August 30, 2006
Filed under: Neyir's Posts — Neyir @ 10:02 pm Comments 3
What, you may ask, constitutes a Pilates crisis??? Well apparently a new teacher, or more correctly a new to us teacher.
I have been attending the same Wednesday night Pilates class for the last year. As many of you know I have something of an unhealthy Pilates obsession and will quite happily put myself down on the floor to demostrate excercises with the slightest show of interest from those around me (not generally under the influence of alcohol I am sad to admit). After much searching, nearly a year in fact, I finally found a class which teaches ‘classical Pilates’ (not silly watered-down Pilates) and as it is nearly the only class in town the attendees are, well, junkees. So when, this evening, a teacher we have never had announced with embarrasment that she would be teaching us for the rest of this block, I can tell you that there were many black glances. Two ladies in fact hardend their tone of voice and I suspect were rapidly making plans to a. find another class and b. get a refund. Well as a. is not possible they will simply have to ’stuff it’. I will admit I was a little concerned but am very happy to say the class was lovely and she made us work hard - you see unfounded biased concern, all for nothing. To the teacher’s credit she told me after class that she was pertrified to be teaching us as we are so good - flattery you see really will get you everywhere!
August 24, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 3:20 pm Comments 5
One of the things that I do when I dislike a conversation which is going about around me, is to interject with the following comment:
“So what is Pluto anyways”
Usually what I ment by this is what the heck is that cartoon character Pluto? Is it a dog or not? If it is a dog, then what is Goofy?…..
You can see how this could lead to a great discussion.
Well, for the past week, Astronomers have been in Prague trying to figure out a definition of a planet. It turns out that Pluto is no longer a planet. This makes me Happy! At least we know another thing Pluto is not!
It not only was a questionable dog! it was a questionable looking planet. I guess it was named well then.
By the way,
Goofy. He is a wolf. It is the only explaination.
August 21, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 10:21 am Comments 7
Sorry to all you faithful readers. I didn’t realise that it has been over a week since a new post has gone up. Not alot has gone on over here in scotland over the past week, but here are a few highlights:
Saturday 12th:
I arrived safely back in edinburgh after a grewling 5 hour train ride from Cambridge. I was sad that I didn’t get to see my mother in law. Ah well, Hopefully Mary and Steve will return again to Scotland soon. Before making it home, I made my way to some friends flat for a BBQ. Mmmm, I was pleased to see that they waited for me to arrive to have any of the meat. Craig and Judith rock.
Sunday:
After Church, Neyir and I hung out with the Stubbs and their 4 children. We had lunch at their place and then walked around edinburgh with them. It was a very fun day. My only regret was that I had to leave early to head to church for the evening service.
Wednesday:
Went to the Whiskey society with some friends for gues what?…. you guessed it… Whiskey. I think the next time Mary comes to edinburgh, I’ll have to bring her here (or rather, Craig or Pete will as they have the memberships).
Thursday:
Had two friends from church over for dinner. I made my famous curry chicken linguinni.
Friday:
Went to my first fringe show this summer. It was an Irish Comedian who left us with sore bellies from all the laughter.
This past weekend:
It turns out my brother Joel got engaged. Woo hoo for him. I love weddings. I hope that he chooses me as his best man. It is my favorite thing to do at a wedding. I have fullfilled the role 3 times already. Why do i like being best man? Really, it is because his main roles is to give a speach, carry the rings, and to get drunk. In any event, This is a good escuse for me to purchase that kilt I have been wanting. Maybe my mom will instead of giving Neyir and Lilia some cash for dresses, she’ll give me money for a kilt! No pressure Mom! But I could wear it for graduation as well!!
August 12, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 9:44 am Comments 6
I currently have only 30 min to vacate my room here at Cambridge and I thought I would use this time to summarize my experience here.
In All, I thought the N-body summer school was a valuable experience. I was a little dissapointed that there wasn’t more hands on experience with legacy codes and such things; additionally I thought there was too much emphasis on stellar evolution, which a far digression from the work I usually do. All that being said, the opportunity to be lectured by the top people in the world was invaluable. I got to talk with the discoverer of earths second moon who is also the worlds leading expert on the Few Body Problem. I saw an amazing analytical approximation to the general 3 body problem which I hope to explore myself. I worked on a project with my academic grandfather to incorporate General Relativity with Regularisation to compute 3-body solutions.
