Why you shouldn't play scrabble with a particle physicist.
Otherwise titled -
Strange things that I think about at the gym.
Particle physics has such a cool and unusual vocabulary! Check out these triple point score wonders:
fermion
boson
quark
lepton
baryon
meson
muon
gluon
slepton
graviscalar
skyrmion
I suppose it beats thinking about how much my legs look like two giant slugs trying to fight their way out of tubes of lycra when i'm running on the treadmill.
I've just taped this up on the wall in the lab...
Once upon a time there was a scientist who decided to work late on a Friday night to help out a friend with a big huge experiment that was going on in the lab. There was just one thing she had to remember to do before she went home, and that was to split her parasite culture. After a long and tiring day, that finished off around 11pm with some very cold pizza that got lost on it’s way to the IIU, the scientist went to warm up some parasite media. She turned on the water bath and then went back to chew on her unsatisfactory and mostly disappointing pizza, which sadly, was the highlight of her Friday night. All the little scientist had to do before heading off home to get some well deserved rest was feed her parasites. As she took her media from the waterbath she thought “Gee this media feels warm” and then realised that SOMEONE HAD RE-SET THE THERMOSTAT ON THE WATER BATH TO 70°C AND NOT TURNED IT BACK TO 37. The poor tired scientist let rip a string of colourful adjectives that cannot be re-printed here and then tried very hard not to cry.
If you care about poor tired little scientists, then could you please use the incubator on the bench for all your non-37 degree waterbath needs. It works. I swear it does. But if you really really have to use the waterbath near the sink could you please pretty please set it back to 37°C when you’re finished. That or provide hot pizza within 35 minutes of the customer calling.
Thank you.
Exercise bikes, politics, neighbours and snack food
I've joined the
sports centre here at the university. I won't call it a gym, that might be over-representing the facilities, it has cardio equipment and weights machines, but the bare concrete furnishings are not exactly aesthetic. Reminds me a lot of the old melbourne university sports centre before they opened the nice new complex.
The gym is a great place to burn off stress as well as calories, and a chance to process the myriad thoughts running around in my brain. Also, as a reward, I have taken out international subscriptions to a couple of my favourite Australian magazines that are mentally marked "FOR READING IN THE GYM ONLY". I'm getting "
Cosmos" which is a really great science magazine, and "
The Monthly" which is a collection of essay pieces on Australian current affairs and society. I would highly recommend either of these publications, in fact I have already inspired several friends and family to take out subscriptions. I should get a commission !! They're also great gifts ideas, really great to read on teh train or tram and, ok, now I really should get a commission.
However, it is not always possible to take in articles about the existence of
Higgs bosun, or the conservative takeover of the
ABC board, whilst thumping away on a treadmill up-hill at 10.0 speed. For this there are tv screens in the gym, playing video hits. But they don't show the current top forty, but a really weird mix of different kinds of musical countdowns. Today I arrived just in time to see the top ten "Boy bands of the 80s vs Boy bands of the 90s" which mad me so violent I almost broke the rowing machine. It was shortly followed by the top 20 "Kylie versus Australian superstars" and so I was treated to the PopDiva herself interspersed with Delta, Craig and Jason. This was to be expected, however when the Rouge Traders came in at number 12 I was quite surprised. Not that I have a deep and meaningful opinion of the greatest hits in the Aussie Pop realm, but that Natalie Bassingwaithe, the lead singer went to the same school that I did. Of course, her
official biography doesn't mention Oak Flats High School in it, as she did transfer and graduate from the more appropriate Wollongong School of the Performing Arts for senior school. Then again, I don't really blame her, OFHS doesn't rate a mention on my cv either! *giggle* However it is a bit strange to be breaking into a sweat while someone you know sings pop music at you.
Of course all that great work at the gym has just been off set by the consumption of a packet of
Twisties, but they were almost past their used by date and it'd be a shame to waste them :)
Internet killed the radiostar
It is becoming more and more clear to me that I am behind the times when it comes to all things cool on the internet. This is possibly a good sign, as it implies that I don't spend my entire life surfing around online, but also reveals my lack of exposure to the
zietgeist.
