Despite a series of, I hope, statistically anomalous events, I managed to hand in my poster for printing in the very last second. This Monday actually turned out be really miraculous! As opposed to the weekend (the following is what I wrote on sunday, but couldn't send because the internet connection went down):
"After having struggled for a few weeks with my data and the production of a rotation curve with this dutch software I am working on, I finally solved all the problems, just in the knick of time on friday (i.e. leaving me exactly enough time to create the graph, finish the poster and get it printed before leaving on wednesday). So, jumping on clouds of joy, I went for lunch. When I came back, the computer system was down. The home server had decided that was the best time to enter a coma, effectively preventing me from getting any work whatsoever done. Baffled at this just more than amazingly untimely event, I took the expressbus home, to recreate my poster from scratch on my laptop instead, and just hope I'd be able to reach the files and the software later that day. Got stuck on Pembina for an hour on the bus due to construction work. Gnashing teeth now, I finally got home, recreated the poster, and went to dance - nothing else to do really!
Next morning, after a rather intense thunderstorm, I woke up to a powerless apartment. I had also forgotten I was going to go flying with two friends, and I heard someone call my name from down the street, since the buzzer wasn't working. Some fire had killed all the power in half of Winnipeg. Well, now I definitely couldn't work on anything, so I went flying, even more astonished at the development of my getting-ready-for-conference-situation. Luckily, my bad luck didn't reach the airport, and we went for two nice flights. Coming home, I massively needed my bath, so red river coloured liquid came out of the taps. I stared at it a bit, in my intense yuckyness (think having danced all of previous night and 28 degrees heat outside temperature and intense humidity). The power got back after 6 hours (!) and the water turned clear after some time as well. Nice. Came to school after having conferred with sysadmin, because I couldn't reach my computer remotely. And after 2 hours of tweaking and rebooting, I actually could log in as root and reach my files. But I couldn't run the software!!! Again I found myself staring at my situation (well, the monitor) in disbelief, and tried to drown my worries in the saturday dance class and an excellent visit to Fude. The Pickerel was as amazing as ever, and the chocolate sauce chicken defintely got my stamp of approval. As did the mango spritzer (see Jonathan's blog for further description.
Come home in one piece after some more dancing at the Empire, albeit somewhat sleepy, I woke up Sunday morning, missed the bus to church which was early (things back to normal in other words), biked there instead while trying to keep the skirt from getting too close to the wheels (didn't have time to change and was an optimist, still). The sky was getting darker and darker, and darker, and when I got there, (before the skies opened over my head) my skirt decided to get stuck in the breaks. Growl. A massive thunderstorm then happened, with neverending thunder and some nice lightning. Time for sunday school. Time for Theresa to attach the dot over the i in topic "getting prepared for conference": I was going to give a quick review on some chapters, and rising up to stand in front of the class, I somehow tripped over myself while walking out inbetween benches and sprained the foot. Same one I broke half a year ago btw. It is now provided with an extra ankle, in a nice purplish/blue shade. And on Wednesday I'm leaving for Calgary. So I got to renew the "friendship" with one of the crutches I had hidden in the depths of my closet.
What next now? Just bring it on. Oh, the network connection went down. Figures. And I still need to create the graph for the poster before handing it in to the printer place tomorrow. Burning finger on frying pan while frying crepes? Check. I better go to sleep..."
But, come Monday, and early at work, and the sun is shining on Theresa again! :) Everything got dome. Now I am going to go home and make a pie.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Before...
This is before I'm done with the poster (I should have ended up in publishing instead of research, making a poster is as always easy and super fun). Right now I need: a thorough back massage, a non-analytical rotation curve of NGC 3556, a new bar of chocolate (at least 75%), a mass model of the mass distribution of NGC 2903 or 4096, a ticket for X-men 3 tonight, and a hug would be nice... I did get, this morning, 2 packages of Anthon Berg marsipanbröd, and a bag of hiprose soup in a package from my mom (these items are quite the globe trotters, since they travelled here in March for my birthday, stayed at the post office for 2 weeks (during which time I had no access to my mailbox, because I had lost my keys), and travelled home again 1 day before I ambushed the mailman in our building and persuaded him to give me my mail) (hiprose soup is, for the non-aware readers of this post, one of my favourite beverages, but sadly among the list of essential stuff I cannot get my hands on here)!
The Winnipeg May of 2006 has, weatherwise, turned out to be rather awesome. It's been rather warm, and yesterday I was biking around downtown in 28 degrees heat. Workwise it has been somewhat frustrating (and still is). In a week from now however, I will be in Calgary, followed by New Mexico, enjoying all the good sides of being in this occupation (brain overloading at conferences and workshops!). So I anticipate next report to come from there.
