tornado thoughts

What should I do.....

Not sure if many of you knew that I got A+ for my FYP during my final year in NTU. Though it was a great personal achievement, it wasn't reflected in the honours as I only got a certificate of merit. This was because I "bao" another semester. Many people would have increased a class if they had A+ for their FYP project. Eg, a 3rd class honours will get 2nd class lower if they had this grade. Don't know whether it's a blessing or not, due to this my ex-prof wanted to submit my project to a conference and requested me to write a draft manuscript for it. If my hands wasn't itchy to check my ntu email, I wouldn't even know of this. I asked my friends (who also had A grade for their FYP) who were under this ex-prof of mine whether they had such "invitation". Both said no. Hmmm.... Lucky me... below are the emails that my prof send. One can feel that he is a friendly and detailed person but maybe not sensitive enough to feel for the people who had graduated, their priorities and stuff. Read if you have the time.... haha

From my Ex-FYP Prof dated August, but I didn't check my NTU email till September. Logically who would check their NTU email when they had graduated. One of my friends (JX) even said that she forgot the password already.

Haven't talked to you for a while. There will be a conference on thin films in Dec in Singapore. I have submitted an abstract co-authored by Prof Chan, you and me based on your FYP report. The following tasks for us are to prepare powerpoint slides for the oral presentation at the conference and a manuscript for inclusion in the conference proceedings. We will need to submit a manuscript before Nov 06. I would like to request you to help prepare the manuscript based on the results of your FYP report and then we can discuss it and implement it till it can meet the standard set for the proceedings.
The abstract submitted is attached for your reference. The contents of the manuscript can be related to the abstract.
Thanks for your attention and assistance.

Dated September, after I saw the backdated email and replied.

Yes, we will present the paper at Thin Films 2006. As part of the conference papers (about 50%) will be published in two referred international journals, we should try to publish the paper in one of them for which we need to prepare a full manuscript. According to the conference schedules, the deadline for submission of full manuscript is November of this year. Since our abstract submitted was
based on your FYP report, would you help draft a manuscript from your FYP report with about 8 figures/diagrams/graphs together with discussion and analyses for each figure? The manuscript will follow a standard format with several standard sections, such as (1) Abstract, (2) Introduction, (3) Experimental Details, (4) Results & Discussion, (5) Conclusions, and (6) References. I will then make necessary implementations to the draft manuscript.
We can discuss the matter if convenient. Thanks for your kind help.

Dated October, after I procrastinated and said that I had been busy.

I understand that your schedules are tight and am sorry for adding additional
burden to you. As the research work has taken a lot of effort of ours, it would
be a waste if its good results are not published. The attached Author-Guide for
the journal “Thin Solid Films” is for your reference. Eventually, 5 or 6 journal pages should be good enough.
A sample copy of a previous paper of ours published in Thin Solid Films is also attached for your reference. Thanks for your kind help

Dated one week ago, after I read it I "pia" my weekend to come out a manuscript for my ex-prof.

Haven’t heard you for a while. Would you update me the status of the paper?
As the deadline is 30 Nov 06 and we may need to implement the paper, I would
have your first version at your early convenience.

Thanks for your great effort and good to have it this week. I would say that
it is a good chance to get your hard work published and recognized. Otherwise,
it would be waste of the efforts on it.

Dated on Monday, after my ex-prof received my draft. Hmmm... I know my prof was very nice to me during my ntu days but I also put in my hard work to earn my A+ (of coz with God's strength and favor). But asking a NTU graduate whom is in the working world and not doing anything related to the field is abit "duh" right? Now still want me to present poster to the public on a working weekday?!!

Thanks for the draft and your great effort. I will read it and get back to
you shortly.

Our poster is scheduled on 13 Dec. in the Lyrebird Room, Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, 392 Havelock Road, with the following detail:

Wed. 13 Dec. 15.55-17.30 Poster Sessions

Would you present our poster during the poster session?

Dated Yesterday, lagi best.... after reading I think i'm going to faint already. What do you think? What should I do? The graphs' origin I also don't know where I put them already after my com crashed. All the graphs are all "screen shots" thus uneditable. The amount of things to be changed seems like mountain high although faith like a mustard seed can move them easily. haha.. okok, enough of being cranky. Appreciate my ex-prof for being so detailed and giving the steps on what to do... BUT.... easy to say but not easy to do.... deadline 30th Nov..... Hmmm....

I went through the paper and it looks most stuff has been there which I greatly appreciate. The following comments on the paper are for your consideration:

1) Introduction: It has talked some too much about the substrate materials which are actually not the focus of the paper. Background info relevant to lubricant materials and preparation/applications of lube layers for HDD would be more helpful.
2) Remove Fig 21 (1st one), Fig 1, Fig 5.
3) Re-plot Figs. 3 & 4:
(i) use symbol+line for all plots;
(ii) use same font types & sizes for labels, legends, ticks numbers for both graphs; (the font sizes and types in Figure 4 look better)
(iii) remove the filled colors of graphs;
(iv) use either white/black or gray-scale for whole graphs;
(v) remove graph titles;
(vi) remove graph frames;
(vii) move legends into graphs;
(viii) delete “/HFE7100” in legends;
(ix) label of x-axis for Fig. 3 “concentration” is changed to “Lube concentration
(wt%)”;
(x) for Fig. 4, change 1st letters of the labels of both x- and y-axes to capital
letters;
(xi) If possible, change “angstrom” of the labels of y-axes to “Å” for both
graphs.
4) Figs. 6 & 7: change scalings to form:
5) Is the micrograph in Fig. 7c elongated along y-axis? If so, restore the aspect ratio to the original one.
6) Re-plot Figs. 8 & 9:
(xii) use same font types & sizes for labels, legends, ticks numbers for both
graphs; (the font sizes and types in Figure 4 look better)
(xiii) remove the filled colors of graphs;
(xiv) use either white/black or gray-scale for whole graphs;
(xv) remove graph titles;
(xvi) remove graph frames;
(xvii) move legends into graphs;
(xviii) insert “(µm)” after “Distance” for the labels of x-axes for both graphs;
(xix) change “hr” to ‘h” in legends and leave a space between a number and “min” or
“h” for both graphs;
(xx) If possible, change “angstrom” of the labels of y-axes to “Å” for both
graphs.
7) Renumber Fig 2 to Fig 1; Fig 3 to Fig 2; Fig 4 to Fig 3; Fig 7b) to Fig 4a); Fig 6 to Fig 4b); Fig 7c) to Fig 5a); Fig 7a) to Fig 5b).
8) If possible, add a few more references from recent journal papers as info from internet websites are not counted reliable references and they may have to be removed from the paper eventually. The attached articles are for your reference and see whether they are useful as additional references.

You may work out a new version at your early convenience and see whether we can catch the deadline for submission this time.
Thanks for your effort and precious time.

posted by tornado @ 9:39 PM