The Man with No Time

Today I received the long-awaited email from the department at Oxford that I recently interviewed for. Sadly I have not been offered the position. I can’t say that I’m too surprised given what I thought immediately following the interview, but it’s still a bit disappointing. Ah well, onwards and upwards. I emailed the professor offering the postdoc to ask for some feedback on my interview, and she’s given me some helpful pointers. Now I just need to find some more UK-based postdocs  that look interesting enough to apply for.

It's been a long, long time since I posted anything to do with wargaming. There are a few reasons for this. First, I didn't really get much painted for large parts of last semester, and I lost all of the motivation that I'd built up over the summer. Second, all of the events that I wanted to attend clashed with lifesaving competitions. So I haven't played any games in months. Third, I was getting more into boardgames again, sparked in part by the realisation that my brother likes them too, and the greater convenience of carrying them around (for example, taking them to my parents' for Christmas). However, something has cropped up on one of the podcasts that I listen to that has really got me excited, and that will hopefully provide me with some structure to my wargaming for 2013. This will hopefully be the first in many posts concerning  Lost Hemisphere's Unloved Model Challenge , which I've signed up for. What have you gotten me into LHR? *Shakes

This weekend was the first BULSCA competition of the new year: the Warwick Refreshers Competition. I always enjoy travelling back to my undergraduate haunt, and to be honest would have gone down even if we hadn’t had a team.  This wasn’t entirely a foregone conclusion given that the competition was taking place on the weekend directly preceding the start of the semester at St Andrews, but we did pull a team together (we even had an extra helper with us), so away we went. Or at least three of us did; the other two were travelling straight to Coventry from home. Having isolation in this lecture theatre brought back memories for me. (Credit: Adam James Martin)

Some interesting developments today at the St Andrews Physics department - it looks like we might all be moving offices soon. One of the astronomy staff members actually has a panic button like this on his office door! (Credit: locksucks.com)

Today I experienced my first post-PhD job interview, and my first interview for four years. As I mentioned previously , before Christmas I applied for two postdocs. One was in Berlin, and I haven’t heard back from them; given that the position starts on the 1 st of March, I don’t think I will now. The second position was at Oxford, and it was for that that I had an interview this afternoon.

The final round of the NFL playoffs before the Superbowl is over. After the rollercoaster that was the divisional round there were questions over whether this weekend's games could match the drama. With hindsight they probably didn't, but the two games that we had were still very good to watch. And unlike the divisional rounds, I did actually watch these games!

Today has been a good day. Not only did we get another heavy snowfall, but it lasted all morning and was that wonderful snow that makes great snowballs. You know, the kind that's all large flakes, sticks together nicely, and looks really pretty when it settles. I woke up late thanks to my over-optimistic observing sleep-pattern (I don't know why I was still hopeful that I'd get any observing done this week, and it was snowing heavily. More excitingly, it was settling! It didn't stop snowing until about 1 o'clock, at which point everything had a lovely layer of snow all over it. This was the view from my bedroom window when I woke up about at about 10:00. It only got better from there. (Credit: David Brown) So after our usual Friday lunchtime pub trip we stopped in the gardens above the Physics department to make a snowman, and have a snowball fight. It was glorious. Best day I've had at work in a long time. Oh, and I handed in my first draft thesis

Whilst most of the UK seems to be in the grip of something approximating a very small blizzard (which naturally is causing panic everywhere), St Andrews seemed to escape the snowy menace. For the last few days it's been mostly wet, punctuated by periods of glorious sunshine. I confess that I was disappointed; I rather like the snow, and enjoy riding through it on my bike. Not to mention the snowball opportunities. It's also very pretty. However, over lunchtime today we actually had a snowfall. More like a snowstorm actually - it was pretty heavy for a while! Sadly though it didn't settle really, and what little that did vanished within an hour after the snow stopped. It was just too wet. Ah well, it makes me hopeful at least that we'll get more in the next few days. Fingers crossed.

Round two of the NFL playoffs is in the books. The divisional round is done, and the conference finalists are preparing for the final round before the Superbowl. Who was hot, and who was not? And how did my predictions stack up to reality? A quick disclaimer before I go on - I didn't manage to watch any of the games this weekend, so my analysis is based solely on the highlight packages on the official website.

I've been a fan of musical theatre for quite some time. I blame my Mum personally. She's a keen amateur dramatist, and on many occasions as a child I was taken to watch her performing in shows. That led to a fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan which is by no means shared by some of my more musical friends! As a family we also used to travel to London quite a bit, and would often visit the theatres to see shows on the big stage. Possibly Disney had an influence as well; all of their classic animated films are, after all, musicals, and have some fantastic songs in them. A few years ago now my girlfriend and I went to see the London-based stage production of Les Misérables. It was a fantastic experience, and when I discovered that a film version was being made I was incredibly excited. The cast list was brilliant, the director had a great track record, and the trailers looked as if the atmosphere had been captured perfectly. But did it actually live up to my expectations?

Normally whilst the circus performance that is the NFL season and playoffs takes place I pay little attention to the NHL. I might check up on it every now and then to see how my favourite teams are getting on, but the ice hockey season is normally so long that I tend to ignore it until the end of the season draws near, and the playoff picture starts to take shape. This year though I've paid both more and less attention to goings on in the NHL than previously. If this sounds odd, don't worry; I shall explain. This image might give you a clue....(Credit: sports.nationalpress.com)

It's playoff time again! The NFL playoffs have now officially started, and we're already past the first round - wild-card weekend. Lets see who was brilliant, and who was more at the barely functioning end of the scale. I'll go through each game in turn, and finish with a look ahead to the divisional round.

As the NFL regular season draws to a close and we enter the playoffs, I thought it would be interesting to discuss some of the vagaries of what’s been a rather interesting season. (Credit: NFL.com)

Today I want to talk about something that I’ve been thinking about a fair bit recently.  It’s something that I started to notice a couple of years ago on an occasional basis, but last year and this year I’ve really started to notice it more and more frequently. The issue is recurring themes within lifesaving SERCs. (Credit: loughboroughsport.com)

After my post looking back at 2012 , it’s time to look towards the future. As I’ve done for the last few years I’m going to set myself some goals to work towards for the year. Not resolutions as such, but guidelines to help me structure my time a bit. My goals will be split into several categories, and are shaped by how close I got to similar goals in previous years.