This past week left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. So, here's the story: Just after graduating high school, one of my fellow Anglophile friends and I made a pact that by the year 2010 we would be living in the UK and would meet up for a pint. Four and a half years later, with a month and a half to go, I was on the train down to York for the much-promised pint! When we made the pact, neither of us were really sure how it would work out, given that life is so dynamic and so many goals and dreams change, but we managed to fulfil it.
I caught the 7am train from Glasgow Central (having to leave my house at the wee hour of 6am to make the walk to the city centre) and made it to York by 10:45. We went out for some breakfast and tea (mmm egg and bacon roll with Yorkshire tea and lemon). York is really a cute town. Very very English. If anyone is planning a trip over here, I would suggest making a stop in York, even for a day. We went to the Minster (my friend is Catholic) which is a giant cathedral. We paid to walk around the Minster (well, I did, he got in free) as well as climb the tallest tower. It was a super steep climb, to the point that the person in front of you, you're looking at the underside of their shoes, as well as the stairwell only barely a shoulder width wide. It was about a 10 minute climb straight up, but then we got spectacular views of York at the top. The vertigo you feel at certain points is not so much the height, but the dizziness from the circular climb.
After climbing the tower, we went to the market (since it was Saturday, they had the local farmer's market, yes, they have farmer's markets here) as well as the Shambles, which resembles Diagon Alley. It's a very narrow street with the second storey of the buildings leaning over the road; giving a cramped feeling. There were great little fudge shoppes, tea shoppes, and the like. We also found Guy Fawkes' birthplace which is now an inn. The next time I go to York, I'm going to stay there, dash the cost.
We then hit the pub (something both of us, being expats, thoroughly appreciate) and hunkered down for a few hours. This pub is known for it's pies (not dessert pies, but pies here, meat and gravy enclosed in a pastry). I had the most AMAZING pie; it was a lamb and apricot pie with mint-infused gravy. The gravy was poured all over the potatoes and veg on the plate as well...goodness! My mouth is watering at the thought of it again. The lamb was perfectly cooked as well and the gravy inside the pie was super thick and fantastic. Just oozed out of the pastry. After we left the pub, we went back to the Minster because some parts were open that weren't earlier in the day. I really do love Gothic cathedrals; this is the largest in England. It's got a great feel to it when the sun is going down.
We then went to this place that supposedly had amazing cocktails that my friend has always wanted to try. It had been so long since I had a nice, fruity cocktail. My booze intake since the end of May has primarily been beer, wine and whisky. This was one of those really fancy places, but not in the same way that it's an over-crowded, old building...not at all the ambiance of a fancy martini bar. We had a cocktail that was 7 types of rum and absinthe. It tasted fantastic. We tried a few more, woe be to my pocketbook, before we had to go back to the train station. We got to the platform early and sat on the benches and chatted some more before my 7pm train back. We are both in similar romantic situations and so grilled each other for advice as well as making another pact, since we were so successful in the last one.
The train arrived on time and I settled down with some films on my laptop and a BLT from the trolley. I got back into Glasgow at 10:45pm and since it was a Saturday night and the city was bustling, I decided to walk all the way home, mostly to placate my body for the egg and bacon roll, the lamb pie and the amount of beer I had. It was such a great time seeing my friend and he's planning on coming up to Glasgow after the holidays, though I'm sure we'll be seeing each other while both in Colorado.
In other news, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA) had their AGM on Thursday at the Glasgow Science Centre. Having a full meeting in the middle of the week really threw off my productivity for Friday. They had a PhD induction thing in the morning for the new physics PhD students from around Scotland (geez, I'm almost 6 months into my PhD and I am still going to these things!) to talk about our expectations, fears, desires from the PhD process. It was nice to be referred to as 'Doctoral Candidates' though; its things like that which make it much more real. In the afternoon, the rest of the SUPA community showed up for lunch and a bunch of talks. It was filled with celebrities (in the physics world, I mean). Dame Professor Jocelyn Bell gave a talk on pulsars, which was very good. She is a hero for any female physicist. Also attending was Peter Higgs of the Higgs Boson, which anyone who has read any article on the Large Hadron Collider would recognise. The head of CERN also gave a talk on the current status of particle colliders. The talks after that were mind-numbingly dull and quite painful. There was a nice reception in the evening and then we all went home, exhausted after the full day.
That's all the new exciting things! My family is coming to visit on Saturday, so I don't know if I'll get a post up next week, but there will be an extra long, special Thanksgiving edition after they leave! Toodles!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Remember, remember...
I know this is a little late getting out, but better late than never! It has been unbearably cold recently. I mean unbearable. You know in all those Masterpiece Theatres where people keep getting super cold at night? All those images of Edwardian England of people in nightgowns shivering wrapped in shawls? Yeah, it's kind of like that. Well, exactly like that. It must be the damp air coming off of the ocean or the fact that I'm living practically at the Arctic Circle! The nights are now properly long. It's super hard to go back to work after afternoon tea/coffee at 4:30 because it's pitch dark outside, and it will only get worse before it gets better. All that aside though, I still love living here and the vast amount of pubs make the weather a little less painful. It is very satisfying to go into a warm, loud, bustling pub filled with laughing, cheering drinking Scotsmen while it's properly freezing outside. You never want to leave.
This week, in our post-Halloween revelry, we had a Glaswegian friend visiting from his post-doc position in Germany. We all went out for...guess it, guess it...curry! There were too many of us in the tiny restaurant and so they split up our two tables and served us separately. I was on the losing side of the table with myself and another chap getting properly grumpy about our food not coming out yet. They were almost done with their meal by the time we got ours. So we started a mini-war between the two tables by putting a moat (our water glasses) and a wall of fire (the candles from the table) on the border. The whole thing started when someone put the bowl of their rice halfway over the line and it was properly sent back over. Then they had to borrow some of our rice later and so we charged an export tax. It was super immature but very entertaining. I went to the Oran Mor afterwards with my office mate and we had a great chat about the holidays and living in Glasgow, etc.
The next day was super stressful in terms of work and so this other girl, who is also a PhD student, and myself in the group decided to hit the pub afterwards. The night turned out to be a bit too much like Bridget Jones for me, but I had a great time nonetheless. We had a few pints at the corner old-man pub, Tennents. Then her boyfriend, who she's living with, called and they invited me over for dinner because he was making risotto. They live in a super cute, domestic little flat and really made me want a proper flat more. I really miss having my own fantastic little place, with a dining area, a living room, a kitchen all to myself and the like. We had a bottle of wine (the next morning it was discovered that finishing a bottle and a half on top of three pints is, in fact, a poor idea) and had a great dinner. It was weird to be the 'single person' again with a couple. But don't get me wrong, they were super friendly and I had a fantastic night.
The next night I was properly excited about; it was my first Guy Fawkes Night in the UK! I was tired from going out every night and so decided to stay in and cook myself a really nice meal (I was inspired after the home-cooked meal from the night before). When I left the office at about 7:30pm and stepped outside, the whole city smelled like gunpowder and there were constant fireworks going off in all directions. I went to the grocer's and got a bunch of vegetables and a bottle of wine before heading home. I passed the neighbourhood underground station and there was a queue all the way around the block to go to the Glasgow Green to watch the city fireworks. Since I was in the mood for a quiet night, I decided to skip this and head home. Plus, being me, lots of explosions and people make me very nervous! So I went back to an empty flat (THANKFULLY) and made my meal, which took about an hour. Then settled in my room with a makeshift table from a chair and sat on my couch and watched V for Vendetta while I ate. Aside from the fact that it's my favourite film, it was brilliant to watch with explosions going on outside my window. Particularly at the part in the film when V is addressing the (futuristic) nation, lecturing them for not celebrating Guy Fawkes Day anymore.
