big group things in person for a while. They were so fun and I'm so glad I was invited, just did not realize how rusty my social skills were.
- KW: HUGS!
- Ended up facilitating DSG after reflecting about where I was and what I wanted to get out of the DSG.
- KW: Loooooooolzzzzz - I am unsurprised. Glad you're using your strengths, be careful not to burn out!
- Email backlog is piling up, I scanned the lab's HackMD from a while back for some strategies but am tempted to put an
out of officeon while working on DSG.- KW: I like this OOO plan 💯
- The Safe Haven!! Oh my gosh it's so hard to get set up and figure out what's going wrong when you get an error!
- KW: 😭 I hope you can find a way forwards with the team. Please note all the pain points for the RAM when they start!!
- DSG is my main focus.
- Unblocking any AutSPACEs tasks so that SL can move ahead.
- Pretty a-okay. DSG is relatively self contained and has support from the organizers.
- SL internship, was working through various pieces for AutSPACEs
- GA with MozFest application
- KW: Fingers crossed!
- Neuosity (old company) reached out for some advice 🧠🤖
- MS with her amazing talk during lab meeting last week. I previously thought that Community Managers were incredibly talented people who worked hard, and now I'm convinced that they're wizards 🧙
- KW: How fab!! Send her a screenshot of this sentence when you merge the PR 🪄 😉
- 👫's new job, I'm now the chaffeur and helped manage household tasks so they could focus on transitioning into the new job.
- KW: Great stuff!!
- SL taking on more responsibility and initiave lightened the workload while also being so awesome to see (development wise).
- KW: Great stuff - and well self-reflected and communicated
- SG had a good conversation about imposter syndrome
- KW: 💙
- KW with a really good talk last thursday with Data Study Group advice and various other things
- KW: I'm glad this was useful
- PwC offered research space (not that it can be used, but it was good to know that there was a solution somewhere)
- International Students office held a "cover letter and CV for the UK job market" workshop
- KW: That does sounds really useful!
- Attended a cool workshop on meta-analyses and literature reviews which was good general upskilling
- KW: Very cool
- Had a really good call with a mentor on Wednesday about life
- KW: 🌺
- Organized
platform-designsrepo in/AutisticaCizizenScience - Started writing READMEs for
platform-designsso that people could onboard and the design process was open and more collaborative - MozFest application for AutSPACEs
- Checked in with Leeds (no news)
- Got through to the next stage of a fellowship
- KW: YAAAAAAAY!! 🚀🌟
- Started motif/illustration work with Scriberia for AutSPACEs
- KW: Thank you for starting this process! ♾️
- Did 2 job interviews. The process and preparing was informative (in that I'm not totally ready to go back into a highly technical role yet as the interview was fine but prepping for it was more than I should have taken on).
- KW: FINGERS CROSSED!! (And feel free to say no if you don't want the role - always good to be offered!)
- New "way of working" has been tiring (longer days and mentally draining to commute in heavy traffic)
- Imposter Syndrome flared when a BCI/neurotech company reached out and I fell back into burnout
- Technical interview prep (optimization algorithms and online neurophys analysis is very rusty)
- KW: YOU DID IT! 💪
- Preparing for Data Study Group (pre-research, brushing up on skills).
- Templates and workflow for Soledad/AutSPACEs so that the two/three weeks off won't derail progress.
- General check in that my presence in lab is contributive and helpful
- KW: Good chat in the meeting. Short answer: very much yes. (And your worth is not related to your productivity!)
- You mentioned during coffee that the templates would be useful for The Turing Way, we'd also chatted about product design (and responsible workflows). I don't have capacity until after Data Study Group, but what is it that would be useful?
- KW: How to communicate your updates in a collaboration - following a template etc! 💞
- Development plan for Soledad's internship. Requirements are that she fully implement something (involves code), it would be helpful to brainstorm and ensure that something is appropriately scoped.
- KW: Don't get too het up about the phrasing of "fully implement"!! She's already doing an awful lot - aim for something small and achievable (a search bar? getting the colours looking good etc!)
- MIT Reality Hack ran this weekend and it involved a lot of world building (in VR) and I was roped in to help run the event
- Lots of things going on at home 🏠
- Jumped on with some of the Hacktober github threads (not as much as I would have liked)
- Picked friends up from the airport for a conference
- Am supporting a VR research team back in NZ with some work
- Had a design work session for AutSPACEs 🎨
- LC with jumping in to chair lab
- Synced with some VR folk and am pulling together the visa application. Am incredibly grateful to everyone for their support.
