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Yesterday, I tossed two pieces of chicken bones with some meat on them into the backyard. Today, I saw a big hawk circling above. It landed cautiously, eyes scanning, body tense. It didn’t pounce immediately—it hesitated, as if suspecting a trap. I watched, curious. Why weren’t other animals interested? And how did the hawk even find the food from so far up? Unlike the hawk, I don’t need to hunt for food. Opportunities are sometimes placed right in front of me. But do I always take them? Today, I realized I missed two deadlines for my coursework. My professor granted me an extension, but I felt a sting of disappointment. I had failed my own expectations. One of my core strengths is responsibility—had I just let it slip? Guilt, Pleasure, and Balance Later, a friend told me she had just watched nine episodes of a Korean drama. I laughed, but I knew that feeling all too well. The pull of a story, the need to see it through—especially when conflict is unresolved. I get hooked, too. Maybe because my third strength is harmony. I crave resolution. And then comes the guilt. Guilty pleasure. But why guilt? Does all pleasure need to be guilt-free? Is it worth the guilt to indulge? It feels like a seesaw—if one side is up, the other is down. Too much indulgence and responsibilities suffer. Too much rigidity, and life becomes dull. Islam teaches about Siratal Mustaqim, the straight path—the path of balance. Winners are those who avoid extremes, staying in the middle. But how do I make sure I’m walking in the middle? The Many Faces of Depression Depression doesn’t always wear the same face. Sometimes it’s obvious—sunk in, withdrawn, avoiding the world. Other times, it wears a smile, enjoys life on the surface, but quietly ignores responsibilities. Time passes in distractions, in mindless scrolling, in waiting. The Siratal Mustaqim of depression is recognizing that sadness is okay. Disappointment is okay. Crying is okay. But we can’t stay down forever. We won’t always have someone else to pull us up. So we need to build the strength to stand up. And when we do, we need to show mercy to ourselves. “Poor me, you have been sad. It’s okay. Things will be okay.” Small Steps Toward Healing What helps shake off the weight of sadness?  • A small goal—saying one little prayer 100 times.  • Setting an alarm clock.  • Writing down feelings in a notepad.  • Calling a friend.  • Even chatting with ChatGPT. Sometimes, emotions need space. In Sufism, emotions are treated as guests. We welcome them, acknowledge them, but know they won’t stay forever. Imagine them like a flying carpet—hovering beside us, eventually fading into the background. But some emotions overstay their welcome. If we can’t process them alone, seeking another perspective helps. Not just any perspective—one that helps us realign with truth. Perspective and Humility One way to realign is to zoom out. I used to be a single cell—a fertilized zygote. Before that? Just atoms and molecules. All of me came from the soil, and one day, I will return to the soil. Thinking like soil brings humility. It reminds me that I am small. That my struggles are temporary. That even if I fail, even if I miss deadlines, even if I get lost for a while—life keeps moving. And I can, too. I didn’t plan to write about depression, but my words led me here. And maybe that’s something to respect. What About You? How do you deal with sadness? Are some methods better than other s?

Do you enjoy water sports like kayaking or rafting? My only experience with rafting was a mild one—Beaver’s Bend State Park in Oklahoma. It was peaceful, almost uneventful. The best part was watching the sky blend into the trees and river, listening to nature, and waiting for bites while fishing. Back when we lived in Dallas, we used to drive up there for fishing. The trout—especially in the “red zone”—were top-tier. If you had a cabin nearby, grilling fresh fish was the highlight of the trip. But back to pedaling… At Pocahontas State Park in Virginia, we tried something different: a water bike. You pedal just like a bicycle to move across the lake. We also kayaked there—this time with three kids in tow. Instead of peacefully admiring the water lilies, I was laser-focused on keeping everyone safe—making sure no one fell in or got too much sun. All I remember was pedaling as fast as I could. Lately, I’ve been thinking about pedaling in a different sense. What if I’m on the wrong boat? But even if I am, the only thing I can do is keep pedaling. It’s better than drifting aimlessly. It’s better than not being on a boat at all. I bought a book on confidence for women today. Amazon sent me a used one instead of new, which was frustrating—not because it was used, but because it wasn’t sold as such. I got the book thinking that learning to build confidence would help me develop leadership skills. But then, I came across a post that challenged that idea: I shouldn’t wait to be confident to take on leadership. Leadership isn’t about waiting until you feel ready—it’s about influencing action, taking responsibility, working through chaos, and being okay with uncertainty. Too often, I choose to let someone else take responsibility, just for my own peace of mind. And that’s what keeps me at the contributor level. The opening story in an Emotional Intelligence book stuck with me. A man is out surfing when he suddenly spots a great white shark. At first, fear and anxiety freeze him. But then, his mind shifts to survival mode, and he starts paddling for his life. He makes it to shore. Most of us aren’t facing sharks every day, but we are navigating uncertainty. Fear, doubt, and unknowns shouldn’t paralyze us. We just have to keep paddling. And if we inspire others along the way, that’s leadership in action. Every challenge, every unexpected turn, builds new skills—sometimes ones we don’t even have a name for yet. What skills are you working on? Have you found any shortcuts along the way?

