puzzle mania..

12 hours of intense struggle, coupled with moments of dissapointment, bewliderment and sometimes being plain fed up sounds like a regular, lackluster day in the world of a eng sci. But for me, it was tons of fun.

I guess that's what comes with being an eng sci, we enjoy pain and endure it, just so we can get past it for those brief but very worthwhile moments of glory.

The Microsoft puzzle competition was a great time and for the first time in perhaps 6 months that I've needed to push my mind to the limit. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job and there are times when I need to be creative and think differently, but for the most part, doing things by the book is the way to go. You might have of heard of the competition from word of mouth, but the main idea is 21 puzzles over 12 hours, which are very difficult (and that's an understatement). The majority of teams, comprised of teams of four from some of the top schools in the north america are lucky to solve a third of them.

The puzzles range from finding that random thing that will blow things wide open to the ones you still don't understand even after the solution is presented to you.

Our team did..... okay. We solved 7 of the 21 puzzles putting us in the upper third of all teams, decent.. but still very far from the front, which was dominated by teams from that school in massachusetts.

I was a tad disappointed in myself as I felt that I was thinking closeminded at times and not as creatively as I used to. That's another problem with working (in my series on business vs research). Most jobs, even the good ones seem to stifle creativitiy. Something I absolutely despise and another reason for going into research. I thought I'd just mention this and if anyone still reads my very infrequently updated blog anymore, please comment and let me know what you think. I do realize you can pursue creative, challenging endeavours outside of work, but I guess that's something I need to do more often on my own as I used to take it for granted that I would get the challenges at school.

moving on.. I also wanted to share my surprisingly successful Friday night. I, an amateur, even beginner won a poker tournament (Texas Hold'em) against 13 good, experienced players!.. a complete surprise... I'm guessing I caught them off guard and were a bit thrown off by my somewhat random, aggressive behaviour.

That's it for now. I'll try to post more often (I always say that.. but this time I'll really try!)