Results tagged “Ph.D” from Test blog
"Is this blog on hiatus?", "Are you dead?", "What's happened to you?", "What, are you too good now to write blog entries?", "Have you grown up and left the rest of us behind?", "Have you been kidnapped by pixies and buggered into a catatonic state?" (note of interest, a pixie would probably have to use its whole body to bugger a person).
No, no, plenty, no, not quite, novel proposal but beyond my present reality (probably).
All I can say is that sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't, and when I don't post, I don't miss it. What I can miss is the people who choose to interact with me exclusively through this medium, and to them I apologise for my prolonged period of silence. I can't promise that the fabulous rate of postage'll change, but I can promise that I plan to stick around. No dramatic farewells followed by pitiful tip-toeing back into the fold when I realise that my life is empty without blog posts; it is a popular formula, but who lusts after convention? I can guarantee occasional verbiage though, but whether it's as entertaining as Bush's attempts at speech, or as dull as (foreign blog name deleted on account of bitchiness, besides, who am I to talk?) is pretty much impossible to predict.
In terms of updates; my arm is much better and can be lifted to within inches of vertical though I still can't comfortably sleep on my front; the viva for my PhD was held on December 5th, took three and a half hours, and went very well, so I was passed that day (sweet relief, but I feel too young to wear the title doctor); Christmas was the quietest ever for our family, reduced from twenty to just four people, but it was perfect since these two chappies were both in the same location:
And the time off from work was nice, as these two chappies got to spend ten whole days together, which is rare but appreciated. Screw the cuteness, Stairs, 'cos did you just say 'time off from work'? My how sharp you are; yes, I think I did. I'm currently working for a local Borough doing web-developer stuff and I am very happy as the environment is good, and the people even better. And I get paid.
At some point between December and January, we ushered in the New Year; I won't go there because there was some major yanking-of-rugs out from under people and the process didn't go smoothly, but there's something to be said for starting a new year on a downer, as probability would have things improve thereafter. As a sickening optimist, this is something that I find encouraging. So "Happy 2006", whether it started in the stinking, festering depths of the Stygian swamps, or in a blinding, orgiastic high of (an orgy?) fabulousness. There's just too much to look forward to, and if you disagree, you're not trying hard enough.
i am writing this entry on morphine and it might prove to be an incoherent ramble, but at least i will have a record of how dull i can be even when dosed up on the good stuff. capitalising and correcting my sentences involves too much effort so apologies for the terminal case of the uglies. seeing me would give a big clue as to why typing is a problem, but for those who didn't know, upon submitting my ph.d. thesis, i went in for some corrective surgery.
So (yes, i know, but 's' and shift are close together), last week I submitted my thesis. done. survived. happy. and yesterday, i was admitted to hospital. i only had to wait five hours before anything was done to me, and when it began, i was, in short order, given some happy drugs, lots of oxygen, and then a big shot of the white stuff. soporific bliss. yay for general anaesthetic.
under the spell of a very cute anaesthesiologist (everyone was cute by this point, but i think he may actually have been as he came to visit me on the ward this morning when i was feeling more dark-haired than i was the night before (i.e. not so blonde, keep up ffs)), my favourite shoulder was opened up, some repair work carried out, and i was stitched up. i came to in a warm daze beneath a hot air blanket and the smiling face of a crazy cantonese woman. i swore at her in cantonese because that's what you do when you're high. we got on famously. she wheeled me up to the ward where i was greeted by mother, partner (sugery was my first anniversary gift to him) and lots of snack food. Nausea kept me from touching any of it till 3am, but when the pungent odour of anaesthetic vanished from my nostrils at around that time, i had a small food orgy on my bed while four older gents snored around me. and snored, and snored.
