But when I be adjustin' the pitch an' yaw o' my polarizin' beam splitter, I be feelin' like a pirate on the open seas.
Yes, this is what happens to my brain after I spend too much time in lab. Imagine what'd happen if I became a researcher?
Which brings me to that PhD I keep aberrantly mentioning. I figure I ought to give you a briefing on what's going on in my head on that count, since you may be sitting there going, "Wait, is she staying? When did that happen?"
It hasn't, but it could, potentially. A couple weeks ago one of my professors sent out an e-mail listing open research topics in his group and inviting anyone who was interested in one of them to get in contact with him. One of the topics sounded really cool to me (actually, two did, but on talking to him in more detail, one sounded much cooler than the other), and I have spoken with him twice about it. Just informational, once about PhDs in the UK in general and how they're structured and what the funding opportunities and difficulties are, and the second time in much more detail about that project itself. So now the idea of staying here for a PhD has real substance because there's at least one specific research topic attached to it, and I'm looking around at both this and other options, as well as trying to figure out exactly what I do want.
Rather than give you the entire thought process, I'll highlight the main point I've been considering and would like prayed for, which is, whether or not I want to "settle down" so very far from my family and friends and home. I know that if I stayed here, I'd make it my home--it's what I did in Atlanta, it's just want I do. Gather a community around me, a surrogate family like my roommates at Tech, and make the place I live into the place I belong. HOWEVER. I also know I'm getting tired of this transient thing--I don't want to keep transplanting myself from school to school, job to job, family to family--eventually, I want to stay with or at least near one of these places where I establish myself. But I'm having a hard time with the idea that staying here for a while might mean being comfortable and settled here and staying "for good," and how far this "home" would take me from my home and Atlanta "home." I realize it's a far-distant, hypothetical consideration that I'm getting caught up on (and my Dad points out that whether or not I can even afford it is a more salient point at the moment), but it's made me think a lot about the nature of homes and families, and made me grieve a little bit for how the community I developed in Atlanta was by nature a transient one (at a university) that I might not be able to recapture even if I went back there right now, and encouraged me a little that there are some things I know for certain that I want in my life, like a family and a place that really is HOME for me. So just so you know, I love you all and consider you my home and family in both Jackson and Atlanta, and as I try to figure out what I want to do and where I want to go next, you are definitely in my mind and heart!
Sunday 12 December 2010
It's positively BALMY out here! It's gotta be, what, forty degrees?
Fahrenheit, people. (My Celcius people are thinking, "Yeah, Kaley, forty degrees is PRET-ty balmy alright. What Scotland are YOU living in?")
So there's been snow on the ground for about the past two weeks, and this past Friday I woke up to an abrupt thaw. Suddenly there was green grass again--patches of it, at least--and they grew throughout the day. There's still some ice on the ground in the places direct sunlight doesn't hit*, but the weirdest thing has been that my concept of temperature has been completely thrown off. I walked outside, saw ice both on the ground and on the pond near my building, and promptly pulled my hat off and opened my coat because I was so warm. The temperature can't have risen much above freezing, but compared to the past couple of weeks where there was this bitter chill that just cut straight through whatever I wore, it felt so nice!! I thought it felt nice! Me! I hate the cold! I can't even guess how cold it actually was outside because I know it had to be near freezing, but it felt so pleasant. Not warm, but warmER, crisp instead of bitter. I'm acclimating, and it's weird.
*However, I am NOT acclimating to this "short winter days" thing. Really, I never took that idea seriously before now. At home, our days get, what, an hour shorter? Two? Seriously, we're down to about 7 hours of daylight here. I can barely tell when the sun rises (I think it happens around 8-8:30) because it comes up at such a shallow angle that you don't know when or where it crossed the horizon unless you actually see it), and when I left my flat at 11:40 for church (noon service) this morning, the light quality and sun position looked about the way they do at home at about 9:30 in the morning. And it just starts setting from there. Walking home around 1:45 it looked like late afternoon, 4:30ish, and at 3:00 I was standing in the window trying to catch the last rays before it dipped below the trees. It's 4:00 and dusk, and by 4:30 it will be completely dark. My Zimbabwean friend and I (I admit it, it's even worse for her than for me) just walk around shaking our heads and really understanding the concept of hibernation for the first time.
