I attended staff meetings, which were on the second day of the Chinese New Year. It was nice that we had some Chinese biscuits and fortune cookies during the meetings. The ‘fortune’ inside my cookie read ‘Do everything with confidence.’ I love fortune cookies. Their sweet little messages make me laugh and feel positive.
That evening, I went to Chinatown in Leicester Square, hoping to get some Chinese snacks like buns or to find a place for dinner. But it was incredibly crowded and the restaurants were full. I really felt like having Hong Kong-style crispy chow mein, though. I will have to visit again another time.
Research-wise, week 110 wasn’t very productive. I’ve been feeling stuck with my writing again. I spent a lot of time attending seminars and meetings and worked on my transcripts during my commute hours.
Professional profile
How common is it for PhD students to create and then keep updating a professional profile for networking?
I mean, a professional profile contains most of the information on your academic and professional career, including research activities such as conferences and publications. I recently updated my profile on the university website, LinkedIn and ResearchGate, and a more casual profile on my blog. I also uploaded my conference presentation file on my ResearchGate page.
Some of my colleagues seem quite active on networking websites. Others seem never to have returned to the website after creating their accounts, and I used to be like that, but I’m hoping to make better use of the websites and am currently exploring them.

My achievements in Week 110
- worked on transcribing audio data of one case for a couple of hours a day, but there is still a long way to go
Goals for Week 111
- work on revising my framework
- would like to recover from my physical fatigue; mentally, I am very happy to be busy teaching, but my neck pain and back pain have persisted for a while