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May 31, 2007
Done and ... well, more stuff!
I successfully defensed my thesis Monday. I have some corrections to made. But not right now!
I'm in Boston typing this, on my way to Virginia for the second class of the ministry training program.
I'll be back on the 7th in evening in Montreal. Have fun without me until then!
Posted by ma at 8:26 PM in Life | TrackBack
May 24, 2007
ps to emf howto
So, I'm working on my thesis presentation powerpoint. Putting a screenshot of my graphs (generated by udg) is not a great option when you resize.
The conversion from ps look ugly in powerpoint too, so that's not a winner.
BUT, there is something to be done.
Here' how I'm doing it:
1- Use ps2pdf to convert the file to pdf format
2- Use PDFFly to convert to SVG
3- Use a text editor to remove the text and line at the bottom (easily distinguised by the fact that they are text boxes of one character, preceded by a bunch of polyline)
4- Double-check in IE that it looks good (Firefox's rendering is flawed on that one. Oh, and you need Adobe's SVG Plugin)
5- Open in Vision, and save as emf
6- Put the emf file in powerpoint. That's it!
Posted by ma at 11:16 PM in Software | TrackBack
Defending my Thesis Monday
Hello all. Just a quick word to let you know what's up:
- I'm planning my trip to the MTP in Virginia for the 1-3 weekend, followed by a visit to friends in Boston
- I've been working on a paper for a French journal
- I've been preparing for my Thesis defense on Monday. Monday 4 PM. See it as a mega oral exam... please pray for me to be close to God, confident and well-prepared.
Posted by ma at 5:13 PM in Life | TrackBack
Special Comment on the Democrat Betrayal
I don't need to add a comment over this...
Posted by ma at 5:12 PM in Funny / Insightful | TrackBack
May 18, 2007
The Uber-Catching-Up
Hello my beloved readers. Its been a month heh...
Things have been intense. You'll understand why.
I gave my thesis to my supervisor on April 20th... that was a LOT of work. I spent most of the week not sleeping a lot. And it showed. There were quite a couple errors that needed to be fixed down the road.
At church, we finished our campaign on repentance (too shortly for my taste) and the men went on sexual purity directly. We're reading Every Man's Battle or Every Young Man's Battle. Its not a bad book, but it probably could fit in the quarter of the pages it uses. The principles are easy:
-Men get sexual stimuli visually (hint for the sisters: help us out please!)
-So you have to control your eyes like Job
-And control your thoughts
-And make a clear decision to stop all forms of lusting, masturbation and other sexual behavior unfitting for a saint
-Oh, and have an accountability group
The rest is pretty much illustrative examples. Borrow this book if you can spare yourself the purchase.
On May 7th, I had my first interview with the company in India. It went well, and I should have a technical interview soon. A few days after, I had a morning full of interviews with a very large software company in Montreal. They have an R&D center too, and they have expressed interest in me completing my Ph.D. there. We'll see... I need some time to clear my head before I take a big decision like that. I'm not closed to the idea, far from it, but I need to have a good alignment of the stars, in a sense.
Last weekend (May 12-13), I was in Québec City to celebrate my dad's birthday. I attended the Mothers' Day church service there that was really inspiring. Our baby new sister was involved in a musical trio: vocals, guitar and piano. The girls were both sopranos (I think) and they sang a song with a canon, which is a musical trick that I love. I was traveling in the car with a couple from the church in Montreal, which made my trip even more enjoyable.
This week was eventful too: a brother for Washington State came to visit us and I was hosting him. He's pretty cool and I enjoyed his company. He's not messing around, loves God, and wants to do His will. He was surprised by an invitation to go abroad as a missionary... the rest is hush-hush.
I submitted my thesis officially on Thursday. The committee agreed on a date before the end of the month. Oh, please pray for me!
Spiritually speaking, I faced a lot of worries about my future (I'm not even confirmed if I go to India or not, when I would defend my thesis, coupled with a few tensions at work) and demanding schoolwork. This resulted in me 'crashing'... my drive was sucked out of me! I'm rebuilding that, but I'm rebuilding this in a better way. I realized that a lot of my life as a disciple was based on my own strength, even in my relationship with God. I am trying to break my strong side in order to live by the real strength that comes from the Spirit.
And I won't talk about how I feel about the state of my ministry... there's going to be work to do this summer.
I'll have June more or less off: I'll only work a couple days, and plan my future then. The other parts are meant for investing in my health: physical, mental, spiritual.
P.S. we're getting 2 intern from another church for the summer. This is so great!!!