- Had an informal "let's circle back after this conference" job talk which gave me a lot of hope
- KW chat over job prospects
- Had 2 job interviews
- Chatted with a recruiter
- Had 2 coffee chats with people about jobs
- Bought a 🚗 (and managed to get all the paperwork sorted that goes along with that)
- Contributed to an awesome VR project (the MIT Hack) which was super fun
- Had an eye test (have needed new glasses)
- Set up a semi-automated spreadsheet to track applications, requirements, and responses from jobs
- Finished chapter of a "read for fun" book
- Connected with a professor at westminster in comp bio
- Applied for November's Data Study Group 📊 💻
- KW: Very cool - I think you'll really enjoy the couple of weeks!
- The workload for the MIT project was a lot more than it was advertised to be. I would have preffered to be brought in earlier and helped lay strong foundations instead of being used as a firefighter but either way the event was super cool (just exhausting).
- KW: To quote you from our chat: MIND BENDING indeed! Exciting and creative work!
- Feeling spread super thin trying to search for "all and any jobs I qualify for" and am sinking a lot of time on the resume.
- Feeling really "imposter-y" as I don't feel connected to my skills or "achievements" that I've done before.
- Am very overwhelmed about resumes.
- Still no feedback from Leeds.
- KW: Appalling. I'm so disappointed (in them! NOT YOU!)
- AutSPACEs design brief
- AutSPACEs design template
- Turing Way (There's an issue about the design and usability and I would love to dive in and help lend some UX/design thinking)
- Review of meetings (since not going to do supervision, would it help to bump these off the calendar?)
- KW: Lets keep them wrt AutSPACEs working
- Trying to not step on toes while I'm in a "low battery" state 🔋
- KW: Discussed in meeting 🌺
- MIT is running a VR event next week, I'm helping with code and design of VR env
- 👫 with Scotland trip
- SL with design goals and helping support her during the internship
- GA to figure out how to scope front end design
- Current Cal student who was thinking of switching majors and reached out for general guidance
- 👫 during migrane
- Turing Way & MS with Hacktober stuff
- Immigration lawyer with advice and what gives me the best 🥅 to aim for
- DeepMind recruiter gave advice and said to stay in touch based on my skill set
- CB had a good chat about ethical assurance and the RRI course they're running
- DSP assessment identified areas of support and was absolutely amazing
- PH gave awesome advice on where to visit in 🏴
- SG found two job adverts and sent them through
- Scotland is beautiful! Am back home on Friday and back to work Monday.
- I think taking a step back (once safe to do so) until January would be good. And I can spend that time re-learning skills that I've fallen out of practice with.
- Figuring out what the best route is visa wise - apparently the Global Talent would actually be the best best (after chatting to lawyers).
- Not getting feedback/input.
- The decision about 🇳🇿 university offer and wondering if that's the best thing to do.
- Time wise, just had a lot going on last two weeks and all bitty tasks.
- Scotland
- Life decisions (visa, which car to get, insurance etc)
- Application for Global Talent Visa started (pending Leeds and letters of recc)
- MIT Event (due Oct 20th)
- AutSPACEs design (design sprint + scope, folder organization)
- Letter of recc (if that's okay to ask for!!) for Global Talent visa
- Requirements for the letter here
- GA & AutSPACEs team with Citizen Science paper draft
- KW: THANK YOU - looks great 🌈
- SG with 🐈 sitting
- 👫 with job transition
- KW: Fantastic - congratulations 🎊
- Colleague with Transfer Report edits/feedback
- MIT Hackathon team with initial set up for Reality Hack
- NZ University reached out for advice on EEGs/VR so I had a few calls
- I've done 2 practice transfer vivas to prep with the PGR Development team. They've been super super helpful!
- KW: REALLY good - well done!
- 👫 with cooking
- SG sent a lovely treat as a thank you for 🐈
- EK and AB for checking in while I was deep in TR and struggling
- EK and AB for taking Lab Shepard while I was locked out of the Slack
- AB for getting me back into the Slack!
- KW: 🔓 YAY!
- 👩🎓 TRANSFER REPORT IS DONE WHOOOO!
- Oral defence set for the 24 September
- Haven't got feedback from M & R and meetings for the rest of September have been cancelled
- ➡️ Next Step
- Registered Report
- Ethics
- 🏡 Moved out of Leeds
- 🌲 Saw Key Gardens and had a reset afternoon amongst the trees
- 📬 Got back into the Slack so am feeling more in touch with the going-ons! (two accounts though, don't entirely understand why)
- ✍️ Worked on the citizen science paper with GA
- Feeling overwhelmed and tired. It took most of last week to recharge after the work push as emotional batteries kept getting drained each day.