The next day the main guy in our department (our 'dad') got appointed to a chairmanship position, a big deal, and was giving his inaugural lecture. It was at 3pm then they had champagne in the common room starting at 4. He kept toasting to Gravitational Waves and our university and our department. We didn't leave the common room until about 6:30 after about 7-10 glasses of champagne each. It was time for the weekly pub-go and so we headed to Cooper's for a few pints. After that, it was suggested to go back to one of our flats and drink whisky. So we did. I think I got home around 1am. It was a super fun night though. The next morning, not so much.
The night before, we had all decided to head to SeeWoo which is this big Chinese food distributor for the Asian population as well as all the Asian restaurants in the city. It was like WalMart, but filled with Chinese food. Thankfully, one of my friends is Chinese and so he helped us find really good sauces and rice. It was all super cheap too, which was fantastic. Now I have food for a very very long time. Afterwards we went back to his place and watched some anime before he decided to cook us all a big roast pork meal. It was SUPER good.
Sunday was spent lounging around the flat, cleaning my room, etc. Nothing too exciting, which is how Sundays should always be. Time is flying by now; I'm going to be back in Colorado in 5 weeks, which is almost incomprehensible. Until next week!
This week, in our post-Halloween revelry, we had a Glaswegian friend visiting from his post-doc position in Germany. We all went out for...guess it, guess it...curry! There were too many of us in the tiny restaurant and so they split up our two tables and served us separately. I was on the losing side of the table with myself and another chap getting properly grumpy about our food not coming out yet. They were almost done with their meal by the time we got ours. So we started a mini-war between the two tables by putting a moat (our water glasses) and a wall of fire (the candles from the table) on the border. The whole thing started when someone put the bowl of their rice halfway over the line and it was properly sent back over. Then they had to borrow some of our rice later and so we charged an export tax. It was super immature but very entertaining. I went to the Oran Mor afterwards with my office mate and we had a great chat about the holidays and living in Glasgow, etc.
The next day was super stressful in terms of work and so this other girl, who is also a PhD student, and myself in the group decided to hit the pub afterwards. The night turned out to be a bit too much like Bridget Jones for me, but I had a great time nonetheless. We had a few pints at the corner old-man pub, Tennents. Then her boyfriend, who she's living with, called and they invited me over for dinner because he was making risotto. They live in a super cute, domestic little flat and really made me want a proper flat more. I really miss having my own fantastic little place, with a dining area, a living room, a kitchen all to myself and the like. We had a bottle of wine (the next morning it was discovered that finishing a bottle and a half on top of three pints is, in fact, a poor idea) and had a great dinner. It was weird to be the 'single person' again with a couple. But don't get me wrong, they were super friendly and I had a fantastic night.
The next night I was properly excited about; it was my first Guy Fawkes Night in the UK! I was tired from going out every night and so decided to stay in and cook myself a really nice meal (I was inspired after the home-cooked meal from the night before). When I left the office at about 7:30pm and stepped outside, the whole city smelled like gunpowder and there were constant fireworks going off in all directions. I went to the grocer's and got a bunch of vegetables and a bottle of wine before heading home. I passed the neighbourhood underground station and there was a queue all the way around the block to go to the Glasgow Green to watch the city fireworks. Since I was in the mood for a quiet night, I decided to skip this and head home. Plus, being me, lots of explosions and people make me very nervous! So I went back to an empty flat (THANKFULLY) and made my meal, which took about an hour. Then settled in my room with a makeshift table from a chair and sat on my couch and watched V for Vendetta while I ate. Aside from the fact that it's my favourite film, it was brilliant to watch with explosions going on outside my window. Particularly at the part in the film when V is addressing the (futuristic) nation, lecturing them for not celebrating Guy Fawkes Day anymore.
The next day the main guy in our department (our 'dad') got appointed to a chairmanship position, a big deal, and was giving his inaugural lecture. It was at 3pm then they had champagne in the common room starting at 4. He kept toasting to Gravitational Waves and our university and our department. We didn't leave the common room until about 6:30 after about 7-10 glasses of champagne each. It was time for the weekly pub-go and so we headed to Cooper's for a few pints. After that, it was suggested to go back to one of our flats and drink whisky. So we did. I think I got home around 1am. It was a super fun night though. The next morning, not so much.
The night before, we had all decided to head to SeeWoo which is this big Chinese food distributor for the Asian population as well as all the Asian restaurants in the city. It was like WalMart, but filled with Chinese food. Thankfully, one of my friends is Chinese and so he helped us find really good sauces and rice. It was all super cheap too, which was fantastic. Now I have food for a very very long time. Afterwards we went back to his place and watched some anime before he decided to cook us all a big roast pork meal. It was SUPER good.
Sunday was spent lounging around the flat, cleaning my room, etc. Nothing too exciting, which is how Sundays should always be. Time is flying by now; I'm going to be back in Colorado in 5 weeks, which is almost incomprehensible. Until next week!
Monday, November 2, 2009
This is Halloween!
Oh man, do I love this holiday. My week was fairly uneventful as the majority of it was spent preparing for the joys of the weekend to come. Others share this sentiment as well. When we were chatting about our past weeks, no one really had anything to say. So, I won't bore you with the minute details of my days. Friday was my last day until after the holidays of demonstrating the Astronomy labs. It was a super fun group of students this year. They were enthusiastic and optimistic, particularly when stuff would go horribly wrong. Anyway, so I said farewell to them and now I have a giant stack of lab books to grade. We'll see how they did.
One of my friends is finishing up her PhD dissertation and is, understandably, a bit stressed out. She hasn't been out with anyone in ages and doesn't even come to coffee any more. So we decided to go out for a girl's science fiction night. The original plan was to dress up like science fiction babes and hit the town. But since we had all been pretty stressed, and poor, we decided to have a quiet night in at one of our flats. Two of us still insisted on dressing up though; me because I lost a ton of weight to fit into my costume and the other because she wanted to wear the Star Trek uniform I have. We ordered the usual curry from the usual restaurant and sure had a laugh when I had to answer the door in my costume to give him the money. Anyway, we drank some leftover bottles of wine from the flatwarming party the week before and hunkered down for some much needed chat. We ended up watching Love Actually later on in the evening, which was a lot of fun because I hadn't seen it in at least 4 years. At least. Thankfully, my diet was over, so I inhaled my Chicken Tikka Garam Masala and Naan. Inhaled it.
The next day, it was Halloween; one of my favourite holidays. I stayed in my pyjamas all day, sluggish from the curry baby in my stomach. I watched all the old Halloween classics: Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus and Rocky Horror while I worked on my Halloween costume. The theme of the party was "dead celebrities" so I was going as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, obviously, being my sexy, classy, stylish, American self. So my big project of the day was constructing a pillbox hat from an old charity shop hat I had bought. Surprisingly, it was super difficult to find sunglasses in Scotland, so I settled for an old pair of mine. My friend came over, dressed as Farrah Fawcett, to help me with my hair before the party. I have a LOT of hair, so it was pretty difficult to rat up, but I finally managed what I could and we headed out.
I had heard that Halloween was sort of a big deal in Glasgow, particularly in comparison to the rest of the UK, where it passes almost unnoticed, but nothing prepared me for stepping out of my flat at 8pm and seeing almost every person, of all ages, dressed in costume wandering the streets. Trick-or-treating obviously isn't that big of a deal in a big city with sketchy flats and even sketchier (is that a word?) people, but everyone was dressed up, going to pubs or parties. And I mean everyone was dressed up. It was excellent. So we walked the 10 minutes to the flat where the party was, me fine in my wool, 70's coat and my friend freezing in her swimsuit and tights.
