Glad Påsk!

I learnt that the word Easter apparently comes from the Norse goddess Eastra, while Påsk (and pacque etc) comes from hebrew pasach, that means passing by. The reason to why bunnies provide you with eggs (made of chocolate), is a bit more obscure I think. This easter weekend provided me with a fair amount of joyousness - I moved to a new apartment! It is my very first own apartment. It's in an old character building, with hardwood floors, windows in every room, to 3 directions. A bay window to the south in the living room, and lots of light. I think I was really lucky because the rent is low, even though it's in a really nice area, just by the river and the Legislature, a bit on the side, so it's really silent. And it's on the second floor. So far the only negative thing has been that I keep poking out the electrical chord to my alarm clock with my head when I sleep... I should move it anyhow, so I don't fall back into the habit of snoozing too long (no, there's no risk of getting electricuted). A few wonderful friends helped me out with the move, and it was so much fun! The weather also turned amazing - above 20, going up to 24 on Sunday. Btw. How much stuff is it possible to collect in 2 years, after having started from scratch? Quite astonishing actually. I tried to think like Sofia and managed to free myself from a few probably super unnecessary possessions. The genes from the maternal side are strong though, and it's a fight each time.

Now, I have roughly 1 month to create some science to present at conferences. And prepare a talk and a meeting with advisory committee. So I think I'll concentrate on that for a while.

Planetary nebulae in the halo of edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4945

That's the title of what I just managed to submit to ESO, 1.5 hours left till the actual deadline. I was probably lucky that nothing horrible (well, that I couldn't handle in the end) happened. After 18 hours of constant work, after having realised yesterday that my perception on the time of the deadline was quite wrong (noon in europe is 4 o'clock in the morning here. Only during this week btw, since there's one week lag in the change to summertime. That wasn't my mistake though, somehow I managed to turn the time around totally). My sweet advisor made sure I'd take a taxi home instead of sleeping in the office, and I guess it's a good plan. YAWN!
Just a few hours ago, I thought it wouldn't work. See, there's a limited amount of large enough Galactic planetary nebulae around. Especially on the southern hemisphere. I found none, after many hours of search. I almost gave up, and tried to figure out a plan B. Then, trying again, after having had to TA for two hours in the planetarium (which, for the record, is leaking water - I was working on the abstract for the proposal instead of answering my students questions, and water dropped down on the red screen. Yeeah) just to make sure, I generated a new list of possible targets, choose those that were designated NGC, and looked at the first one. And that was the one. That was my miracle of the day. Or the month even. It was so perfect in every sense, that I still cannot believe it (NGC1360 - and my cool galaxy that I want to observe is NGC 4945).

Here's the question for anyone who might know/want to elaborate: W H Y can one never be a bit early in finishing something? Why do I always end up being out in the very last minute? It's 2:45 right now, so I guess it's not really terrible. Still...

I need yet another miracle though - for the proposal to get accepted. I hope I didn't use up my miracle quota for a while now...

New direction in life (?)

After having spent a braindead evening in the office, I decided to try out a new career. So far so good... ;)

*chomp*

This is pretty much what my evening was like, btw:

Toques, cats and blueberries

I just wrote a blog-entry-sized comment to my own story... The legend of the hatboy continues (check the 2 last comments).

In other news, it's still spring (around 0), my knee started hurting inexplicably (first signs of old age?), and thou shouldst always be honest. Explanation: I was catsitting and had 2 cats for a week in my apartment, where (at least bigger) pets are not allowed. Obviously that's when a quarterly inspection would occur (and since my mailbox key is still gone, I didn't see the notice of this in my mail). Obviously my landlady is scared of cats. And Stella is a pretty impressive fella, sizewise. My caretakers luckily turned nice again once I explained the situation. But I felt fairly stupid. Same feeling as when I was a kid, being forbidden by mum to eat blueberries at the camping site, and totally denied her accusation that I had done it anyways (if you don't get the picture, imagine how someone who stuffed themselves with blueberries appear). Baaa.

What is it about smells and music that can trigger memories so strongly that you more or less travel in time, btw?

The first day of spring!

..that was yesterday. When heading to the bus to go to the university, I realised that the ground was fairly bare and that biking was possible. It also had turned much warmer! Spring was in the air... yeah, even what could have been a nice, albeit somewhat massive and neverending spring precipitation started falling in the afternoon. But even though it was warm, it was still below zero, and the biking possibilities turned back to nil. In my mind it's spring though, 25 cm of new snow (on top of the old compacted 0,4 meters) or no. Oh well, throwing snowballs is hilarious.

What else? Life is good, by no other apparent reason than that it is :) Lots to do, but mainly fun stuff. VLT proposal (yey!), research (that is actually getting somewhere, yey!) and LTS en masse. I also have cats for a week now, which is highly interesting. Cats are the essence of coolness. but annoying plant eaters too. And does it help to place the yummiest plants in question on top of the highest bookshelves? Certainly not. The built-in spring that cats seem to have instead of spinal column makes even these somewhat chubby cats into super-power mammals. In the evening however, when watching a Lost episode before bedtime, at least one cat jumps up in my knee, purring wildly, puts his paws on either side of my neck and shows that all hard words and attempts of planteating preventing discipline are tenderly forgiven. Miao.