Today is the first day of Ramadan, and I’ve noticed something striking—time feels extended. Of course, in a practical sense, fasting removes the time spent on meals, but the effect is much greater than that. It feels as if the hours themselves stretch. This morning, I cleaned the first floor, and my husband managed to clean the second floor and the backyard. I prepared breakfast for the kids, baked a cake, made lunch, cleaned up, read 100 pages of my EQ book, and wrote this post. He raked leaves, did laundry, and we read books with our son. Then we made bracelets together—and somehow, it was still only 4 PM. This experience made me reflect: Is time really elastic? I’ve felt this before in different ways. When faced with a deadline, I often procrastinate, only to feel the intense pressure of time shrinking. Sometimes, I pull off a last-minute miracle. Other times, I ask for an extension. But what if I could create an internal extension of time—within its natural boundaries? In Turkish, we call this bereket—a kind of abundance. How can we cultivate more of it in our days? How can we use time more intentionally? A Simple Approach to Time Management With my kids, I suggest a structured schedule, especially on holidays. Before using technology, they map out their day to include a mix of learning, creativity, and play. A balanced day feels richer. I apply the same approach to myself. Summers, when I had a teaching job, used to feel endless if unstructured. But without direction, they can also feel unfulfilled. Filling time with purpose—learning, goals, social interactions—turns it into something meaningful. An 83-year-old friend of mine, Melanie Cottam, embodies this philosophy. She maintains a vibrant, structured life with water aerobics, meetings, courses, and planned social activities. She doesn’t just pass time—she fills it with purpose. Measuring a Day Well Spent Maybe the true “accounting” of a good day isn’t how much we did but how well we spent our time: ✔️ Did I learn something new? ✔️ Did I make someone happy? ✔️ Did I treat my body and soul with care? ✔️ Did I avoid wasting my time? The Brain’s Role in Time Perception My current reading, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, explores how we can build stronger neural connections between our emotional and reasoning brains. The more self-awareness we develop, the more intentional we become about how we live each day. And yet, despite everything I reflect on today, I know I still have so much to figure out. Will I feel the same expansion of time tomorrow? Or is this a moment of mindfulness, a slowing down, a sinking into time itself? I’m curious—have you ever felt time stretch or contract? How do you make the most of your day?

Did you receive a gorgeous orchid as a gift? 🤩 You admired its beauty 😍, took care of it… and then, one by one, the flowers fell off. The stalk dried up. 😔 Yeah, yeah… we’ve all been there. 😅 I wanted to master orchid reblooming all by myself. 🌱 And guess what? It’s possible! Here’s what worked for me. 👇 💧 The #1 Rule: Less Water, More Consistency! ✅ Orchids only need 1/4 cup of water per week. ✅ Stick to a strict schedule – pick a day and write it down. 📅 Example Watering Schedule (Tuesdays): ✔ 2/18/25 – 1/4 cup water ✔ 2/25/25 – 1/4 cup water ✔ 3/4/25 – 1/4 cup water ✔ 3/11/25 – 1/4 cup water + 1 drop fertilizer 🌱 🔄 Repeat the pattern! 📌 Pro Tip: Automate reminders on your phone 📲 or keep a physical note! 🚫 What NOT to Do! (Avoid These Orchid Mistakes!) ❌ Don’t wash the entire plant just because the leaves look dusty. ❌ Don’t submerge the whole pot in water—this can cause root rot. ❌ Don’t overwater! Even if the soil looks dry, stick to the schedule. ❌ Ignore viral hacks like garlic water, tying up a half apple 🍏, or other “root rescues.” If it’s dying, it’s probably too late. 😬 ☀️ Light & Placement: Where Should Orchids Go? 💡 Place near a window for natural light. 🌅 Mine faces northeast and sits on a homemade flower board in the kitchen. 📏 Keep it 3-6 inches from the window for ideal light exposure. 🌱 What’s Okay to Do? (Things That Help!) ✅ Repot when necessary – If roots are exploding out of the container, move to a bigger one! ✅ Trim bad roots and refresh the soil occasionally. ✅ Use the right planting mix ✅ Use breathable pots 🎯 Recap: The Secret to Reblooming Orchids! 💦 1/4 cup of water per week (no more, no less!) 📅 Stick to a watering schedule (every Tuesday works great!) ☀ Place near a bright window (but not direct sunlight!) ⚠ Avoid common mistakes! No weird internet hacks. 🌸 Let your orchids thrive & bloom again! 🌸 💬 Do you have any orchid tips that worked for you? Drop them in the comments! 👇😊