We arrived to the party to find Charlie Chaplin already drinking, Keith Floyd (a famous British TV chef who just died) drinking his signature wine, Natalie Wood taping fishes to her shirt and Chairman Mao struggling with taping Chinese Flags to his uniform. More and more people arrived and everyone put in tons of effort. There were Che Guevara, Audrey Hepburn, Marie Antoinette, and so many other great costumes. Even one chap did a last minute Scotty (the deceased Star Trek actor) uniform and discovered that his camera case looked conspicuously like a Star Trek communicator and had to spend the rest of the evening convincing people that he really wasn't that into Star Trek to put together such an accurate costume. Even my friend with a giant, red beard that is actually his, came as a disturbingly convincing young Sir Alec Guinness (dressed as Obi-Wan of course).
All was fine and well until Karl Marx started making pints of white russians, which promptly put me to sleep on the couch, along with Freddie Mercury and Linda McCartney. I finally woke up, with nothing drawn on me, thankfully and walked home with a few girls. We left at about 1:30am and you still couldn't believe how many people were in costume on the streets partying.
This was the first Halloween party that I didn't have to organize and definitely the only one where everyone put in at least SOME effort. It was a fantastic time and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves. For those of you on facebook, photos are up...so enjoy!
The next day, I finally suffered the never-ending, day-long hangover. I stayed in bed all day, watched half of the first season of the West Wing and a few films, eating nothing. Absolutely worth it though.
Sorry for the short post...see you next week!
One of my friends is finishing up her PhD dissertation and is, understandably, a bit stressed out. She hasn't been out with anyone in ages and doesn't even come to coffee any more. So we decided to go out for a girl's science fiction night. The original plan was to dress up like science fiction babes and hit the town. But since we had all been pretty stressed, and poor, we decided to have a quiet night in at one of our flats. Two of us still insisted on dressing up though; me because I lost a ton of weight to fit into my costume and the other because she wanted to wear the Star Trek uniform I have. We ordered the usual curry from the usual restaurant and sure had a laugh when I had to answer the door in my costume to give him the money. Anyway, we drank some leftover bottles of wine from the flatwarming party the week before and hunkered down for some much needed chat. We ended up watching Love Actually later on in the evening, which was a lot of fun because I hadn't seen it in at least 4 years. At least. Thankfully, my diet was over, so I inhaled my Chicken Tikka Garam Masala and Naan. Inhaled it.
The next day, it was Halloween; one of my favourite holidays. I stayed in my pyjamas all day, sluggish from the curry baby in my stomach. I watched all the old Halloween classics: Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus and Rocky Horror while I worked on my Halloween costume. The theme of the party was "dead celebrities" so I was going as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, obviously, being my sexy, classy, stylish, American self. So my big project of the day was constructing a pillbox hat from an old charity shop hat I had bought. Surprisingly, it was super difficult to find sunglasses in Scotland, so I settled for an old pair of mine. My friend came over, dressed as Farrah Fawcett, to help me with my hair before the party. I have a LOT of hair, so it was pretty difficult to rat up, but I finally managed what I could and we headed out.
I had heard that Halloween was sort of a big deal in Glasgow, particularly in comparison to the rest of the UK, where it passes almost unnoticed, but nothing prepared me for stepping out of my flat at 8pm and seeing almost every person, of all ages, dressed in costume wandering the streets. Trick-or-treating obviously isn't that big of a deal in a big city with sketchy flats and even sketchier (is that a word?) people, but everyone was dressed up, going to pubs or parties. And I mean everyone was dressed up. It was excellent. So we walked the 10 minutes to the flat where the party was, me fine in my wool, 70's coat and my friend freezing in her swimsuit and tights.
We arrived to the party to find Charlie Chaplin already drinking, Keith Floyd (a famous British TV chef who just died) drinking his signature wine, Natalie Wood taping fishes to her shirt and Chairman Mao struggling with taping Chinese Flags to his uniform. More and more people arrived and everyone put in tons of effort. There were Che Guevara, Audrey Hepburn, Marie Antoinette, and so many other great costumes. Even one chap did a last minute Scotty (the deceased Star Trek actor) uniform and discovered that his camera case looked conspicuously like a Star Trek communicator and had to spend the rest of the evening convincing people that he really wasn't that into Star Trek to put together such an accurate costume. Even my friend with a giant, red beard that is actually his, came as a disturbingly convincing young Sir Alec Guinness (dressed as Obi-Wan of course).
All was fine and well until Karl Marx started making pints of white russians, which promptly put me to sleep on the couch, along with Freddie Mercury and Linda McCartney. I finally woke up, with nothing drawn on me, thankfully and walked home with a few girls. We left at about 1:30am and you still couldn't believe how many people were in costume on the streets partying.
This was the first Halloween party that I didn't have to organize and definitely the only one where everyone put in at least SOME effort. It was a fantastic time and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves. For those of you on facebook, photos are up...so enjoy!
The next day, I finally suffered the never-ending, day-long hangover. I stayed in bed all day, watched half of the first season of the West Wing and a few films, eating nothing. Absolutely worth it though.
Sorry for the short post...see you next week!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Millport and Birthdays
I'm sitting here early on a Monday morning (the British Daylight Savings ended on Sunday) and the computer server is still down for repairs they started on Friday. So I figured I'd update this since I didn't do it last night. Well, it's definitely autumn now. It's cold and windy and rainy all day every day. Umbrellas are useless this time of year because of the gusts of wind. Sometimes, though, as long as it's not too cold or you're bundled up nicely, it can be quite refreshing to walk home through tons of rain and sleet.
Last week was one of those "wasted" weeks due to a "team-building" retreat the new PhD students in the Faculty of Physical Sciences had to attend. These are new Chemistry, Physics/Astronomy and Geology PhD students. They pick us up in a giant coach at 9am on Tuesday morning and drive us to the coast of Scotland to catch the ferry to the Isle of Cumbrae to stay at a research hostel for 3 days. It's basically meant to make us as miserable as possible so we manage to bond with each other. Which is quite effective. I mean, really, send us to a remote island off the coast of Scotland in the end of October with no escape and we will bond through our destitution. This trip is one of those legendary, awful, required experiences that has become almost a right-0f-passage for the University of Glasgow PhD scientists.
So we get to the island in time for lunch on Tuesday afternoon. When we were signing up (under threat of death if we didn't) we got dietary preferences and since I cannot eat dairy, I put that down. So we show up for lunch and it's some godawful (again, one of the legendary things is the atrocious food that is served) beige, cream pasta thing. Since I obviously cannot eat this, I ask about the non-dairy thing and they had a little plate set aside for me. My non-dairy meal was two slices of brown bread with lettuce and sprouts on top. No spreads or anything else. However, I gladly ate it instead of the alternative, though it was a bit pathetic. The others said that the pasta seemed to remove taste from their mouths. We wandered around the island for a bit to the town of Millport and popped in for tea at this tiny cafe which was your classic small village experience. Lots of old people who all know each other, but they were very friendly. We made our way back for our much-feared 'team-building' exercises. You know those stupid things you had to do at camp? Yeah, those. Crossing the 'bog' with only rope and planks of wood; wandering through the forest blindfolded following a rope; etc, etc. Thankfully it was only a few hours (with a break for tea) and that was the last time we had to do it all week.