So there's been snow on the ground for about the past two weeks, and this past Friday I woke up to an abrupt thaw. Suddenly there was green grass again--patches of it, at least--and they grew throughout the day. There's still some ice on the ground in the places direct sunlight doesn't hit*, but the weirdest thing has been that my concept of temperature has been completely thrown off. I walked outside, saw ice both on the ground and on the pond near my building, and promptly pulled my hat off and opened my coat because I was so warm. The temperature can't have risen much above freezing, but compared to the past couple of weeks where there was this bitter chill that just cut straight through whatever I wore, it felt so nice!! I thought it felt nice! Me! I hate the cold! I can't even guess how cold it actually was outside because I know it had to be near freezing, but it felt so pleasant. Not warm, but warmER, crisp instead of bitter. I'm acclimating, and it's weird.
*However, I am NOT acclimating to this "short winter days" thing. Really, I never took that idea seriously before now. At home, our days get, what, an hour shorter? Two? Seriously, we're down to about 7 hours of daylight here. I can barely tell when the sun rises (I think it happens around 8-8:30) because it comes up at such a shallow angle that you don't know when or where it crossed the horizon unless you actually see it), and when I left my flat at 11:40 for church (noon service) this morning, the light quality and sun position looked about the way they do at home at about 9:30 in the morning. And it just starts setting from there. Walking home around 1:45 it looked like late afternoon, 4:30ish, and at 3:00 I was standing in the window trying to catch the last rays before it dipped below the trees. It's 4:00 and dusk, and by 4:30 it will be completely dark. My Zimbabwean friend and I (I admit it, it's even worse for her than for me) just walk around shaking our heads and really understanding the concept of hibernation for the first time.
Because I've got some lard and I need to use it for something
Alex, what is "A good reason to bake pie?"
You may or may not remember my Thanksgiving escapades (if you don't, it's because they were just like everyone else's Thanksgiving escapades, e.g. FOOD), but in the process I made an apple pie and (tragically) only used half the lard I bought for the occasion. Which means I have the perfect opportunity to try my hand at mince pies, a Christmas tradition here that I've never tasted, let alone made. (In other Christmas tradition news, I found out what a Christmas pudding is. It's fruitcake. Apparently people actually eat them here instead of passing them around as some sort of seasonal practical joke. Maybe theirs are less...less...rocklike.) But mince pies, on the other hand, sound fantastic--they're basically a pie crust filled with a syrupy candied fruit and spice mixture, and I'm looking forward to trying them.
That was really the whole point of this post. I've been cooking a lot here and really enjoying it, but I find myself doing unusual things in the name of food. Like purchasing pure lard, or grinding cardamom seeds with the end of a rolling pin (or cutting up small pine trees with my kitchen implements, but I don't know if that one counts...). It's an adventure. The adventure hasn't led me to haggis yet, and though I'm a bit curious, I think overall I'm OK with that.
You may or may not remember my Thanksgiving escapades (if you don't, it's because they were just like everyone else's Thanksgiving escapades, e.g. FOOD), but in the process I made an apple pie and (tragically) only used half the lard I bought for the occasion. Which means I have the perfect opportunity to try my hand at mince pies, a Christmas tradition here that I've never tasted, let alone made. (In other Christmas tradition news, I found out what a Christmas pudding is. It's fruitcake. Apparently people actually eat them here instead of passing them around as some sort of seasonal practical joke. Maybe theirs are less...less...rocklike.) But mince pies, on the other hand, sound fantastic--they're basically a pie crust filled with a syrupy candied fruit and spice mixture, and I'm looking forward to trying them.
That was really the whole point of this post. I've been cooking a lot here and really enjoying it, but I find myself doing unusual things in the name of food. Like purchasing pure lard, or grinding cardamom seeds with the end of a rolling pin (or cutting up small pine trees with my kitchen implements, but I don't know if that one counts...). It's an adventure. The adventure hasn't led me to haggis yet, and though I'm a bit curious, I think overall I'm OK with that.