It has been snowing for two days. My kids listen to a Turkish cartoon song (Kukuli): 📌 It is snowing, it is snowing, 📌 In thick, fluffy flakes... Later in the song, they sing: 📌 Autumn to summer, spring to winter, 📌 Days flowed like water... The word “flow” struck me. What flows? Why does it flow? What happens when things stop flowing? Rivers flow to oceans. Collected water in dams flows through turbines, generating electricity. Traffic flows, energy flows, investments attract more money. Inside our cells, ions rush through microscopic channels, opening for only milliseconds to prevent depletion. Chemical reactions in our bodies flow in cycles, in perfect feedback loops—just like the glymphatic system clearing plaques from the brain during sleep (NIH source) . Beyond Earth, our planet flows through the galaxy, carried in an unseen current of time and space. Emotions flow too, filling hearts and spilling into words—songs, poetry, speeches that strike a chord and ripple through generations. The poet Necip Fazıl once wrote: 📌 Human it is, like water, flows fold by fold... 📌 Water moves down slopes, step by step, 📌 Yet my fate is to be thirsty on the slopes. There is beauty in flow—when things move as they should. But when they don’t? Vessels clog , nerves tense, energy/idea/breakthrough generation halts. Funding cuts stall research. And I wonder, how hard is it to keep things flowing? Maybe the only answer is this: Let it flow. Let it flow, please.

When I was a kid I wrote a mini song: My rose bowed its head When it wept. Its petals fell away When we parted. Source I used to sing this around the house. Yesterday my daughter was adding lines and music to my broken glass poem. I asked her to pay me my fair share if she becomes famous and rich with her song 😂 Thinking of my rose song made me think more about roses. What was so special about them? Is it the snuggled layers of velvety soft petals, smell, thorns, or the aesthetic beauty overall?  Why so many layers ? Is it more beautiful if it has more layers? Then I thought about where else I see “layers” in my life. We got my daughter’s hair a pixie cut today along with “layers”. With the approaching cold front, I should wear “layers” to keep warm.   When I look up at the sky, I see that the atmosphere has seven layers. When I look down at the Earth, I find that it has seven layers too. The soil itself has layers of living things as history, geological events and sandwiched time in it.  What about a human life? The training and accumulation of knowledge happens as incremental layerings. A baby first crawls, then stands up, then walks and then can run. Competency increases with each layer and experience. If I want to learn Bioinformatics, I can take 101, then 102 and so on. There is a strategic layering system to learn everything. Scientific or historical layers of knowledge gives strength to an argument. A small business can incrementally reach financial success, layer by layer; sale by sale.  Let me talk like a molecular biologist for a paragraph. When we think about regulation of gene expression, we see many many layers as well. To enable gene expression, you would need to untangle the heterochromatin to euchromatin to make it accessible. Then, a whole gang of regulatory proteins along with RNA Pol 2 will transcribe a gene. The nascent mRNA undergoes a series of modifications: capping, splicing , poly A addition. It will travel to the cytosol to get translated -- only if it does not get degraded by RNAses or by an acting microRNA . Another gang of proteins work with the magnificent ribosome to make the new protein, which is further subjected to a whole gang of post translations modifications to regulate it further. Phew! This is a whole semester class if you are interested in learning :)) Are there cases where having layers is not helpful? I could think of unnecessary bureaucracy. Especially if the additional paperwork is not adding value or regulation. Sometimes having too many layers would unnecessarily complicate things. Sweeping unresolved fights under a rug, making a pile is not good. Processing fights requires scientific methods and is essential to a healthy relationship. So maybe not all layers are good.  Getting back to the pretty rose— in the religious corner— it symbolizes Prophet Muhammed. There is mention of him smelling like roses and people expect to smell roses if they happen to have a metaphorical visit. Many religious songs refer to him as rose and he is depicted as a rose since drawing faces of Prophets is prohibited in Islam.  I was surprised to find many layered things in our lives and appreciated the beauty of roses once more. If you happen to pass by a rose, bend down and smell it. Maybe if you are lucky it might have a couple pearly water drops on it too. So naive… Like a drop of water Resting on a rose petal. Do not bow your head, Do not let your pearls fall— Like a cherry branch Swaying in the gentle breeze.