The local pub (The Newton) advertised events in our hostel, which I'm pretty sure they organised just because we were going to be there. So the first night, they were advertising a pub quiz. We all showed up to the pub at about 7:30 and basically took over. I'm sure the town of Millport is used to that time of year where they are raided by 50 some-odd scientists for a few days. So we started drinking and chatting and watching a Rangers game on the telly until the quiz started at 9:30. We moved into the back, giant lounge and settled in for our pub quiz. The staff members were of course the winners and their prize was a bottle of vodka. Hilarious. The pub, of course, closed at 11:30 and we were promptly kicked out back to the hostel to hang out in the lounge and play poker until the wee hours of the morning.
The next day we had to give presentations that had been assigned to us before. Whoever organised the physics presentations did an awful job as we were not allowed to present on our own specific field and they were generic, boring lectures that only physicists might find interesting. Everyone else had presentations like "The Chemistry of Addiction" or "The Chemistry of Assassination" or "How can we use deep geological time to predict the future?" Our's were "The spin of a proton" and "Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry" and since they weren't our fields of expertise, we were useless when it came to questions. Not only that, but in our group of 4, only two of us actually showed up in Millport. We had slides from one of the guys but the other guy didn't even bother putting together his bit of the presentation. So ours was a bit of a sham, but it was a fairly relaxed atmosphere, so I think we did okay. They videotaped us and are going to give us copies to go over in the near future, which may be useful.
That night, the staff organised another pub quiz in the lounge of the hostel to keep us out of The Newton as long as possible. The prize for this quiz was half a bottle of vodka, to everyone's amusement. It was mostly science-related questions with a bit of Glasgow Uni history thrown in. After that, we went down to The Newton for a karaoke night. One of the guys I was hanging out with had brought a bottle of Czech rum so we took the long way to the pub, along this little, unlit trail on the coast and drank some of the rum to complete the ambiance. This pathway made it feel more like we were on an island in Scotland; and the rum didn't hurt. The karaoke was a blast because you got to see a lot of people really come out of their shells. Everyone had a good time and it ended in the most Glaswegian way possible: the organiser in the pub announced the last song and ordered everyone on the dance floor to sing along to "500 Miles" by the Proclaimers, which is an extremely Glaswegian song. So everyone was jumping on the dance floor singing along holding our pints. Brilliant. We all got kicked out, of course, straightaway at 11:30. So a few of us went to the benches on the coast and drank more of the rum (which we had stored in my bag while at the pub) and talked about politics until about 1am. It really was a great bonding night for everyone. So really, they should just stick us on a craggy island with music and booze and miserable weather and we'll all be friends by the end of it.
The next day about half of us woke up on time and we had to put together improvised talks on current issues in the science world: funding, climate change, government vs industry, etc. We were all hungover and did a mildly decent job before hopping back on the coach to take us back to Uni. On the way back we all were talking about how much work we had to get done and so would go in when we got back, at about 1:30, but as soon as we saw sight of the university, none of us could really be bothered and so went straight home.
I got back to my flat with an email notice that it was my 2nd supervisor's birthday and we were all going out at 6:30 for dinner and drinks. Of course. The fun never stops. So I met up with them and we went to this interesting Persian restaurant that had just opened up near the university. It was really great food. We went from there to the Doublet which has an upstairs bar (I know I talked about this before) and a jukebox. So we played lots of cheezy music for a few hours over some drinks. We then headed to the Uisce Beatha to settle in and top off the evening. They were playing Jaws on the telly without sound so we basically just watched that, narrating along the way. On the way home, at 1am, the dreaded Scoobie Snack was suggested, which means we have to eat one. So we did. Then went straight to bed and woke up feeling not-so-hot the next day.
Friday was a big birthday day for everyone as one of my friends was turning 30 and someone else in the department was turning 50. I took my friend out for lunch to celebrate as she's terrified of the passage of time and wasn't coping with the new decade very well. I went demonstrating at the observatory for a few hours in the afternoon then went back to her house afterwards to help her get ready for her party. We opened up a bottle of wine early and watched television for a little while. Her swiss relatives showed up at 8pm on-the-dot and everyone else trickled in later on. It was a great, relaxed little party for everyone.
Saturday I was invited to have supper at the house of the Astronomer Royal of Scotland. He invites a few new PhD students and new staff members over to his house every year from the University of Glasgow. It was a really nice house just on the other side of the Botanic Gardens. Him and his wife made some excellent food for all of us and we spent the night there having civilised chat and great curry (yes, they served curry, the delicacy of Glasgow). I left a bit early as it was my 5th night in a row of drinking. So I went home through the mist and the rain and crawled into my nice warm bed.
Sunday was a very very lazy day spent watching The West Wing and Disney movies. Can't complain. Here's to a new week! Ta ta for now.
Last week was one of those "wasted" weeks due to a "team-building" retreat the new PhD students in the Faculty of Physical Sciences had to attend. These are new Chemistry, Physics/Astronomy and Geology PhD students. They pick us up in a giant coach at 9am on Tuesday morning and drive us to the coast of Scotland to catch the ferry to the Isle of Cumbrae to stay at a research hostel for 3 days. It's basically meant to make us as miserable as possible so we manage to bond with each other. Which is quite effective. I mean, really, send us to a remote island off the coast of Scotland in the end of October with no escape and we will bond through our destitution. This trip is one of those legendary, awful, required experiences that has become almost a right-0f-passage for the University of Glasgow PhD scientists.
So we get to the island in time for lunch on Tuesday afternoon. When we were signing up (under threat of death if we didn't) we got dietary preferences and since I cannot eat dairy, I put that down. So we show up for lunch and it's some godawful (again, one of the legendary things is the atrocious food that is served) beige, cream pasta thing. Since I obviously cannot eat this, I ask about the non-dairy thing and they had a little plate set aside for me. My non-dairy meal was two slices of brown bread with lettuce and sprouts on top. No spreads or anything else. However, I gladly ate it instead of the alternative, though it was a bit pathetic. The others said that the pasta seemed to remove taste from their mouths. We wandered around the island for a bit to the town of Millport and popped in for tea at this tiny cafe which was your classic small village experience. Lots of old people who all know each other, but they were very friendly. We made our way back for our much-feared 'team-building' exercises. You know those stupid things you had to do at camp? Yeah, those. Crossing the 'bog' with only rope and planks of wood; wandering through the forest blindfolded following a rope; etc, etc. Thankfully it was only a few hours (with a break for tea) and that was the last time we had to do it all week.
The local pub (The Newton) advertised events in our hostel, which I'm pretty sure they organised just because we were going to be there. So the first night, they were advertising a pub quiz. We all showed up to the pub at about 7:30 and basically took over. I'm sure the town of Millport is used to that time of year where they are raided by 50 some-odd scientists for a few days. So we started drinking and chatting and watching a Rangers game on the telly until the quiz started at 9:30. We moved into the back, giant lounge and settled in for our pub quiz. The staff members were of course the winners and their prize was a bottle of vodka. Hilarious. The pub, of course, closed at 11:30 and we were promptly kicked out back to the hostel to hang out in the lounge and play poker until the wee hours of the morning.
The next day we had to give presentations that had been assigned to us before. Whoever organised the physics presentations did an awful job as we were not allowed to present on our own specific field and they were generic, boring lectures that only physicists might find interesting. Everyone else had presentations like "The Chemistry of Addiction" or "The Chemistry of Assassination" or "How can we use deep geological time to predict the future?" Our's were "The spin of a proton" and "Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry" and since they weren't our fields of expertise, we were useless when it came to questions. Not only that, but in our group of 4, only two of us actually showed up in Millport. We had slides from one of the guys but the other guy didn't even bother putting together his bit of the presentation. So ours was a bit of a sham, but it was a fairly relaxed atmosphere, so I think we did okay. They videotaped us and are going to give us copies to go over in the near future, which may be useful.