Specifically, I have just recently discovered
Pandora, an interactive online radio station that tailors a play-list to suit your tastes in music. The good things about it are that it's FREE and that it is actually quite smart. You enter a combination of your favourite bands and/or songs and then it predicts, based on the common styles and elements of your favourites what kind of music you might like to listen to. So it plays tracks for you that it chooses, and you can rate them as you go along. Pandora then learns what you like and don't like, and refines your play-list as you listen.
For example, I set up an "alternative electro rock" station (my name for it, not Pandora's) and entered bands like Depeche Mode, Joy Division, and New Order.. it then starts playing me Happy Mondays and the Cure. Also, it has a vast selection of music, some of which i have never heard, so I'm getting to hear bands that are reminicent of those I like, but who are new to me. It is surprising just how many bands sound like Depeche Mode. This is a good thing.
Of course, it's not perfect, I entered "Radiohead" as a band I liked, and Pandora started playing me "Placebo" and "Ben Folds Five", but I then told it that I didn't want to hear those bands and it changed it's tune.
So now I've got four radio stations set up: Alternative electro rock, Grrl Radio, Chicks that Rock, and Block Rockin Beats. I'm thinking of adding Retero Power, Stage Show Sing-a-long and Music to Bathe To, in the future.
*giggle*
Cause really, again.. It's all about me!!
Monstrous Lies
It all happened quite innocently one night, over a few curries and a few lagers, when some people from work and i mentioned that we have a coffee machine in our unit. It's great, it grinds the beans, self-steams and percolates, and makes the coffee which fuels the scientific research for the day. Our fellow dining companion, who works in the same department, but in a more administrative role was so impressed. "You have a free coffee machine?!" she said with wide eyes. And I couldn't help myself. A little mischievous voice from deep inside spoke up and said "Yeah, it's right next to the chocolate machine" !!! I then proceeded to explain about the free chocolate machine, and she was taken in hook, line and sinker. "Of course you can't get every kind of chocolate, it's got a limited selection. But you can get the basics, like kit kats, oh and malteasers" This statement was met with approval and much nodding of heads. "And it's not *free*, like not just anyone can walk up and use it, you have to punch your grant code into the keypad to activate it, like a passcode for the photocopier, but our boss doesn't mind." My audience of one then asked if she could come up for coffee on Thursday and I just couldn't keep it together. My straight face lost the battle to the internal giggling fit and I was out-ed as the teller of huge massive fibbs !!
One taste of the power of falsehood and I was addicted. I've now come up with a series of new and improved tall tales to tell, the biggest and best of which is
Neighbours Duty.
You know, Neighbours duty... it's like jury duty, but you're called up to be an extra on Neighbours. I only found out about it when I moved to Melbourne, because then I was on the Victorian state electoral roll, and that's where they film Neighbours you see.. I mean it wouldn't make sense if you lived in Sydney or Queensland to have to come down for it. It's usually only a few days, and you don't always get picked, sometimes you turn up and they don't need that many people, or they only want tall blokes or something. You don't get to pick which episode you're on, but sometimes you can get lucky. Like one of my friends got to be a fireman in the scene when Harold's coffee shop burnt down.. that was pretty cool. He even got a line, and so his name was in the credits. And that's how some people actually get their start in TV, by meeting people and making contacts. Of course i'm not really that interested, and you can get out of it if you have a job that's essential, or if you are a full-time carer or you're sick or something. But most people do do it, cause it'd be un-Australian not to... yeah, it's kinda cool!
How far I get through that one without laughing depends on the crowd, and how far down the bottle of wine we are.. but it's good to set yourself challenges! *giggle*
White bread world
I can't believe that I just wrote a blog entry about the weather, and that my previous two posts have been about rollercoasters and fruit.
A
tsunami has hit java and killed hundreds of people, leaving thousands more homeless.
There are continuing air strikes across
Lebanon with hundreds of civilian casualties and escalating violence.
And I am going for icecream.
Shallow doesn't begin to describe it.
Assimilation
Ok. I'll concede that today is hot.
Officially the mercury is only at 29.5 degrees here at the University of York, but the distinct lack of efficient air conditioning is doing my head in.
Oh look... i'm moaning about the weather. How English.
You're like a rollercoaster, toast ya!
When I left my previous lab, I organised a winery tour as a lab-leaving do and I thought I was pretty cool. However I knew I was beaten when the lab manager leaving my current lab organised a trip to
Alton Towers, which is a theme park here in the UK. Think Australia's Wonderland with scarier rides and a pretty English parkland setting. How cool is that!