The Winnipeg May of 2006 has, weatherwise, turned out to be rather awesome. It's been rather warm, and yesterday I was biking around downtown in 28 degrees heat. Workwise it has been somewhat frustrating (and still is). In a week from now however, I will be in Calgary, followed by New Mexico, enjoying all the good sides of being in this occupation (brain overloading at conferences and workshops!). So I anticipate next report to come from there.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Go Finland, Sweden, moths, masers and worms!
I didn't miss the ESC! I placed myself comfortably in the comfy chair, laptop on lap, and listened to the swedish radio broadcast (apparently there was a webcast as well, which I should have understood, but the radio was fun too). Despite my dad's objections I do think the right song won.. :) It was a historical ESC. Although Bosnia was really nice too. And why didn't Norway get more points? (Sweden-Canada hockey semi finals at same time btw! Sometimes I do miss a tv... (5-4))
The evening was finished nicely by watching the massively qualitative japanese Godzilla (2004-version (?)). My goodness. I think I need to see it again. It has inummerable memorable scenes. The giant moth is my hero. You have a huge dinosaur lookalike, breathing blue maser fire (or something like that, masers are mentioned frequently in this film), fighting three-headed and other monsters, and you send a giant colourful moth two the aid. And Minilla (mini-zilla) saves the day in the end. Sweet. I am not even going mention all the other wonder moments, it's a must-see.
I haven't written for ages, but it seems like there's not much to report. 1.5 weeks left before conference, and the poster is taking shape. Layout-wise. What's going IN there is still being worked on. I'm not sure my heart can take that kind of pressure for too long time. Relief of said pressure consists of dancing (or rather, changes the location and applies it to sore toe instead). I have turned into a dance addict.
My brother has fixed up an internet phone at home, so now they can call me for free!
The winnipegian weather has been very springy, not too cold at all (not too warm either, which is a pity), and now is the time of the attack of the tree-worms. Walk under a tree, and you will be provided with at least three rather cute mini worms, luckily easy to spot in their amazing green-ness, that hang down from the trees in long, long threads. I think they turn into moths later on, but I'm not sure. I've never seen this spring phenomenon anywhere else than in Winnipeg.
The evening was finished nicely by watching the massively qualitative japanese Godzilla (2004-version (?)). My goodness. I think I need to see it again. It has inummerable memorable scenes. The giant moth is my hero. You have a huge dinosaur lookalike, breathing blue maser fire (or something like that, masers are mentioned frequently in this film), fighting three-headed and other monsters, and you send a giant colourful moth two the aid. And Minilla (mini-zilla) saves the day in the end. Sweet. I am not even going mention all the other wonder moments, it's a must-see.
I haven't written for ages, but it seems like there's not much to report. 1.5 weeks left before conference, and the poster is taking shape. Layout-wise. What's going IN there is still being worked on. I'm not sure my heart can take that kind of pressure for too long time. Relief of said pressure consists of dancing (or rather, changes the location and applies it to sore toe instead). I have turned into a dance addict.
My brother has fixed up an internet phone at home, so now they can call me for free!
The winnipegian weather has been very springy, not too cold at all (not too warm either, which is a pity), and now is the time of the attack of the tree-worms. Walk under a tree, and you will be provided with at least three rather cute mini worms, luckily easy to spot in their amazing green-ness, that hang down from the trees in long, long threads. I think they turn into moths later on, but I'm not sure. I've never seen this spring phenomenon anywhere else than in Winnipeg.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Calm before storm
It's one of those evenings when I decided I cannot work any longer (the database I needed data from doesn't work either), and have a few minutes extra before the next bus comes. I could of course work on the talk I'll have to prepare for friday. Or study up on the procedure I have to work on tomorrow until I grow dead tired of it. No. Way past that point. Working until I tire of something would generally not take me anywhere... :)
The end of this month will be very nice (i.e. as soon as the poster I will create is handed in to be printed), but the time until then have potential of getting really stressful. What needs to be done is creating said poster as well as the info that is to be put onto it. It doesn't help that it's May, with friends who want to go out biking with me, and awesome weather (the sudden drop in temperature below zero a few days ago was, despite people's complaints, nothing but a blessing in disguise; all mosquitos that were most probably about to appear, froze to death).
Time to go!
The end of this month will be very nice (i.e. as soon as the poster I will create is handed in to be printed), but the time until then have potential of getting really stressful. What needs to be done is creating said poster as well as the info that is to be put onto it. It doesn't help that it's May, with friends who want to go out biking with me, and awesome weather (the sudden drop in temperature below zero a few days ago was, despite people's complaints, nothing but a blessing in disguise; all mosquitos that were most probably about to appear, froze to death).
Time to go!
Thursday, May 04, 2006
ESC
For every year I am gone from home, one thing gets harder and harder to miss: The Eurovision Song Contest. This contest is one of the major events of the year - all from the national contests finding the song to represent us (the right one obviously never wins. Except for -88 of course, "Stad i ljus" was my absolute favourite. Although it scored rather mediocre in the european contest), to the evening of the actual event. And the thrill of the counting of votes, always in English and French, out of tradition these days, I assume. I hope they never stop doing the French part. It would remove the very soul of the event if they did.
