Theses - not mine, tho

Ever since I started meditating again regularly, the problems with phlegm have almost disappeared. Another thing, actually - decided to order a new mattress, and already the knowledge of having ordered it made me feel better.

Edit: Apparently mismeasured the old mattress or misclicked the expensive mattress. It's smaller than the bed. Ah nevermind, it's large enough for me.

Attended the robotics and computer engineering theses defense yesterday. Briefly skimmed through the theses beforehand.

Found one that was really inspiring for me. A coursemate who had worked on the classification of events from EEG signals, using SVMs. This reminded me that I still have the eMotiv headset and I haven't found the time to implement event classification for it .. which was one of the main reasons why I bought it, in the first place. But then it occurred to me that I'm working on time series analysis with neural networks and that's probably pretty similar to what EEG signal analysis would be based on in the future. Pieces of the puzzle gradually clicking together =).

Found one that I sincerely felt sorry for. Wanted to ask a really aggressive question from the student. Basically, the student had developed a pretty complex system but had not performed any background research. An online component library. There's an open-source solution that a German girl has been developing for years and it serves the purpose very well. I'm using the open-source solution at the lab at work, and I'm also using it at home. Anyway, asked the hairy question from the student, due to which the student graduated with a worse grade. His supervisor was severely pissed, but to me background research seemed like one of the most important aspects of a thesis. What is more, I recognized the student - he was like one of the friends whom I hadn't met before. I'm not entirely certain but I think I hadn't met him before. He knew me, though, because apparently he had studied at the same secondary school and the physics teacher had told them about me. Luckily the student did not care about the grade that much. In fact, he was radiating happiness and enthusiasm. I'm sorry.

Students in my course had an exam that day. However, the other rooms in the building were locked. So, we had the oral exams just on the grass under a tree (actually two trees) somewhere. Seemed perfect.