- Generally pretty homesick at the moment, the trip to Kew Gardens helped.
- Registered Report: turning the pieces of the transfer report and the excess material into an RR submission
- GOAL: have each section of the "what you need to include" addressed in draft form
- ❗Fellowship Application❗
- GOAL: draft done by the 16th, 3 reviews, submit on 19th
- Ethics/IRB Application: draft of IRB submission for the pilot study
- GOAL: full draft completed by the 24th
- The (NZ) Alpine plant section of Kew Gardens, it reminded me of home so I sat and had ☕ for a while
- SG's gift of oreos!!
- Went for a bike ride on the super sunny day last week
- Review of Fellowship Application (500 words), will send through before the 16th
- May need a letter of recommendation but was going to ask M & R first
- KW: Maybe try MB?
- ❗Before the 24th, can you read Section 6 of this document (the stats section of the transfer report).
- I trimmed it down massively to stay under word count and feedback on 1) legibility, and 2) correctness would be appreciated.
- KW: Interesting exploration! Make up some data into a csv file and use it to demonstrate the findings.
- I think you're looking at a 2 way repeated measures ANOVA, but I'm not clear on how the covariates come in so that might need some exploration. Same with the Bayes for equivalence.
- JB has been assigned as an examiner
- Transfer Viva is the 24 September at 12:00
- KW: Exciting! 💪
- ADHD Hive (the adhd support community I'm part of) launched!
- I helped set up their TikTok page and recorded some poems for them 🎙️
- SG borrowing suitcase for trip :suitcase:
- Had a good call with GA discussing AutSPACEs and helped support decision making
- Had a good brain storm/work session about the 'papers' and started pulling together pieces of the docs together
- 👫 has been quite ill so I did a big cook to support us both and have been taking care of them a bit
- connected a VR person to another VR person!
- had a good coffee chat with SG
- 👫 supported me building the PC (gave me their old graphics card which was what actually made it possible!)
- Had a great chat with a friend from SF
- KW with a massive brain strom and problem soliving logistics session that put me on the right path
- the lab/EK checked in on me after a quiet time on slack and it was just the most lovely 'people care' moment that had me in tears out of gratitude
- AB is looking into sorting out the Slack lock out
- I was more mindful about the ways in which I can help support people (in all ways)
- Website (it's a few hours away from getting finished - with no automation yet), and then I'll update git
- ❗ hampered by computer breaking down (the issue hadn't been fixed) so I couldn't progress
- Resume
- As per our chelmsford chats, I went all in on the phd and withdrew resources from window shopping jobs
- although I had already done up a snazzy resume so that's now there and has been updated for 2021
- Research themes with descriptions
- Have created doc for those and iterated on them so they're snazzy! (ie. v1 had the two themes - remote research and transfer of learning. v2 has 'everything is about learning' which creates a smoother narrative. what was written for remote research and citizen science can be used for grant apps and other work)
- Current research description
- This is in a MVP/bullet point state where there's an outline but it's not fleshed out
TheSome key papers pulled out and in a slide deck- not in a slide deck, but in a doc!
- 👩🎓 Transfer Report
- Made epic level progress!!
- Have reached word count! (yay!) so am less worried about that and now get to fill in the blanks and choose the best way to express things
- (also am still worried about it but the chance of failure is now so much lower)
- this week will be filling in the gaps (writing) and then the efforts will be about improvements as opposed to fixing leaks.
- 🖥️ Built a PC!! It's my first PC build!! AND I HAVE A WORKING COMPUTER AGAIN!!
- Done draft of bio for the whitaker website
- next step is to add it to the doc
- Made it back to a morning coffee
- Have been going on awesome walks more recently and finding the groove
- Am generally just reaping the rewards of the work put in to find the routine/balance and that's pretty cool
- Anything and everything computer related
- Had a very disheartening and unhelpful monday meeting about the project which I just struggled with in general as it made me loose steam
- energy drain from life immoveables stunted progress
- Getting the courage to email PM about the TR
- I completed an interim step as a consolidation prize and emailed the head of PGR studies to 1) ask advice on emailing PM, 2) outline the worries, 3) ask advice on the worries.
- I haven't heard back yet.
- I completed an interim step as a consolidation prize and emailed the head of PGR studies to 1) ask advice on emailing PM, 2) outline the worries, 3) ask advice on the worries.