That night, the staff organised another pub quiz in the lounge of the hostel to keep us out of The Newton as long as possible. The prize for this quiz was half a bottle of vodka, to everyone's amusement. It was mostly science-related questions with a bit of Glasgow Uni history thrown in. After that, we went down to The Newton for a karaoke night. One of the guys I was hanging out with had brought a bottle of Czech rum so we took the long way to the pub, along this little, unlit trail on the coast and drank some of the rum to complete the ambiance. This pathway made it feel more like we were on an island in Scotland; and the rum didn't hurt. The karaoke was a blast because you got to see a lot of people really come out of their shells. Everyone had a good time and it ended in the most Glaswegian way possible: the organiser in the pub announced the last song and ordered everyone on the dance floor to sing along to "500 Miles" by the Proclaimers, which is an extremely Glaswegian song. So everyone was jumping on the dance floor singing along holding our pints. Brilliant. We all got kicked out, of course, straightaway at 11:30. So a few of us went to the benches on the coast and drank more of the rum (which we had stored in my bag while at the pub) and talked about politics until about 1am. It really was a great bonding night for everyone. So really, they should just stick us on a craggy island with music and booze and miserable weather and we'll all be friends by the end of it.
The next day about half of us woke up on time and we had to put together improvised talks on current issues in the science world: funding, climate change, government vs industry, etc. We were all hungover and did a mildly decent job before hopping back on the coach to take us back to Uni. On the way back we all were talking about how much work we had to get done and so would go in when we got back, at about 1:30, but as soon as we saw sight of the university, none of us could really be bothered and so went straight home.
I got back to my flat with an email notice that it was my 2nd supervisor's birthday and we were all going out at 6:30 for dinner and drinks. Of course. The fun never stops. So I met up with them and we went to this interesting Persian restaurant that had just opened up near the university. It was really great food. We went from there to the Doublet which has an upstairs bar (I know I talked about this before) and a jukebox. So we played lots of cheezy music for a few hours over some drinks. We then headed to the Uisce Beatha to settle in and top off the evening. They were playing Jaws on the telly without sound so we basically just watched that, narrating along the way. On the way home, at 1am, the dreaded Scoobie Snack was suggested, which means we have to eat one. So we did. Then went straight to bed and woke up feeling not-so-hot the next day.
Friday was a big birthday day for everyone as one of my friends was turning 30 and someone else in the department was turning 50. I took my friend out for lunch to celebrate as she's terrified of the passage of time and wasn't coping with the new decade very well. I went demonstrating at the observatory for a few hours in the afternoon then went back to her house afterwards to help her get ready for her party. We opened up a bottle of wine early and watched television for a little while. Her swiss relatives showed up at 8pm on-the-dot and everyone else trickled in later on. It was a great, relaxed little party for everyone.
Saturday I was invited to have supper at the house of the Astronomer Royal of Scotland. He invites a few new PhD students and new staff members over to his house every year from the University of Glasgow. It was a really nice house just on the other side of the Botanic Gardens. Him and his wife made some excellent food for all of us and we spent the night there having civilised chat and great curry (yes, they served curry, the delicacy of Glasgow). I left a bit early as it was my 5th night in a row of drinking. So I went home through the mist and the rain and crawled into my nice warm bed.
Sunday was a very very lazy day spent watching The West Wing and Disney movies. Can't complain. Here's to a new week! Ta ta for now.
Monday, October 19, 2009
The Yon Bonnie Banks and the Wee Craggy Shores...
Wow, what a week what a week. I currently am lying in bed on Monday morning fighting off a particularly nasty cold that has spread around the department. It seems that once the students return, they bring with them some awful plagues.
So last Monday, I had to go to a First Aid Training Course taught by the infamous Tom. This guy is a giant, ex-army Glaswegian man with one of those inscrutable accents. I really can't even describe the hilarity of having him around, slagging off the university, first aid techniques ("aye, 'tis better en thae militairy") and such. He also warned us at the beginning that he'll "bee callen thae gar-rils [girls] 'swee'art' far 'tis a ganheratiun-ul thang an' if ye dunnae like it, I'll call ye 'sir'" because apparently a girl tried to file a sexual harrassment suit one time against him. He was completely harmless though and very nice. Lots of bizarre stories. He had one that took place on a remote roadway up in the Highlands that is supposedly nicknamed "yankee road". Now, I don't know if you know this, because I certainly didn't when I first moved here, but calling an American a "yank" is extremely derogatory. He was kind enough to apologise to me for saying it, though it doesn't really bother me too much. It just helps me know if people are being particularly unkind to me. The other great thing about him was that he constantly repeated that if you come upon a scene make sure you "look up for danger". He repeated this so many times, that some of my friends, after they took this course, later started a band called Look Up for Danger. That's how much of a legend he is. Oh and another thing, and this was really weird as I keep finding words that don't mean the same in American English: so Tom was talking about a car crash, for example, and would say "you come across the scene and there are 4 casualties" so I'm like, "great! call the mortuary and walk away". Thankfully I didn't say that out loud, but it took me half the day to realise that "casualty" here means the same thing as "victim" in America and vice-versa. So weird. Later, when I was relaying this to people at the pub their response was "is it possible that ER is a lot more grim than we previously thought?" for they didn't know the difference either. So funny.
The next day was our friend's birthday and he, unfortunately, came down with a nasty cold (the same one I've got now, I believe) and we were supposed to go out for his birthday. He canceled our nice reservations at last minute, so there was a scrambled effort for curry instead, since we had spent the day preparing for a big meal. Mmmm Lamb Saag. I also had my first Gravitational Waves SUPA course. So the Scottish University Physics Alliance offers courses around Scotland through Video Conferencing for PhD students to learn more in a certain topic they feel they should know more about. It was really nice and relaxed. Since Glasgow is the university for Gravy Waves, the lecture is held in person there, by my professors.
Wednesday was a particularly busy day. I spent the morning preparing for my presentations I had to give that evening at the TeleCon then in the afternoon went off to the Observatory to prepare the labs for this Friday. I hadn't been to the observatory before and it was a bit further than I previously had imagined. We drove, of course, myself, the professor and three guys (two PhD students and one postdoc) all went down to make sure everything was ready to go. It was a really cute observatory, pretty standard actually. Lot of classrooms, labs, offices and a few telescopes. Oh, and a little makeshift planetarium in the back. I came back from that and gave almost an hour long update to our LIGO working group at our weekly telecon. I was updating on a new code, presenting a proposal for a new project I'm going to be doing and presenting a full known pulsar list I had put together. All were well received by everyone, though it was very exhausting.
On Thursday I had to go to a Communication Workshop. Yes. Enough said. Though the one thing that was interesting/funny was that the guy running it was a lot like Mr Weasley from the Harry Potter films. He talked for a while about learning how to give and receive compliments. The receiving bit was interesting because he was talking about how the British culture is wired to bat off compliments in a defensive mode. Such as "That's a nice tie you're wearing today." "Oh this is really old." It was very much geared toward teaching us how to teach others and ask good questions and communicate to different audiences. But yeah, pretty painful.