I LOVE ROLLERCOASTERS !
My favourite was
"Air". You get strapped into the rollercoaster ride harness and then before it leaves, the ride tilts your seat 90 degrees and so you fly around the ride in a vertical position! So cool! When it did loop-the-loops I felt like I was in one the
roulettes! (whose UK equivalent are the
red arrows) . I dared everyone in our group to go "No hands!" for the whole ride. It was just so amazing, and such a smooth ride. Not like the bone-rattling skull-shaking rides on
the Demon that I remember.
And the other REALLY scary one was
"Oblivion". It takes you up really really high and then drops you vertically, facing straight down into a dark black pit below ground level. And of course, before the cart drops, the ride holds you at the apex, just long enough for you to take a deep breath and stare into the aforementioned and below picutred "Oblivion". Definitely the adrenaline kick of the day for me!
I've also been trying to work out what the appeal of rollercoasters is. In modern society we often do not experience true "life or death" scenarios, and perhaps these rides are a way of taking a
violent passion surrogate, to inject some fear and euphoria into our lives. To take a deep breath and be brave and conquer our fears and. I guess extreme sports appeal in a similar fashion. I don't care why really.. cause i think they're awesome!
Happiness is...
...two summer stone fruit seasons per year.
StrawberriesPeachesNectarinesCherriesApricotsDivine!
Out of breath, perhaps running for flying children's books
Fact for today: Puffins exist!
For some reason I had the crazy idea that puffins were extinct, or mythical, or imaginary.. maybe it was something to do with them being a publisher of
amazing children's books or something!
Anyhow, when the folks in the lab here proposed an outing to "Go see the Puffins" I thought they were pulling my leg. But no, we drove to the chalky east coast to
Bempton cliffs overlooking the North Sea, sure enough, there was a sky full of puffins for all to see!
Actually there were lots of birds, besides these cuties, and it was kind of like an aerial version of an aquarium. I always find fish very relaxing.. just swimming along in their tanks, and this was kind of the same, only with birds. There were hundreds of thousands of birds flying out to sea to collect fish for their young, then bringing the food back to the chicks nesting in the cliffs. It was like something out of a David Attenborough documentary. Awesome !
I'm dyeing here
As if there wasn't enough change in my life.. I decided to dye my hair. The last time I saw my original hair colour was a brief few months in the year 2000, and although there is nothing wrong with being a brunette, red heads seem to have more adventures!
Although the box said "Ruby", I would have to classify the final outcome as "Garnet". I think this is fitting, as this is my birthstone and I do tend to wear a lot of garnet jewellery.
One interesting side effect is that it has made my eyes appear more green. Perhaps they were always this colour, I used to subscribe to the definition "hazel", but somehow having a darker hair colour has made me notice them more. Of course I'm not talking verdant emerald here, more of an enhanced pond scum shade of green...
The bathroom seems to have survived the occassion, there's a few interesting red drops on the linoleum which makes it look like the home of a serial killer, but aside from that I didn't do too badly. And thankfully my ears and my neck are still skin coloured !!
Ahh.. nostalgic memories of high school sleep overs involving tragic
cheap and nasty hair colouring sessions...
Just six of the weird things about me...
Inspired by
Casey... Six weird things about me.
1.
I am afraid of spontaneous combustion. As a child, the idea that one day I could suddenly, at any moment, burst into flames terrified me. I know that this phenomenon has been scientifically investigated and that there are a plethora of explanations as to how and why people have died, but the idea of randomly bursting into flames and burning to death haunts me. Perhaps I was burnt at the stake in a former life...
2.
I dream while I am still awake. It's kind of like an intermediate state of consciousness that I refer to as "wake-dreaming". It happens just as I am falling asleep, on the edge of awareness, and I often start holding conversations with the people in my dreams outloud. Which results in me saying some very random things when I am tired, such as "Of course we'll bake you a cake, it's your birthday" and "Why are they wearing sunglasses? It's the middle of the night". Whilst people have told me that this can be a very amusing and endearing trait, it is not at all helpful when I start to dose off in seminars or in the dark of the microscopy lab... my colleagues tend to stare.
3.