Here we go! It is almost 2025. I will be 40 this year. I have 3 kiddos: 4-8-10 years old now. I am working as a research scientist, lab manager, clinical research assistant at VCU and also taking courses for a Master's Degree in Biostatistics with a Genomics focus. I feel like this is what keeps me going: finding meaning in biological data with hopes to help humanity, learning and sharing what I just learned. This year, I also increased the number of books I am reading. Recently I finished Atomic Habits, 12 Rules for Life, The Job Closer, The 2-Hour Job Search, The Professor is in, How to Write a Lot, The Housemaid, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Better Small Talk, 4 Essential Keys to Effective Communication, Fight Right. From Steve Dalton's book, I learned about the Strengths Finder Quiz on Gallup . I discovered my 5 top strengths: Learner, Responsibility, Harmony, Connectedness, Futuristic. I believe future holds great things for us, if we keep building layers everyday. To make this work with the best potential for myself; I should keep learning, make promises for progress, live and work in harmony, learn to manage conflict, see the bigger picture and connections and think about the future as I get overwhelmed with what the day holds. Hoping that 2025 will bring wisdom, happiness and all the things you need. Hope to keep in touch!

-- So do you buy cauliflower every week? -- Ahm, yes. -- Do you like it that much? -- Not really..but it is available in Walmart and does not go bad quickly. (Teeth grin). (some sort of silence). -- So how was your winter break? -- Much like a baked cauliflower coated in blue cheese and topped with a cheery on top. -- Interesting. This winter break was interesting: I had days waking up at 9:30 am. (whoa!!), but mainly because I could go to bed at 3:30 am (supporting my daughter in the restroom, for doing a good job dealing with Norovirus). Stomach flu sounds terrible to parents, it travels every one in the house one by one. So, I know it is my turn next. Let me be grateful for the things I was able to accomplish: 1) Finishing my "Data Science: Probability" course, by binge studying over 3 days. (wow that sounds even more interesting than her recipes). 2) Finally finalizing the figures for the dogfood paper (haha everybody knows there is no final version until published). 3) Upgrading from 10 lbs dumbbells to 12 lbs dumbbells for my leisurely arm workouts. 4) Connecting with Turkish friends and again binge reading a book (my poor eyes). (Well that is better than binge netflix). 5) Sticking to my diet plan, written by the best dietician in Turkiye, ( Diyetisyen Melda ). No commissions earned here. (Wait what is she talking about? This is just her second blog 😂) 6) Discovering that CodePilot is actually making numbers up (wait this is scary). What am I looking forward to next week? 1) Pick up on my to do lists for work, get to the bottom of the lipidomics dataset. 2) Pick one of the 3 new books I just received from Amazon: maybe I will start with "Think Again" from Adam Grant. 3) Start my High Dimensional Data analysis course on EdX. You never know how satisfying is to see the % pie chart fill up. That should be pretty much it. Oh here is something similar to the recipe I shared if you were ever curious. (please, stay curious!)