this is why sleeping on a ward usually leaves light sleepers borderline suicidal. so i got to take a look at the handiwork. very pretty if you have a fondness for gore. to be fair, a med student messed up my i.v., so the spray of blood across my arm and gown made it look =a bit more dramatic than it was, but judging from the yellow mess around the shoulder, there was lots of oozing going on during the night. the sutures look very neat though, and there isn't too much pain. i may change my mind when the local wears off completely. so now my arm is immobliised against my chest so as to preclude excessive movement at the joint. it has to be kept this way for four weeks, which is a bit wank, mais qu'est ce-qu'on peut faire? necessary sufferance. but it went well and i am happy. submittng the thesis and having a first (if uncelebrated) anniversary with the dearest man of my life add to this, and then there's my incipient move back to London. so, things are in the process of changing, as i imparted in the last post, if in a typically obfuscatory manner, and for once in my life i have no idea what i'm going to do. this actually makes me endlesssly happy, as i've always been one to plan to the dollar, so it feels good not to have excessive concerns about where things are headed. hamlet alluded to death as being an 'undiscovered country'; so too, surely, is the process of living, and the days are just packed.
I've finally prostituted myself to science in a bid to make some money; things are becoming increasingly strained financially, and since students in my position are forbidden from working whilst at the University, they invariably end up doing all sorts of things to make up the shortfalls.
This is the first time that I've done something more than teach, and I've certainly given it my all. Only two more days of this in the week ahead; it's an interesting study to be a part of, but in some small way, it makes me feel sad that I'm having to do this just to feed and house myself for a few more weeks. I guess that I should be grateful that I don't have more serious things to worry about, but a little security would really feel good right now.
It's like sitting at the control deck of a starship; in front of you floats a steel plate, roughly a metre squared, suspended perfectly at the horizontal by pneumatic cylinders driven by a compressor in the next room; to the right, a pair of flat panel displays offer up a digital control panel of mind numbing complexity, a small box covered in green-glowing buttons dismisses its size by looking very important, and twin multi-gigahertz computers controlled via bluetooth add to the technoarray with their steady hum and sheer bulk; to the left, a squat panel of eight illuminated switches flanks a rack of heavy black steel that carries four cylinders; two Helium-Neon lasers, each about a foot and a half long and two inches in diameter, a single diode laser nestled beneath them, and to their right, an argon laser, five full inches in cross-section and mounted by a fuck-off-huge cooling fan.
And in the middle, sat square on the steel plate, and connected to the flanking equipment by a quarrel of fibre optic cabling and wire is the photomultiplier, the centre of this mechanical universe; behold, the confocal microscope, all £190 000 of it. And I am taking it for a test drive.
I like that I can be left to assess $350 000 worth of scientific wizardry all on my own. Put me behind the wheel of a car worth three hundred and fifty times less, and I'd feel far more concerned about doing something wrong -- perhaps because doing something wrong in a car is more likely to involve my neck -- but there are no cars here; on my planet, the poofs are armed with lasers.
Come September, I'll finally be booted from my college room after three good years of spacious, slightly subsidised living, which means that I'm having to house hunt. I haven't done this in a long while, and I'd certainly forgotten how stressful it was, especially when you find something which isn't at all bad, but get the feeling that if you wait a little longer, you might yet find something better - at the risk of losing what you've already found, of course.
My rent is paid in advance to the end of September, as is college custom in the summer, and so far, I've found two places that are worth chasing up.
The first, £250.00 all inclusive per month, a large room, double bed with space yet to swing a cat in, in need of a coat of paint and masking of grandmotherly furniture. The common areas are a little grim, but at that price, there would be a little more money for food and future rent, and heck, luxuries (The cinema! Books! Broadband! New underwear! ). Available late August, to share with a foreign student and a fat Santa Claus who doesn't wear a shirt on warm days.
The second, up to £370 all inclusive per month, also a large room, single bed and pretty modern with pristine walls and carpet, furniture, broadband, a comfortable living room and kitchen with parquet and tile floors, a garden and four housemates (lawyers and engineering students). Available from August 1st.
Now the dilemma is plain as day; there are those who are telling me that if I'm going to be going mental with stress while finishing my Ph.D., I should at least live in outwardly clean, pleasant and bright conditions, even if it means a slow drain on my bank account that will take me well into my overdraft in under a year (I don't expect to be here that long). Conversely, at the grottier place, there would be enough money to pretty things up in my room, get high speed net access, and still have spent less each month that I would at the Shangri-la.