The college over fed us all. The breakfast was sparse, but lunch and dinner were both huge meals. I had meat twice a day, everyday. I think that I’ll fast for a few days when I get home. It was amazing to see how people complained about the food. Most of the mainland europeans though the food was overcooked and way to sweet. I kept my thoughts to myself.
Last night I went drinking at the Eagle pub. This pub has many famous things associated with it. Mainly, it is known to be the pub which Watson and Crick celebrated at after discovering DNA. Also, the ceiling is covered with messages from US and RAF piolts from WWII. Steve, you would have loved it!
One thing I was pleased to do was to run across the grass at King’s College. It was fun to have people point at me running across the field. It would have been funnier if I had got caught doing it as well. I was going to claim that I don’t speak English; Only Canadian!
The only thing I didn’t get to do was spot Stephen Hawking. That being said, I really didn’t go out of my way to spot him. It would have been great though. I didn’t want to be a stalker though
I am excited to return home now. I miss Neyir very much and am happy to see her again and give her a big hug.
August 11, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts, Uncategorized — David @ 10:31 am Comments 3
So, due to the freek’n terrorists planning to blow up planes, I am forced to take a train home tomorrow instead of a plane. Currently the airline i am flying with is cancelling all its domestic flights and only flying its international flights. This means that I had to purchase a train ticket home for tomorrow. I did managed to get a ticket for only £27. Not bad for a ticket from Cambridge to Edinburgh. The train ticket was not the only price I had to pay; Here is the total price I have to pay cause of them:
1- £27 for train ticket (that is about $60 CAN)
2- I missed one lecture cause I had to go to the train station to purchase said ticket before tickets sold out.
3- hurt my finger on my way to train station.
4- The canteen ran out of Jam because it could not stock up on its jam supply cause of all the hubbub.
5- endless talk about airline flights from the people who have to return to the mainland.
6- The physical anguish I’ll have to experience sitting on a train with no leg room for 5 hours.
7- I Return to edinburgh 2 hours later than originally planned.
8- sucked up mobile money as i tried to arrange an alternative trip home.
When it is all said and done, they have cost me £27 pounds, £10 of mobile time, plus I’ll charge them £200 pounds for all the rest of the inconvience and physical anguish.
The way I figure it, the terrorists owe me. Does anyone think I’ll be able to sue? I would be happy to settle with kicking each one of them really hard in the shin. However, as a student, the £237 is more valuable to me. Don’t get me wrong, providing a good kick to the shin is a valuable experience (or at least a valuable service), but £237 would by me an IPOD!
August 6, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — Neyir @ 7:41 pm Comments 3
Everyone has their own reality, a daily set of activities & challenges, a particular lifestyle. David and I have made certain choices, such as moving to the UK and David pursuing his PhD, which have to a lesser or greater degree affected our reality/lifestyle etc. There are things which I know to our North American friends and family seem strange. Not owning a car. Consistently choosing to leave earlier so that we can walk somewhere to save on the bus fare. Furnishing our flat with ecclectic finds gleaned from the side of the street. Buying products which may or may not have any english information on the label just because it wis cheaper. We made and make these decisions with a happy heart and often enthusiasm, knowing of course that this more spartan existence is self-imposed and limited.
Having your mother come to visit you from another Continent when she has been forced to live your healthcare woes from a far for too long and is no doubt suffering some sort of motherly guilt is akin to being invaded by a kind and helpful conquorer. I do not mind our lifestyle, in fact there are many things I love about how we live, but I have to say this last week has been pretty darn fantastic. The day after my mother arrived it was decided, mainly by her, that we needed to go to the grocery store. Now as my mobility was still pretty limited it really did seem to make the most sense to head to the M&S foodhall which could be reached by bus and then for us to walk (read hobble with one stop for a breather) via the back way to John Lewis where we could recover with a coffee before getting another bus home. Now I have often been to the Marks and Spencer’s foodhall, there are things which can be purchased there which are unparralleled in other UK establishments. But to actually SHOP there!? Be still my gourmand heart. The other lovely thing of course was true to form Mom is concerned that we do not eat enough meat so insisted on buying more for the freezer - good thing we have a big freezer. On another occasion after busing to Sainsbury’s she purchased a £8 steak!!! that is like $18 CAD and not something we would ever do here, wow was it good. Oh yeah and from Sainsbury’s we took a cab home. Today we took a cab to church, crazy and bad as now I know exactly how late I can get ready on a Sunday morning and still make it to church in time to prepare the bulletins….(David will now be furrowing his brow due to my Sunday morning chronic lateness).