I have 4 orchids, the very difficult to re-bloom flowers. I only had 1 originally, then my friends gave me 3 of theirs as fostered plants.  This year all four of them are blooming. The key was to act like a “persistent tortoise” to them.  Orchids want the same amount of water every week. I chose Tuesday as my day of watering. They all prefer only 1/4 cup of water. Three weeks of water only watering, followed by a week of water + 1 drop of fertilizer. I have them placed on a wood tray angled on my kitchen windows which is facing north east (it may or may not be the deal breaker). To follow this diligent schedule, on a notepad I scribble the dates of Tuesdays and mark as water only or w+f. I have been doing this for years now. Such persistence may bloom other aspects of our lives as well. Today, as I was humming ”I am a gummy bear; yes, I am a gummy bear” to engrave this thought into my soul, I read Adam Grant’s book on rethinking. Chapter 1 Flexibility to reconsider and rethink is wisdom. In the event that you are faced with saving your life; as was the case of a fire fighter, starting a new little fire to create a safe zone could be one dumb looking but genius way to save yourself. (See the book cover and opening story) We have certain mindsets: preacher, prosecutor, politician. But best is to have the scientist mindset and accept that ‘we might be wrong’. This also ticks the clock from having pride to being humble. There is evidence that lack of rethinking can lead to disastrous outcomes such as what happened to Blackberry. Chapter 2: As we accumulate knowledge we climb up the “mount stupid”. If we feel confident that this is the ultimate end of knowledge. we stay there as an “armchair quarterback”. But there is more knowledge, always, and the more we know the humbler we get. Then, there is the risk of falling impostor, being suspicious of our knowledge and abilities and tools. Luckily, there is the happy medium of not being arrogant or impostor which is the “confident humility zone”. One day, the persistent tortoise will eventually cross the FINSH line. One day, all four orchids will have flowers and I will be able post them here. One day, I will manage to steer my ship in the confident humility zone.  Until then, I will keep dancing to the song: “I am a gummy bear, yes I am totally a gummy bear”.

Do you ever feel like a pressure cooker? I notice that my mind or the pool that hosts ideas and experiences wants to “flood out” once in a while. But this also involves pressure, meaning that it is not just sizzling out, it needs to get out. At one point, I thought I accomplished this by writing poems. I needed to fill in my emotion and experience bucket, then it would pour out as lines. If I ignore my bucket, though, it turns into a pressure cooker. So how to vent out?? Talking to a listener could help or writing out into a databases somewhere on earth. Maybe one day, a reader will care to read. As I am munching on my tomato-cucumber-feta cheese lunch, I am contemplating “Did I really need to order the 5th set of Ninja Books ?”. I notice the resourcefulness should help without hopefully becoming wasteful. Maybe all we need is a balance of opposites. How to balance self care with child care, or even with essential survival tasks like putting dishes in the dishwasher. How to balance saving versus carelessly spending?  I continued reading “Think Again”. This book is actually very dense. In a way, that you would need to spend time reading the text and spend even more time in your mind reliving the ideas. There was one part about “attachment”. Attaching to an idea, to an ideology, to a tribe maybe. Attaching to “yourself in the past”. The other way around, “detaching from yourself in the past”. How do we respond to changes? I think I resonated most with ‘having a piece of my life that is completely detached from who I am now’. I would encourage you to have your own journey, which is more like surfing on your ideas flowing from one edge of your brain to the other.  Regardless, here is a summary, which is not doing justice to the content in the book, but gives more of a sneak peek: Chapter 3 Rethinking, at times, involves finding out that “we were wrong”. Saying “I might be wrong” is easier than accepting it as a fact. Nobel prize winning scientist, for example, enjoys and cherishes the moment he finds that ‘he was wrong’.  My take was: One strategy could be to say “any answer is better than none”. Saying “at least we have a conclusion”, we can embrace it and have some joy coming out of making progress. As a wild experiment, they have challenged Harvard students by attacking their core beliefs. How much shattered you would be depends on how tightly “attached” you are to the idea, or how much you identify yourself with the idea. If we allow ideas and ideologies to define us as a person, any attack would be taken personally and trigger defensiveness. Chapter 4 Creativity and productivity might be sparked by “good fights”, such as the ones between Wright brothers. Disagreeing on tasks, fighting over solid items is easier than having conflicts purely on the relationship at the personality level.  Such a “conflict loving team” created ‘The Incredibles’ movie. Disagreement increased sharing ideas, and also increased creativity. Being an agreeable person who dislikes conflicts does not mean not having conflicts on science and data. Those are items on the table and can be fought for.  As my son is squeezing his body on my lap for attention, that tells me it is time for me to play some dinosaur cards.  Enjoy the snow Virginians 😍