I don't wear jeans. The last time pair I bought were black and that was 1996. There was a substantial period of time when I didn't own any pants, sorry, trousers at all. I guess this is why I own 20 skirts (yes, the correct answer is 20). I had to buy some pants before I went to New Zealand this year, everyone in my lab laughed at the concept of me trying to bungy jump in a skirt. Of course I own exercise clothes, jogging in a dress is a little too fifties for me.
4.
I often know what people are going to say next. This in itself isn't weird when the conversation is following a rational train of thought. But when you're at a biology conference chatting to the PhD student sitting next to you at dinner and you ask them what they do outside of the lab and the word "gymnastics" comes into your head and then the person beside you smiles and replies "actually I coach gymnastics" then it's a little bit freaky. This is but one example, and it is far from an isolated incident. Most of the time, I ignore it and convince myself it's a coincidence, that it can all be explained. Obviously I had noticed the plant molecular biologist's superior agility as she cruised the buffet and had determined rationally and reasonably that she was an ex-gymnast. That makes far more sense than believing in esp, doesn't it?
5.
I've got a freckle on the inside of my palm. If I am ever in a hideous accident (touch wood) then I could potentially be identified using the cute little freckle below my right index finger.
6.
I like to order my laundry when I hang it out to dry. I adhere to a strict peg-colour code for each section. It just doesn't feel right to hang out a skirt with one red peg and one blue one. I can alter the colour code between laundry loads (inter-load variance) but not within a laundry load (intra-load variance). Depending on availability it's blue pegs for skirts (i always need lots of blue pegs), yellow pegs for tops, green pegs for exercise gear and pink pegs for "littles".. and they all have to be hung out in segregated sections on the hillshoist, all the tops together, all the socks together.. I don't know why, it just feels better this way.
Hmmm... I think I just outed myself as a paranoid, obsessive compulsive, slightly loopy, new age hippie control freak.
Irrelevant fact #786
I’ve started to part my hair a little to the left.
I like it that way.
Christmas in July
The weather has turned brilliantly warm here in the UK, and so health officials have issued an official
heat wave warning. People at work are complaining that they "can't do anything in this
heat" and it hasn't even hit 30 yet! For me it is the perfect weather, it's warm and sunny with light breezes during the day and it cools right off at night.. Of course I can sit and laugh at the silly Brits, but come winter, I will be the one who can't cope with the weather!
Of course as the mercury rises, some internal clock keeps trying to convince me that soon it will be christmas! I keep having these spontaneous impulses to go christmas shoppping, expecting to see lights and decorations round every corner, and I am anticipating New Year and my birthday. It's a bit of a shock when i then realise i've still got six months to go! We were at the pub one night, and a guy asked me very seriously if it was true that Australia christmas cards had snowmen on them.. I told him that of course they did, and everyone laughed themselves silly.. I am looking forward to having a winter christmas this year, it will be so much fun, and as the seasons and traditions will be so completely different, I don't think I will be that homesick. For example, it is cherry season here right now, and in australia cherries are the ultimate in table trimming at christmas time.. and so lying in the sun in my garden on saturday eating cherries only added to my yuletide expectations. However in December, the only cherries here will be preserved ones, and there won't be any seafood spreads or antipasto platters on the patio.. So it will be christmas, but not as we know it.. :)
The other christmassy thing that happened this weekend was that ALL MY STUFF ARRIVED. Huge joy and excitment at all the presents that were delivered to my doorstep! Of course I knew what was in the boxes, well most of them; there were a few odd surprises (why on earth did i pack that?!!?) and it was a little bit sad, cause I remembered where I was when the boxes were packed and all the people who helped me pack them. Huge hugs to you!! And big thanks to Craig for co-ordinating the shipment and negotiating the wild world of international shipping.. Arrrghh me hearties! So I spent a bit of time on the weekend setting up my room, unpacking all the boxes of photos and trinkets and trying not to cry, and going out (twice) to buy more hangers to put all my clothes away... which brings us to...
Dr. K's quiz of the day:
How many skirts does Dr. Krys own?
First correct answer wins a prize... and no, the prize is not a skirt! *giggle*
I swear I did a massive wardrobe cull before I left.. I have witnesses! I gave away *so* much cool stuff, and everytime you wear that brown cord jacket, or that nifty red skirt.. I hope you appreciate it! (you know who you are).
Ok.. time for me to do some work now...
"
Tis the season to be jolly.. tra la la, la la la, la la la"
(why are they all looking at me funny?)