Friday we went out for the usual pub-go and I had a lovely lovely veggie burger. A few people dribbled in and out of the pub and I left relatively early to go home and talk to a friend but also because I got a text message that evening asking if I wanted to climb Ben Lomond the next day. Ben Lomond is another munro (higher than 900 metres) and looks over Loch Lomond, the largest loch in Scotland about an hour outside of Glasgow. I was super psyched about this because we had been having fantastic weather that week and I wanted to climb a proper peak in good weather. Also, when I first moved here, my dad and I went to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs with a little tour bus. I remember seeing Ben Lomond and thinking about how I would get to climb it one day. This was also a perfect opportunity because I love the feeling of nature in the autumn and Scotland has some gorgeous season change. We met up bright and early, just three of us and drove out through the back roads into the highlands. It was some great winding roads with so many colours and the sun rising over the hills. I've said this before, but it does feel like Colorado a lot of the time, just a bit more rolly. Kind of like driving through the foothills. Anyway, it was absolutely spectacular and the mist hovering over the fields definitely added to that ambiance. We went through Drymen, which is a cute little town on the edge of the loch where apparently a lot of people get married, then up the west side of the water. We decided to take the "tourist" way up the mountain as it had been a while since I had gone hiking. This was a long, easy walk up the back of the mountain. It had it's steep bits but would then flatten for a while, repeating this the entire way. The way up the mountain took a little less than 3 hours and felt so good when we finally made it. One of the women had to turn back due to a stitch in her side, but she was a good sport about it since she's basically grown up on these mountains. But the other woman and myself sat on the top of the mountain and nibbled on the obligatory sandwiches and tea as we looked over the hills of the highlands.
We took the non-tourist side down, which especially at the beginning was a near-vertical descent, but gave some much more spectacular views of the loch. It was particularly gorgeous near the end when it went down into the trees. Looking back on the mountain, you could see a steady stream of people going up the tourist way as it was later in the day, so thankfully we didn't do that. It was super cute though, hearing all the families, as we got closer to the bottom, with the little Glaswegian kids moaning about the hike and the parents shouting "look around! you should be so lucky to see this!" ... total flashback to my childhood of hiking in the Rockies. There was a beautiful meadow area just over the trees that looked over the loch and I think it would be worth doing if there wasn't enough time/energy to hike the whole mountain, to go this way up to the meadow and have a picnic. Anyway, it was a gorgeous day.
That night we were going out again to the Butterfly and the Pig restaurant (look at the link, it's the cutest website) in the city centre to make up for the missed birthday from before. One of our friends came down from Edinburgh for it as well. After the fantastic meal (ending with Sticky Toffee Pudding, of course) we went to St George's Square which is beautiful at night and went to the old Counting House for a night-cap. Being absolutely knackered from the hike earlier (though thankfully those of us who went didn't feel as guilty about stuffing our faces) we called it an early night, but it was super fun. So that's the end of another week! Ta for now!
So last Monday, I had to go to a First Aid Training Course taught by the infamous Tom. This guy is a giant, ex-army Glaswegian man with one of those inscrutable accents. I really can't even describe the hilarity of having him around, slagging off the university, first aid techniques ("aye, 'tis better en thae militairy") and such. He also warned us at the beginning that he'll "bee callen thae gar-rils [girls] 'swee'art' far 'tis a ganheratiun-ul thang an' if ye dunnae like it, I'll call ye 'sir'" because apparently a girl tried to file a sexual harrassment suit one time against him. He was completely harmless though and very nice. Lots of bizarre stories. He had one that took place on a remote roadway up in the Highlands that is supposedly nicknamed "yankee road". Now, I don't know if you know this, because I certainly didn't when I first moved here, but calling an American a "yank" is extremely derogatory. He was kind enough to apologise to me for saying it, though it doesn't really bother me too much. It just helps me know if people are being particularly unkind to me. The other great thing about him was that he constantly repeated that if you come upon a scene make sure you "look up for danger". He repeated this so many times, that some of my friends, after they took this course, later started a band called Look Up for Danger. That's how much of a legend he is. Oh and another thing, and this was really weird as I keep finding words that don't mean the same in American English: so Tom was talking about a car crash, for example, and would say "you come across the scene and there are 4 casualties" so I'm like, "great! call the mortuary and walk away". Thankfully I didn't say that out loud, but it took me half the day to realise that "casualty" here means the same thing as "victim" in America and vice-versa. So weird. Later, when I was relaying this to people at the pub their response was "is it possible that ER is a lot more grim than we previously thought?" for they didn't know the difference either. So funny.
The next day was our friend's birthday and he, unfortunately, came down with a nasty cold (the same one I've got now, I believe) and we were supposed to go out for his birthday. He canceled our nice reservations at last minute, so there was a scrambled effort for curry instead, since we had spent the day preparing for a big meal. Mmmm Lamb Saag. I also had my first Gravitational Waves SUPA course. So the Scottish University Physics Alliance offers courses around Scotland through Video Conferencing for PhD students to learn more in a certain topic they feel they should know more about. It was really nice and relaxed. Since Glasgow is the university for Gravy Waves, the lecture is held in person there, by my professors.
Wednesday was a particularly busy day. I spent the morning preparing for my presentations I had to give that evening at the TeleCon then in the afternoon went off to the Observatory to prepare the labs for this Friday. I hadn't been to the observatory before and it was a bit further than I previously had imagined. We drove, of course, myself, the professor and three guys (two PhD students and one postdoc) all went down to make sure everything was ready to go. It was a really cute observatory, pretty standard actually. Lot of classrooms, labs, offices and a few telescopes. Oh, and a little makeshift planetarium in the back. I came back from that and gave almost an hour long update to our LIGO working group at our weekly telecon. I was updating on a new code, presenting a proposal for a new project I'm going to be doing and presenting a full known pulsar list I had put together. All were well received by everyone, though it was very exhausting.
On Thursday I had to go to a Communication Workshop. Yes. Enough said. Though the one thing that was interesting/funny was that the guy running it was a lot like Mr Weasley from the Harry Potter films. He talked for a while about learning how to give and receive compliments. The receiving bit was interesting because he was talking about how the British culture is wired to bat off compliments in a defensive mode. Such as "That's a nice tie you're wearing today." "Oh this is really old." It was very much geared toward teaching us how to teach others and ask good questions and communicate to different audiences. But yeah, pretty painful.
Friday we went out for the usual pub-go and I had a lovely lovely veggie burger. A few people dribbled in and out of the pub and I left relatively early to go home and talk to a friend but also because I got a text message that evening asking if I wanted to climb Ben Lomond the next day. Ben Lomond is another munro (higher than 900 metres) and looks over Loch Lomond, the largest loch in Scotland about an hour outside of Glasgow. I was super psyched about this because we had been having fantastic weather that week and I wanted to climb a proper peak in good weather. Also, when I first moved here, my dad and I went to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs with a little tour bus. I remember seeing Ben Lomond and thinking about how I would get to climb it one day. This was also a perfect opportunity because I love the feeling of nature in the autumn and Scotland has some gorgeous season change. We met up bright and early, just three of us and drove out through the back roads into the highlands. It was some great winding roads with so many colours and the sun rising over the hills. I've said this before, but it does feel like Colorado a lot of the time, just a bit more rolly. Kind of like driving through the foothills. Anyway, it was absolutely spectacular and the mist hovering over the fields definitely added to that ambiance. We went through Drymen, which is a cute little town on the edge of the loch where apparently a lot of people get married, then up the west side of the water. We decided to take the "tourist" way up the mountain as it had been a while since I had gone hiking. This was a long, easy walk up the back of the mountain. It had it's steep bits but would then flatten for a while, repeating this the entire way. The way up the mountain took a little less than 3 hours and felt so good when we finally made it. One of the women had to turn back due to a stitch in her side, but she was a good sport about it since she's basically grown up on these mountains. But the other woman and myself sat on the top of the mountain and nibbled on the obligatory sandwiches and tea as we looked over the hills of the highlands.
