Sweaty Palms and Awkward Silences

Wow, what a busy week. Again, I apologise for having to post last weeks and this one at the same time, but please read both.

So Sunday night we got together for a small reception to get a chance to mingle and meet one another over drinks. The thing that's great about physicists is that we can spot each other from a mile away. It's incredibly easy to spot one another when trying to figure out where to go. Everyone was really nice in that awkward, uncomfortable sort of way. We were given name tags with the name of what university we would be going to. The academic year technically starts 1 October, so I'm the only PhD student who has already started. This was a chance to try to find people we would be working with (or alongside) for the next three years. There's only one other Glasgow student here, but he's doing experimental so we won't see much of each other. He seems nice though. Interestingly enough, it is split into about 50/50 girls and guys and there seem to be about fifty people there. We hung out in the university building for a while and then got lead by a group of former St Andrews students out to a nearby pub. The pub was quickly taken over by a horde of physicists all trying to socialise over drinks. We stopped by a chip shop on the way back and had some atrocious, greasy chips. Needless to say, everyone woke up today with bad hangovers.

We had some interesting planetary and solar system talks today. We have five lectures over the day with a break for coffee at 11 and lunch at 12:30. We're done by 4 so there's still plenty of time to go out. It's really bizarre though to be back listening to lectures, even though they are really informal. One of the lecturers told us specifically to not remember anything from this week except the people we meet; it's a pretty laid-back week. The students from St Andrews again organised a get-together. We decided to go have a bonfire on the beach of the North Sea. Seriously. It was so Scottish. We went to Tesco's to pick up some beers and then headed down to the beach. We set up at the base of the ruins of a castle and hung out until about 11. It was absolutely a fantastic, beautiful scene that took everyone's breath away. I took a few photos, but they can not even do it justice. It was pretty difficult to wake up the next morning, but I had a nice breakfast of haggis and fried eggs to wake me up. The lectures were a bit slow (it was stellar physics...no pun intended) but there was plenty of tea and coffee to keep us all (sort of) awake.

The thing I really appreciate about this conference is being able to meet (almost) all the students in the UK who, in three years, will be receiving PhDs in astrophysics. It forms a nice little club, knowing we're all in the same position. We've had some great advice and lectures from professors all over the UK who are welcoming us into the field. They have been reminding us to keep in mind that we can do our own research, to collaborate with colleagues, basically finally treating us like peers. A great thing about being in the UK is that they are easily able to bring professors who are experts in their field to give hour-long lectures; something that would be difficult to do in the US. Everyone has given us fantastic advice and information that they have learned either during their PhDs or since. I've been really pleased with the high-profile researchers they've been able to get. This has definitely been a great induction to the career.

Wednesday night was our big conference dinner with a ceilidh. The organisers put together a bulk kilt order for the boys so they could be properly dressed. It was really nice to see so many physicists get properly dressed up, even without their mothers there to keep them in line.Everyone looked really lovely and we all had a great time. We had a really fancy dinner in a beautiful hall before proceeding upstairs to the ballroom for a proper ceilidh. It's essentially a mix between a hoe-down and a formal, Edwardian dance. The band taught everyone the dance before we did it so everyone could keep up. Half the fun though was completely buggering the dance up. We had a little after-party back in a hotel room with a few students and lecturers, some beer and the Big Bang Theory. We are physicists, after all, that's how we party.

The lectures continued the next two days with little excitement. They went out to play pub golf on Thursday night, but I (thankfully) passed on that. It's where they print out score cards where each pub is a different "hole", you have a specific drink to have in that hole and your score is the number of sips it takes you to finish that drink. For example, hole number three is The Raisin, you have a pint of ale in par 3, so you have to finish it in 3 drinks or less. It was absolutely insane.

The rest of the lectures were fantastic. They focused on cosmology and observation which are my favourite topics. After the lectures, I went straight home because my 2nd supervisor was throwing a huge dinner party. I really love commuting in Scotland. You just hop on a bus, and 2 hours later, you're across the country. The countryside looks a lot like the farmlands of Colorado, just more "rolling". It really was beautiful though.

I made it back for the party and now I'm really starting to feel at home in Glasgow. It was excellent to get off the bus stop, see the royal concert hall, drop my stuff off at my flat, buy a bottle of wine and run into friends all on our way out to dinner. It's home. We had a great time with great food. We drank a lot of wine and whiskey and had some great laughs. Myself and 2 other girls left at about 1:30am while I heard later that the last to leave left around 5am.

Yesterday I woke up very late with a very bad hangover. I met up with a few people to go to the Auchentoshan Whiskey Festival. I defend my actions on Friday night of drinking half a bottle of Auchentoshan in preparation and respect for this festival. Anyway, this festival was absolutely fantastic. It was basically a little festival just outside of town at the distillery at the base of the highlands. They had booths from various farmers and butchers selling their produce and really good venison burgers. They also had a great kid's area with a bouncy castle, a creepy clown and face-painting. They premiered their new Ale and gave out lots and lots of whiskey samples along with classes on whiskey making and tasting. They also had tours of the distillery, a chainsaw sculptor and a chance to bottle your own whiskey out of the barrel (for a considerable amount of ££ of course). Oh and they also had a free dram with admission, which was only £5. It was an excellent family festival, motivated by whiskey...only in Scotland. They also had a beautiful backdrop of the highlands.

After our massive whiskey consumption, we took the train back into town and went to our favourite curry place, Mr India's. They made me a great Chicken Tikka Madras that was just at that border between spicy and tears streaming down your face. I'm eating the leftovers as I write this. Today was, of course, slow. I did my laundry, practiced some sewing and cleaned my room a bit. Here's until next week!