How to care for your live Christmas tree...hmm, presumably cutting up its trunk with a kitchen knife is not recommended
On the other hand, I discovered yet another use for those versatile, gigantic cleavers Chinese cooks use. I'll have to go buy myself one when I no longer live with a Chinese student I can borrow from.
So what, you ask, did the Christmas tree do to deserve such treatment? Well, it angered the Maser Laser Oscillator, clearly.
No, on Friday I went and picked up my first-ever real Christmas tree (my family has fake one older than I am), which I ordered from a charity for the homeless and picked up at my church. It's only 4 feet tall and shockingly light, so I carried it and a stand home without any trouble, only to discover that the base was just a teeny bit to big to fit in the stand. However, it had some knobs sticking out from the main trunk that if I could just shave off, it would fit...and out came B.'s kitchen knife. Turns out that sawing through a tree with a meat cleaver is actually pretty hard.
Eventually, though, I prevailed, and the tree is standing in its base. It felt a little ironic to go online after performing my impromptu tree surgery and google "how to care for a live Christmas tree." What I got was that it should be watered a little at the base and misted occasionally if the ornaments/lights allow. Which is why it is standing in a small pool of water in the stand. If this is miserably wrong and I'm going to breed mites or tree fungus in my kitchen, then please someone who's had a real tree before, tell me. But here it is! It makes me very happy.
So what, you ask, did the Christmas tree do to deserve such treatment? Well, it angered the Maser Laser Oscillator, clearly.
No, on Friday I went and picked up my first-ever real Christmas tree (my family has fake one older than I am), which I ordered from a charity for the homeless and picked up at my church. It's only 4 feet tall and shockingly light, so I carried it and a stand home without any trouble, only to discover that the base was just a teeny bit to big to fit in the stand. However, it had some knobs sticking out from the main trunk that if I could just shave off, it would fit...and out came B.'s kitchen knife. Turns out that sawing through a tree with a meat cleaver is actually pretty hard.
I am the Master Laser Oscillator. Fear my wattage.
Hi everyone! Now that my crazy week has passed and I'm in the home stretch, I have a lot of other stuff to worry about (like finals and that "PhD" thing), but none of it has a hard deadline, so I can write to you guys again! (For anyone who cares, the "master laser oscillator" was the topic of one of my big presentations Wednesday. It's actually the smallest in a series of 3 lasers used in some fancy detectors around the world, but it controls the other, bigger ones. Basically, it's a beast.) As much as all the work I/we had to get done over these few weeks has been difficult, I actually enjoyed what I was doing a lot of the time. (It still feels strange for me to say that about school, but I guess it's encouraging that I enjoy what I'm doing.) So much of what I did as an undergrad--no, all of what I did as an undergrad--was the physics of very limited, very fundamental, situations, so the thought process of building a system, thinking about how all the pieces fit together and affect each other and have to work together for a specific result, is new to me, and I discovered that I enjoy it very much. I also discovered that laser design is not my thing. Definitely not what I want to do my dissertation on over the summer, which is a good thing to find out now since we just had our first meeting about summer project selection this Friday. I'm less worried about that than I have been, although it sounds like it's going to be a lot of work and a big responsibility, since I'll effectively be a real employee of the company I'm doing the project with, in addition to being a student doing my dissertation. But I'll be making decisions about that over the next couple of weeks while I'm on *gasp* CHRISTMAS BREAK!! My Dad sent my Mom and Sammy's travel itinerary to me this morning, and I'm SO excited to see them and Erin in just a few weeks!! (Holy cow, I just realized Christmas Day is 2 weeks from yesterday...when did that happen?)
Heh, all the people reading this just jumped and said, "Agh! No! It can't be that close! How did it get here so fast?" I know how these things work.
But for discussions of Christmas, pirates, and an excess of lard (not necessarily together), I defer you to my subsequent vignettes.
Heh, all the people reading this just jumped and said, "Agh! No! It can't be that close! How did it get here so fast?" I know how these things work.
But for discussions of Christmas, pirates, and an excess of lard (not necessarily together), I defer you to my subsequent vignettes.
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