We took the non-tourist side down, which especially at the beginning was a near-vertical descent, but gave some much more spectacular views of the loch. It was particularly gorgeous near the end when it went down into the trees. Looking back on the mountain, you could see a steady stream of people going up the tourist way as it was later in the day, so thankfully we didn't do that. It was super cute though, hearing all the families, as we got closer to the bottom, with the little Glaswegian kids moaning about the hike and the parents shouting "look around! you should be so lucky to see this!" ... total flashback to my childhood of hiking in the Rockies. There was a beautiful meadow area just over the trees that looked over the loch and I think it would be worth doing if there wasn't enough time/energy to hike the whole mountain, to go this way up to the meadow and have a picnic. Anyway, it was a gorgeous day.
That night we were going out again to the Butterfly and the Pig restaurant (look at the link, it's the cutest website) in the city centre to make up for the missed birthday from before. One of our friends came down from Edinburgh for it as well. After the fantastic meal (ending with Sticky Toffee Pudding, of course) we went to St George's Square which is beautiful at night and went to the old Counting House for a night-cap. Being absolutely knackered from the hike earlier (though thankfully those of us who went didn't feel as guilty about stuffing our faces) we called it an early night, but it was super fun. So that's the end of another week! Ta for now!
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Scoobie Snack
Sorry for being a day late, but I was at a concert last night and didn't have time. On last Monday we went out to Mr India's with the usual crowd. I had some rather disappointing news that day and was not in the best of mood, so curry was lovely. We got the usual and lots of Lal Noofan and nan. Afterwards, I went to my friend's flat for some wine and a chat. It was lots of fun and I really enjoyed getting to know her more.
On Tuesday I had some fantastic meetings with past and present supervisors. It was a good chance to catch up and we had some great talks about what needs to get done. My current supervisor sorted out all the "new" things I have to do and was very supportive in figuring it out. My past supervisor called on a conference call and talked to me about our past research and had me start working seriously on our paper. Well, I have been writing it, but now I've got to do work for it. Not fun or okay. Still it was good talking to him and we had a game plan by the end. After all these meetings I went into the common room where they had been having a welcome event for the new physics students. Events for undergrads here tend to be filled with free booze. Great for us, because we can attend or when it's over we can go pick up the leftovers. Anyway, I went in for some beer and started chatting to another girl who is a PhD student that I haven't spent much time with. She wanted to go hang out at the pub and so we went together. It was super great just chatting with this girl about life and things. She's currently watching all of The West Wing right now (as am I) for the first time, so we had some great chat about politics and boys.
On Wednesday I had super fun. Some of my parents' friends came to visit in the afternoon. These were my first visitors since I've properly settled here. I showed them around and hopefully they enjoyed themselves. I don't really know though, since they left at 6:30 to go back to the hotel and sleep. Since I had my whole night planned out to spend with these people, I sent out a plea for some socialising and was met with spectacular return. My 2nd supervisor was taking out the guy who gave the visitor colloquium. I met him in Budapest and he's teaching at Cardiff right now. So I met him and a few others at Mr India's (of course). Adding to the drinks that I had with my visitors, we had a few more beers with curry, then went out to the Lios Mor for some whiskey. We chatted about everything under the sun (and beyond) until they closed 7 or 8 whiskeys later. As we walked back up Byres Road I branched off to go back to my flat. I got called back across the road with the declaration that we were going to a friend's flat for some more whiskey. The way up there we passed Maggie's mobile chip shop. Home of the Scoobie Snack. Now I had yet to experience this, as did the Cardiff visitor so we were pursuaded to get one. This is arguably the best thing that one can consume the way home from many many drinks. It's a burger patty, layered with a sausage patty, layered with bacon (remember, bacon here is like canadian bacon), then an egg then cheese, all on a massive roll. Again, best thing you can have at that time of night. Of course, you can feel your heart screaming out in pain as you eat it. We finally all went home after one whiskey (we decided we had tapped out at the Lios Mor) and crawled into bed. We all took the next morning off (really hoping the Cardiff guy made his 7am flight) to recover.
The next two days were relatively uninteresting at work, minus a £46 hair trim. We had a party at our flat on Friday night which was super fun (actually) and of course left everyone with many regrets the next day. I slept until 4pm the next day due to a massive headache (the vodka and the red wine punch is probably what did us in). We then had a poker night at my 2nd supervisor's flat which finally ended after 5 hours of poker playing. We ended with beer and el-cheapo sausage rolls at 2 am. I really need to stop eating crap like that in the middle of the night. We had a concert the next day with a few friends that met up at the pub then went to the concert. I must have had a rock in my shoe or something because I woke up this morning with a blood blister the size of my fist on the bottom of my shoe. Which is where you will find me now: my foot elevated and in much pain, on my back writing this in bed. Ta for now!
On Tuesday I had some fantastic meetings with past and present supervisors. It was a good chance to catch up and we had some great talks about what needs to get done. My current supervisor sorted out all the "new" things I have to do and was very supportive in figuring it out. My past supervisor called on a conference call and talked to me about our past research and had me start working seriously on our paper. Well, I have been writing it, but now I've got to do work for it. Not fun or okay. Still it was good talking to him and we had a game plan by the end. After all these meetings I went into the common room where they had been having a welcome event for the new physics students. Events for undergrads here tend to be filled with free booze. Great for us, because we can attend or when it's over we can go pick up the leftovers. Anyway, I went in for some beer and started chatting to another girl who is a PhD student that I haven't spent much time with. She wanted to go hang out at the pub and so we went together. It was super great just chatting with this girl about life and things. She's currently watching all of The West Wing right now (as am I) for the first time, so we had some great chat about politics and boys.
On Wednesday I had super fun. Some of my parents' friends came to visit in the afternoon. These were my first visitors since I've properly settled here. I showed them around and hopefully they enjoyed themselves. I don't really know though, since they left at 6:30 to go back to the hotel and sleep. Since I had my whole night planned out to spend with these people, I sent out a plea for some socialising and was met with spectacular return. My 2nd supervisor was taking out the guy who gave the visitor colloquium. I met him in Budapest and he's teaching at Cardiff right now. So I met him and a few others at Mr India's (of course). Adding to the drinks that I had with my visitors, we had a few more beers with curry, then went out to the Lios Mor for some whiskey. We chatted about everything under the sun (and beyond) until they closed 7 or 8 whiskeys later. As we walked back up Byres Road I branched off to go back to my flat. I got called back across the road with the declaration that we were going to a friend's flat for some more whiskey. The way up there we passed Maggie's mobile chip shop. Home of the Scoobie Snack. Now I had yet to experience this, as did the Cardiff visitor so we were pursuaded to get one. This is arguably the best thing that one can consume the way home from many many drinks. It's a burger patty, layered with a sausage patty, layered with bacon (remember, bacon here is like canadian bacon), then an egg then cheese, all on a massive roll. Again, best thing you can have at that time of night. Of course, you can feel your heart screaming out in pain as you eat it. We finally all went home after one whiskey (we decided we had tapped out at the Lios Mor) and crawled into bed. We all took the next morning off (really hoping the Cardiff guy made his 7am flight) to recover.