How do you feel when there is snow all over? I feel like, as the snow settles, the world gets muted; the ground is accepting the coldness with dignity and embracing the new reality. What else does snow symbolize? Hibernation, putting things on the back burner, putting a hold onto things until it is not covered up anymore. Virginia is not used to snow, so every-time it snows, we get days off. Ankara, where I studied, gets a lot of 'snow, ice and coldness' in general, but we would get our butties up under a thick coat and still go to school. Back in the days, I was not smart enough to get comfortable inside clothes that I could wear under the coat. I remember sitting in the pretty warm classroom with my huge coat. Sometimes, I lend my brain to other things I suppose. Another thing I remember about my life in Ankara is that, I was almost always broke. My parents would send me 35 TL from the PTT and I would finish it very quickly and be broke again. One thing I really enjoyed was getting a bar of chocolate with my very limited money. Another limiting thing was my credit on the mobile phone. Each letter counted and we had to get rid of all vowels and find shorter ways to say things. I also had a walkman. I would buy cassettes or record them and listen on my walkman until the battery died. As the battery got lower, the person would start sounding very funny. Having days off at home with kids allowed me to again “binge study” High Dimensional Data Analysis. I got to 54%. This course is teaching dimension reduction, clusters and heat maps. So far, I am truly enjoying the learning process. Well, I am a learner after all. I got to read one more chapter from Think Again: Chapter 5 What are advantageous methods in a "debate" scenario? How can we convince an opponent, how can we bring the crowd to our side? The answer is: "Dancing". Similar to a dancer, someone good at convincing others would be flexible, move back and forth. The action items are like "finding common ground", focusing on limited number of reasons with extended rationale (not flooding with reasons), asking questions at the end to allow others to reason for themselves. This was how a world known debate champion knocked out artificial intelligence as well. I have been in a debate only once in high school. The only reason they picked me was because my English was good. I remember ending my sentences with “right?”. This sounds similar to the advice above, helped us win the debate; though in my case also led to other students to keep bullying me “right? right?”later on. 😂😂 Debate stage is definitely not a place I belong to. How to deal with a hostile interruptor? Dance to the side, focus on feelings, discuss in isolation, ask what evidence would change your mind? Hopefully, we are not dealing with hostile behavior daily, but would never hurt to improve emotional intelligence by learning these techniques. Snow also has a forgiving nature, that would bury the differences, make everybody the same. At that level, we may find ourselves to be questioning, "what was it that really we were fighting about"? Like Elsa sings and I had surely been overexposed, let it go, let it snow and let us all be the same. Let's hibernate and forget what was so damn wrong.

I have been reading on Think Again about polarization. This topic is highly relevant to politics. What would be an advantage for a political leader to polarize people? It is somewhat understandable that fans, soccer team enthusiasts etc would enjoy polarization, which, in a way, defines who they are. What can be a benefit to being polarized as a society?  From an evolutionary perspective, we have the survival of the fittest phenomenon. The instinct could be to exist within a winning group and gain evolutionary advantage. But then it does not make sense to be in a losing group, yet still stubborn to change. In that case, the psychological benefit of feeling belonging to the same group and that sustained environment overcomes the need to be winning.  In America, the extreme examples are from Yankees vs Red Sox fans. Scientifically, this is fueled by repeated exposure, being comparable, which also means ‘worth fighting’. The word clouds of how each group of fans describe the other are pretty much the same. In a way, they are comparable groups in all those bad terms that describe them.  So, in a world, where we could be “XYZ” to others as we claim that they are “XYZ”, what is the point of being in groups anyway? The “power” oscillates between groups and who can use the power to gain even more power will dominate. At that point, maybe being called “whatever” does not matter, because the joys of such ultimate power mitigates such negativity.  This brings us back to the topic of attachment. Being such fragile, temporary human beings, we should probably not have strong attachments to things that are more vulnerable than who we are. That way, we would not have to make presumable sacrifices of our personality, social status or “being” to opt for a better future.  Today, I struggled with my High Dimensional Data Analysis course on the machine learning problems. Bro, I am a molecular biologist. How can I code for such complicated kNN problems? I enjoy learning about how people improved prediction methods to make lower rates of mistakes. But I just want to do my own analysis, generate data, publish papers.  The school is still out, the snow is slowly melting. My poor brain has three directions to pursue: study High Dimensional Data Analysis, write a paragraph on AGEs in dogfoods, write a blog on polarization, cook food for kids (yes this is on autopilot).  Let us reconsider why we are so divided. What would happen if we were more to open changes, listen others more, and understand better? It all starts with wanting to do it though.