This year I started searching around to see if there is any way I can witness the ESC, or at least get to know some of the songs. And lo and behold, the official site actually lets you listen to excerpts of the songs. So I spent a while last night going through them all, and then by "other means" getting hold of a few of the full songs, that were particularly interesting.
Particularly interesting eurovision songs need not be the very best ones. For me, it's mainly the most typical ones, the ones sticking to tradition, the ones trying as much as they can NOT to stick to tradition, the ones totally climbing outside of the frame, etc. I think I liked Norway quite a lot (haven't heard the enitire one yet though), England is cute, and Finland, wohow! Hard Rock Hallelujah is the title, and I'm not sure the ESC has seen anything like it before. I like it, very very much. Sweden is very typical this year. However, I don't understand why the sound of a squeaking door in the beginning of every word has to be added, in the english version of the song, that is. It wasn't there in the swedish version! (a la Britney Spears, I thought it had grown out of fashion, but apparently I've been away too long from the euro-tradition - it's there in a lot of the songs). I have yet to discover the oh so wonderful keychanges in the songs though. Please let me know if you find any.
English versions: A few years ago, to my great dismay, they decided to change the rules of the language of the song. Previously, every country had to sing in their own language. Which, some claimed, gave unfair bias towards English speaking countries. I'm sceptical. It was only Ireland that always won, England and Malta were pretty much in the middle anyhows. I loved being able to hear all the different languages. Even Danish has its charm when being sung ;)
So now, instead, they are doing something that's even worse, in my opinion - they mix the languages. Argh. I am not sure why I find that so repulsive, but I do. It's not right. One thing that IS rather cool though, is the explosion of participating countries, making it necessary to score high in order to be able to enter next year. Reason to this is of course all the "new" eastern european countries. And we still have Israel and Turkey, which was always a bit funny to me. Well, I guess Turkey technically has a a tiny part that is part of Europe.
On another note, I have cats again. My advisor has very late habits, and so do her cats, I noticed. They kept waking me up all night. In the morning, when I by some miracle woke up pretty early despite having had to run up all night and figure out what the strange noises came from, they were sound asleep on my bed, one cat by my feet, and the other next to my pillow. They seem to like my apartment as much as I do, and the usually fairly shy and cautious Alex has turned into a cuddle ball.
EWW! It is snowing.
This year I started searching around to see if there is any way I can witness the ESC, or at least get to know some of the songs. And lo and behold, the official site actually lets you listen to excerpts of the songs. So I spent a while last night going through them all, and then by "other means" getting hold of a few of the full songs, that were particularly interesting.
Particularly interesting eurovision songs need not be the very best ones. For me, it's mainly the most typical ones, the ones sticking to tradition, the ones trying as much as they can NOT to stick to tradition, the ones totally climbing outside of the frame, etc. I think I liked Norway quite a lot (haven't heard the enitire one yet though), England is cute, and Finland, wohow! Hard Rock Hallelujah is the title, and I'm not sure the ESC has seen anything like it before. I like it, very very much. Sweden is very typical this year. However, I don't understand why the sound of a squeaking door in the beginning of every word has to be added, in the english version of the song, that is. It wasn't there in the swedish version! (a la Britney Spears, I thought it had grown out of fashion, but apparently I've been away too long from the euro-tradition - it's there in a lot of the songs). I have yet to discover the oh so wonderful keychanges in the songs though. Please let me know if you find any.
English versions: A few years ago, to my great dismay, they decided to change the rules of the language of the song. Previously, every country had to sing in their own language. Which, some claimed, gave unfair bias towards English speaking countries. I'm sceptical. It was only Ireland that always won, England and Malta were pretty much in the middle anyhows. I loved being able to hear all the different languages. Even Danish has its charm when being sung ;)
So now, instead, they are doing something that's even worse, in my opinion - they mix the languages. Argh. I am not sure why I find that so repulsive, but I do. It's not right. One thing that IS rather cool though, is the explosion of participating countries, making it necessary to score high in order to be able to enter next year. Reason to this is of course all the "new" eastern european countries. And we still have Israel and Turkey, which was always a bit funny to me. Well, I guess Turkey technically has a a tiny part that is part of Europe.
On another note, I have cats again. My advisor has very late habits, and so do her cats, I noticed. They kept waking me up all night. In the morning, when I by some miracle woke up pretty early despite having had to run up all night and figure out what the strange noises came from, they were sound asleep on my bed, one cat by my feet, and the other next to my pillow. They seem to like my apartment as much as I do, and the usually fairly shy and cautious Alex has turned into a cuddle ball.
EWW! It is snowing.
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