It's a tough fight between choosing to live frugally and living with just a touch of luxury. Though my family can't help me on the money front, they seem to think that I should go for the nicer place - use the money I have saved on something that is worthwhile, if you like, even if that runs down my savings - whereas I, I'm torn between doing that and exercising a little caution for my own longterm wellbeing. It's so very frustrating.
Cough, Help!
The reason for heading over to Hungary was to participate in a seminar day at the beautiful Budapesti Mûszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) where a couple of researchers in my field are based; the sciencey part of the visit was actually very interesting, if difficult to sit through (08:00 through to 18:30) for the lack of air conditioning in a stuffy room in a still and humid city basking under sunshine at 35 °C.
Though eight people were attending from my laboratory, only two of that number were travelling with me; we arrived in Budapest a day earlier, on Malév, the national carrier, and I got the perfect seat, with a full view of the engine and the outboard section of the wing, the latter being something which has fascinated me since about the age of three; as always, my face and hands were glued to the window during landing and take-off, lest I miss the crucial changes in flap, slat and aileron positioning that give rise to the sheer craziness that is the lifting off of something that heavy into the skies (no, but seriously, a tiny 737-500 weighs in at 55 000 kilogrammes, a 747-400 F series at 390 000 [squillion] kilogrammes. I know it's all perfectly rational, but it's still bloody amazing and I can't take it for granted).
Okay, I've wiped the drool from my face.
Checking in to our student accommodation was an event, since the building was clearly a relic of the soviet occupation, and came complete with scary wiring, peeling, leaded paint, hole-in-the-wall showers (it was like having a giant piss a column of water at you from somewhere on high, but lacking the thrill of watersports), and those magical Eastern European shelved toilets that just defy further elaboration. And it was warm, fairly clean, and comfortable; good enough for me.
We had the whole day to go 'sploring. In fact, when we weren't playing academician and socialising with our colleagues, we were out exploring, and eating, and looking, and touching, and walking for hours at a time whilst getting very sweaty in the crotch. It was great! One of the attractive features of the city is certainly its architecture, and if you visit Szt. Istvàn Basilica (I'm guessing St. Stephen's) and climb to the top of the dome, you'll find yourself with the ideal 360° panorama of the city which affords views of many of the more famous landmarks.
King Stephen united Hungary under Roman Catholicism in 896 A.D., following a message from the Pope that ordered him to convert or get out. He converted, don't you know, and was later beatified for his display of exceptional courage.
The food proved very satisfying almost without exception, though it is widely geared toward staunch carnivores; we ended up in a restaurant called Fatál, which was anything but that (a fatál is a wooden platter), where we were served things like this, and more, for peanuts, which equated to one of the best meals I've had in a long while.
Following the end of the seminar programme, we ended up going to the Gellért bath house, a huge, famous, baroque affair of sculpted masonry, pools and thermal baths - all radioactive, and part of the attraction - which was really something else.
In addition to seeing my supervisor in the buff -- well, fear kept me from looking right at him -- a Hungarian twenty-something rather bravely tried to give me the eye despite the fact that I was foreign, talking to another foreigner in foreign, and about 30 °C too far over my own body temperature to even want to contemplate contemplating getting any sweatier. I quietly flashed him an appreciative grin with "No" written all over it, knowing full well that I wouldn't have gone there whatever the situation. In any case, his swimming trunks offended me, which is just as well, and though there were a good sixty naked blokes running around the place, one looking like a younger, hunkier Vladimir Putin, hung like a dinosaur, that was as gay as it got.
More excitingly, they had the most powerful wave pool I've ever been in; elegantly surrounded by white stone balustrades and little renaissance statuettes, this incongruous pool of mammoth waves and crazy breakers had a unifying effect on all present. We stopped, if only for a moment, to watch and smile as our supervisor turned into a ten year old and threw himself into the foam, grinning like a kid; I plan to be that sprightly at fifty.