I have to say though that the neatest(to use a Mom word) thing about having my mother here is just spending time together. We have not had a chance to do this since the summer after I got married when my father was ill, mmm do I see a theme here? We are doing well, not fighting and she is taking my daughterly criticism with aplomb.
A quick shout out to all you wonderful folks who have called, posted, emailed and dropped by - THANK YOU, it has really made all the difference. I am now feeling pretty good, I can walk almost normally and if you saw me on the street would think I was fine until an episode arose that required quick movement, cause I just don’t, mostly I mosey. I am heading back to work on Wednesday though my manager is insisting that I do a staggered return which means, I think, that I am paid my full hours but initally do not work them. Oh yeah and I somehow managed to be given a 2.5 month promotion while I was off sick. I tell ya with these kinds of benefits I am seriously considering scheduling more illnesses ;-). Ok, maybe not.
August 5, 2006
Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 11:34 am Comments 7
Ok,
so the first week is finished. I have more Astrophysics crammed in my head than ever beforel.
Here are some memorable moments:
1- I moved 1000000 masses around past core collapse in about 2 min on my laptop. It was pretty cool.
2- Had beer with the worlds leading expert on the few body problem, Seppo Mikkola.
3- finally found some decent beer. Richard you were right, the Greene King IPA is good stuff.
4- I have been working on some code to implement General Relativity as well as regularisation to deal with close encounters in the three body problem.
5- I have started reading “the handsmaid’s tale”. It is my very first Atwood book. Can you belive that i haven’t read any Atwood. I do read plenty of other Canadian authors though.
6- I have seen the coolest analytical approximation to the three body problem.
7- i have eaten more meat here than I have in a very long time. We get Huge meals at lunch and dinner. I have ate so much meat that I choose the veggie options for both my lunch and dinner yesterday.
Things I still need to do:
1- track down Stephen Hawking.
2- find more decent beer.
3- go on a walk about around Cambridge.
4- find more projects to work on here.
5- apparently I should go punting. It doesn’t look that fun. But I guess I’ll have to try it.
That’s all for now.
August 2, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 4:42 pm Comments 8
So here I am at the Cambridge N-body summer school eagerly waiting for a talk to start. I have been anticipating this talk for the past few days. I think it could go either way; Really good, or really bad.
There seems to be two groups of students here and I don’t fit into any of them. There are the Germans, who are cool in their own way, but a little geeky, and then there are the Spanish students who keep to themselves and are a little bit snobby. None of the students have the same interests that I have. Everyone is into Globular clusters and stellar evolution, where I am interested in 3-body dynamics and reliability.
This lecture I am waiting for is the first lecture which is related to work I plan to do and work i have done in the past. It is titled “Regular Algorithms for the Perturbed Two-Body Problem”. What is great is that there is a follow up talk this afternoon titled “Toy Codes”. Ahh… it is about to start… i’ll be back later.
Later….
The talk was good. Some things i haven’t seen before, but mostly a review of stuff i already knew. I am looking forward to his talk this afternoon. A funny thing which happens to me alot is that whenever someone finds out who my advisor is they get this impressed look on their face and they make that Ahhhhhhhh sound. Do they expect me to live up to the legacy of my advisor? I hope not, cause he is brilliant.
I have also met my academic grandfather (my phd advisor’s phd advisor). When ever he mentions my advisors name he says that he was the first and best phd student he ever had.
Things to note:
1- so far, english beer is definitely inferior to scottish beer. I hope i can find some better english beers over the next week and a half.
2- I haven’t run into Stephen Hawking yet. When I do, I’ll definately post.
3- I am alergic to something here as I have been stuffed up since my arrival. Maybe it is just the english I am alergic to.
4- There are a-lot of geeks here.
Ok… another talk is going to start… I’ll be back later…
Later..
5- I have been eating way more meat than I usually do. We get served a huge meal twice a day. Today at lunch we had salmon. it was pretty good for UK standards.
6- I think the current lecturer is trying to hypnotize us with 3 body movies.
Write more later…
7- found out that most binaries in a star cluster are primordial. Who would have thought.
8- I just saw a crazy graph that was all spikey and the guy said it was almost a straight line. I had a good chuckle.
that’s it for now. Not the greatest post. If anything exciting happens here I’ll let you all know.