- Packing up apt in Leeds (scheduled for tomorrow and thursday)
- Transfer Report (14 days to hand in)
- How pretty the PC is
- the fact that I actually built a PC! (It's way easier due to the popularity of the tech now but I was always too worried/lacking the knowledge to do it!)
- Advice on what to cut out/down for the Transfer Report
- 10-15 mins brainstorm time on maze vs. sandbox
- I know that I should have emailed PM and started trying to get in touch with new supervisors...I'm just scared of rocking the boat and ending up in the water.
- I shared my 'ramping back to work' plan with the lab and have heard that it was cool and helpful
- KW: YAY!
- DL - a canandian vr colleague who needed some info/brain storming about their vr projects
- KW: Also fun!
- I met in hyde park 🌳 with MS for a lovely chit chat
- KW: 🌳 indeed!
- Monday coffee chats were amaizng this week! General thanks to AB, MS, and SG for being peppy and laughing about things
- KW: FAB!
- Last week AB & AM had an awesome lab meeting on negotiations which was just so awesome
- KW: I'm so glad!
- JY is awesome and helping make things run smoothly at Leeds
- KW: 🙌 Great stuff, so glad she's around!
- NG, an old friend from NZ who I chatted with about the approaches of science
- KW: Oh good stuff ✨
- Got hold of and read previous lab members' transfer reports which have massive massively helped frame what is expected from our lab specifically
- This is the first week back at work and so far I'm above water
- Laptop broke 😱 (it's in for repairs so I'm using 👫's home computer for a few days)
- Things got super hectic end of last week and I got swept under the waves a bit
- General feeling of overwhelm due to the hecticness
- I realized my 'who did I help' was quite low so I want t be more mindful about my impact and where I can be supportive
- KW: It wasn't low! The goal is just recognising one person, even if that's something really small :hugging_face:
- Website (it's a few hours away from getting finished - with no automation yet), and then I'll update git
- Resume (backup plan)
- Research themes with descriptions
- Current research description
- The key papers pulled out and in a slide deck
- Monday coffee chats 🚀
- Unsure - I'm honestly just overwhelmed and am unsure where to ask for help. There aren't clear action items and I mostly just need gentleness as bumble my way along into the right direction
- Getting second vaxx on thursday 🎉 # Sophia Bi-Weekly Updates
Sophia & Kirstie meet every 2 weeks on Tuesdays
- There is a workshop on The Turing Way happening in July that I'm helping run with MS, SG, and VP who is new.
- KW: So fun! Thank you!
- A team member was on the struggle 🚌 with similar issues to mine regarding research and being stuck so we had a long chat.
- KW: 😭😭 I'm really glad you are able to look out for each other
- SG is helping me get unstuck with the ssh/git account issues
- KW with a few check-ins and lovely phone call
- LK had a fantastic chat about ethics and tech research on thursday
- MS did a wonderful organization with getting the call set up for the workshop call
- SU/MB was amazing with helping get admin sorted
- PM & MB had a great chat
KW: SO LOVELY to have such great community around you - I'm really glad ✨
- Got a draft of lit review section done
- I started outlining a theory/model that the literature suggests and I can directly investigate
- Conquered fear and roller skated
- KW: Roller skate emoji doesn't work yet! But here's a rainbow 🌈
- Set up a supportive routine
- KW: Love this 🌺
- Time and mental energy - I run out of steam so quickly during the day
- Working on task backlogs and finding joy
- Just hitting a wall with two immoveable objects - had a proud moment of progress on Monday
- The meet up landing page (aka. moving off Notion and to a webpage)
- sort out the git/ssh so that BrainOnSilicon is the "core" account
- KW: DELETE EVERYTHING AND START AGAIN! (or something more nuanced 😂)
- reading and finding some cool "puzzle pieces" in the literature
- KW: This is very cool!
- after a few false starts, I got up on roller skates for a bit 🌈
- This week I will generate a landing page for the meetup - when that is done I would like a review in order to maintain alignment.
- KW: Yes - sounds awesome - next week should work great for me to review / check.
- Note to KW for memory - there may be text online that is out of date - good to make sure that isn't front an center on the project website 😂 🤦♀️
- KW: Yes - sounds awesome - next week should work great for me to review / check.
- a brainstorm for how to respond to an email from RR
- AgendaBot in meetings - are they helpful and should they come back this week?
- KW: Check w LC, I don't think we need AgendaBot per se, but finding ways for you to participate with ease / sustainably is a high priority. If that's AgendaBot then that's fine with me 🤖
- Have been advised to take 4 weeks leave, do not feel it's possible to do so at this point but may take the remaining 2 weeks after the 30th.