The next two days were relatively uninteresting at work, minus a £46 hair trim. We had a party at our flat on Friday night which was super fun (actually) and of course left everyone with many regrets the next day. I slept until 4pm the next day due to a massive headache (the vodka and the red wine punch is probably what did us in). We then had a poker night at my 2nd supervisor's flat which finally ended after 5 hours of poker playing. We ended with beer and el-cheapo sausage rolls at 2 am. I really need to stop eating crap like that in the middle of the night. We had a concert the next day with a few friends that met up at the pub then went to the concert. I must have had a rock in my shoe or something because I woke up this morning with a blood blister the size of my fist on the bottom of my shoe. Which is where you will find me now: my foot elevated and in much pain, on my back writing this in bed. Ta for now!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Being 'New'
So the day after I got back from Budapest, I had to be up bright and early and down at the Glasgow Science Centre to have a booth on our Institute of Gravitational Research. I got to spend two days explaining space-time theory to 5 year old kids. Try it sometime; it's fun. I met the token precocious kids who can sit there for hours explaining to me about the atmosphere and planets and asteroids and eclipses while their overwhelmed mothers finally take a breather. I loved it. The best bit is when you get to explain something to these hugely inquisitive kids and you can see them understand something and you know that they'll spend inordinate amounts of time explaining it to their mothers that evening.
The walk down to the Science Centre was absolutely lovely. I love the fall and I walked down Kelvin Way along Kelvingrove Park. The leaves were changing and there was the necessary crispness to the air. It was a beautiful walk; particularly on Sunday where no one is around until maybe noon. I also crossed the River Clyde which I always enjoy as you can look down and see the shipping yards. The GSC's cafeteria had a beautiful veiw across the Clyde to the University tower.
Speaking of the cafeteria, one thing I hugely love about Scotland is the attitude toward haggis. It seems so exotic in the US and I remember when leaving and people were asking me to tell them the first time I had it. You remember when I had it, it was a few weeks back now. I've had it a lot since then as it's readily available and seems to be a staple of the diet. Can't really blame them, either, as it's filling and nutritious and really doesn't taste that bad. No, really. Anyway, the reason I started down this path, is that I have had haggis on multiple occasions now with no difficulty or really second thought. I got my lunch for free at the GSC and when I went to the cafeteria, the hot option for the day was haggis and chips. Great! No problem. Didn't think twice. Until I was sitting at the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking over the Clyde, eating my haggis and chips with ketchup did I realise how actually surreal the whole thing was. Funny anecdote, too, the Scots always seem to be completely surprised when haggis makes it onto some 'weird foods that we dare you to try' list. The only equivalent for Americans I can think of to really drive the point home is if something like hot dogs were on that list (which, arguably, I feel safer eating haggis than hot dogs). Something that's so familiar that for whatever reason the rest of the world is terrified of.
Last week was the first week for the new PhD students and the term in general. I helped out with the new 3rd year physics labs and their 'teamworking exercises' for two days. Hey, I got paid and got free lunch. Can't complain. Though I did have to deal with a particularly arsey group of Glaswegian boys hell-bent on making trouble. All in good spirits of course, but I definitely had to keep them from cheating on a more-than-regular basis. The last bit of the last day though did end up being pretty beneficial when they brought in some professionals in the field of physics to discuss their careers. Our groups had 45 minutes to come up with questions to ask them. I managed to convince them that out of anything that week, this would be really valuable, because it's the time to start thinking post-degree. So after they came up with some questions, they started asking me about being a PhD student. I'm pretty sure that I convinced 8 boys to go into research ::pat on back::. Because, really, it is a pretty sweet life.
The main annoyance of the week was having to go to all the 'orientation' stuff for the new students. Since I came at a weird time, a few things were hastily explained to me and I was left to figure out the rest myself. Which I did. Also, just being back from Budapest, I now actually have things to do, believe it or not. Now I have to do an unbelievable amount of stupid courses and teamwork events when I could be doing real stuff. It wouldn't have been that bad my first month, when I was still sorting stuff out, but I'm to the point now that I'm working on the weekend just to get things done. Also, some of the other new PhD students (who feel like their about 5 years younger than me) are the biggest bunch of condescending, pathetic, arsey, sexist, Oxbridge boys I've ever met. Not to be a snob, but not only have I been here for four months and figured things out, I've also actually done research for two years before that. For whatever reason, they still feel the need to introduce me to professors and ask if I need help with my computer. Oh for frak's sake.
Oh well, the proof is in the publications. Ta for now!
The walk down to the Science Centre was absolutely lovely. I love the fall and I walked down Kelvin Way along Kelvingrove Park. The leaves were changing and there was the necessary crispness to the air. It was a beautiful walk; particularly on Sunday where no one is around until maybe noon. I also crossed the River Clyde which I always enjoy as you can look down and see the shipping yards. The GSC's cafeteria had a beautiful veiw across the Clyde to the University tower.
Speaking of the cafeteria, one thing I hugely love about Scotland is the attitude toward haggis. It seems so exotic in the US and I remember when leaving and people were asking me to tell them the first time I had it. You remember when I had it, it was a few weeks back now. I've had it a lot since then as it's readily available and seems to be a staple of the diet. Can't really blame them, either, as it's filling and nutritious and really doesn't taste that bad. No, really. Anyway, the reason I started down this path, is that I have had haggis on multiple occasions now with no difficulty or really second thought. I got my lunch for free at the GSC and when I went to the cafeteria, the hot option for the day was haggis and chips. Great! No problem. Didn't think twice. Until I was sitting at the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking over the Clyde, eating my haggis and chips with ketchup did I realise how actually surreal the whole thing was. Funny anecdote, too, the Scots always seem to be completely surprised when haggis makes it onto some 'weird foods that we dare you to try' list. The only equivalent for Americans I can think of to really drive the point home is if something like hot dogs were on that list (which, arguably, I feel safer eating haggis than hot dogs). Something that's so familiar that for whatever reason the rest of the world is terrified of.
Last week was the first week for the new PhD students and the term in general. I helped out with the new 3rd year physics labs and their 'teamworking exercises' for two days. Hey, I got paid and got free lunch. Can't complain. Though I did have to deal with a particularly arsey group of Glaswegian boys hell-bent on making trouble. All in good spirits of course, but I definitely had to keep them from cheating on a more-than-regular basis. The last bit of the last day though did end up being pretty beneficial when they brought in some professionals in the field of physics to discuss their careers. Our groups had 45 minutes to come up with questions to ask them. I managed to convince them that out of anything that week, this would be really valuable, because it's the time to start thinking post-degree. So after they came up with some questions, they started asking me about being a PhD student. I'm pretty sure that I convinced 8 boys to go into research ::pat on back::. Because, really, it is a pretty sweet life.
The main annoyance of the week was having to go to all the 'orientation' stuff for the new students. Since I came at a weird time, a few things were hastily explained to me and I was left to figure out the rest myself. Which I did. Also, just being back from Budapest, I now actually have things to do, believe it or not. Now I have to do an unbelievable amount of stupid courses and teamwork events when I could be doing real stuff. It wouldn't have been that bad my first month, when I was still sorting stuff out, but I'm to the point now that I'm working on the weekend just to get things done. Also, some of the other new PhD students (who feel like their about 5 years younger than me) are the biggest bunch of condescending, pathetic, arsey, sexist, Oxbridge boys I've ever met. Not to be a snob, but not only have I been here for four months and figured things out, I've also actually done research for two years before that. For whatever reason, they still feel the need to introduce me to professors and ask if I need help with my computer. Oh for frak's sake.
Oh well, the proof is in the publications. Ta for now!
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