Thereafter, pretty much everybody left for the U.K., leaving Huey (my friend and colleague) and myself to explore all corners of the city on foot for an extra night and day. We visited; the parliament, purportedly inspired by the Palace of Westminster; Pest's huge and very tasty indoor market, where I wanted to steal most of the vegetables on display and smear myself with the local patisserie; Vajdahunyad Castle, which was surrounded by ducks, and an extraordinarily high incidence of nookie (I've never seen so many people making out as I did in Budapest as a whole); another bath house, Széchenzyi, which was rather pretty and a cheering respite from the tiring heat outside; a Japanese-style vegan restaurant, Wabisabi, because we just had to after four days of meat and pickled vegetable for four days in a row. Here, I encountered rooibos tea, a South African export that I've been drinking almost every day since I got back to the UK (right now, in fact!).
Our last few hours were spent at the Buda Royal Palace, which sits atop a hill accessible by funicular or on foot (we chose lazy and novel over energetic and commonplace, though it incurred a small fee). Up here, we sought shelter from the heat beneath a huge bronze statue of a horse and rider, sitting on its highly photographed limestone plinth and ruining everybody's pictures whilst admiring the fine views, our collection of fetish shots, and the travesties that some people elect to visit upon themselves.
After a few hours of sunning our toes, it was off to the airport; this journey we decided to make via metro and bus, and for a total of about ninety pence each, it was far better value than the ten quid taxis with the upside of a little extra adventure. I even saw my sister along the way, which was unexpected. At this point, Huey reveals to me that she is a closeted Taiwanese princess, and somehow manages to get us into the first class lounge for free drinks, food and internet before our flight back to the British sunshine. Budapest was memorable.
Exactly one month ago, I was lying stock still in a resonance chamber while a muffled sledgehammer went off inside my head; that's pretty much all that summarises an MRI. That, and the mild disorientation that comes from lying in a tube that is little larger than the diameter of your head for an hour and a half while magnets and motors noisily do the rounds about your grey matter. You're expected not to move; wiggling the toes is enough to cause movement of the head, so developing an itch, or the inevitable pins and needles, isn't exactly convenient. Like most people, I developed both, but once all feeling was lost in my legs, things became significantly simpler.
And now I have my results back... no abnormalities, just unusually large frontal lobes, which is nature's way of telling me that I can neither be blamed for talking too much, nor be faulted for trying to restore my own brand of order to the immediate Universe. It's nice to have an excuse for being anal.
It's a little humbling to see that all that I am is what is represented above; a mass of tissue that obeys a set of rules imposed by some biological imperative, but whose plasticity in size, shape and operation is sufficiently free as to give rise to all the unique personalities with which we interact.
Is that marvelous, or is that marvelous?
There has been a long period of abstinence for me, but the drought is set to continue for the same reason that it has been in place for the last few weeks... work, of course, but for a change it isn't proving a repetitive cycle of stellar effort and no reward, because for once I'm getting something real to look at; oodles of data with plenty of scope for interpretation, a number of potential follow-on analyses, and best yet, what I'm observing may be significant enough to merit a paper too. The thought of getting that produced before I'm even finished here is just a little bit encouraging, whether or not it actually happens.
Still, there's a lot of number crunching to be done -- the sort of stuff that would really turn on a biostatistician [alas, no, I'm disappointingly normal] -- and while it hurts, every analysis of variance, product-moment correlation coefficient and error margin I've turned out seems to confirm that I'm finally seeing something significant that I can work with, and that's, well, really bloody cheering.
Of course, all work and no play makes Jack a tired old hermit who clearly doesn't get out enough, so I've been making an effort to keep myself busy outside of the lab, rather than just flopping onto my bed and staring at the ceiling for my evening's entertainment. And what with the amazing weather of late, that has been especially easy; no fewer than three barbecues in the last three days, a couple of trips up and down the river by canoe, punt and even sans véhicule, not to mention weekday lunches spent out in the sunshine.
Spring is springingAll this comes in the week following Frank's visit to the UK with his travelling partner; the weather was fairly mediocre for much of that time, but hosting these lovely chaps for a night in Cambridge, before heading down to London for a big walkabout, was a real pleasure and diversion. We were even joined by this one for a spell, and I think that a pretty good time was had by all, though I'm really speaking for myself here; the previous few weeks were fairly rough, so the chance to escape, and in good company, was all the more special for me.
Crud, my intent to elaborate further has been scuppered by the lateness of the hour and my own tiredness. Alas, to bed. Someone take over please?
