The Man with No Time

Well, moving still sucks. This whole process is really starting to take the mickey; I naively thought that it would be relatively simple, but I'm starting to realise how lucky I was with all of my previous moves. Each time I had people to help me, and I was moving in with other people so there were bodies around. This time it's a completely different story, and I'm starting to get a bit fed up. Admittedly it's only been a week since I got they keys, and a busy week at that. It's also been stressful.

This weekend I took a trip up to Glasgow for my first competition of the new season, the Scottish National Lifesaving Championships. I say a new season, but I suppose that's my university-lifesaving bias showing through; really it's part of the 2013 season according to the RLSS. In any case, it was the first competition I'd participated in since the St Andrews event back in February! Spoiler alert - it didn't go too well.

Moving still sucks. But at least I now have the keys to my flat! It's taken long enough for me to become immensely frustrated though - it's not like I moved down here over two weeks ago, or applied for my flat almost a month ago or anything... There's been a lot of waiting around for people to do things over the last two weeks.

So a new job, in a familiar department, at a university I know well, and in a city I lived in for three years. I've been there a week, so what could be more sensible than taking a week off to go to a conference! Ah, the life of a researcher. In fairness, I hadn't been to a conference for quite some time. I missed out on the large meeting in Canada that many of my colleagues went to, so my last one had been NAM in St Andrews . So after traveling down to London last weekend for Proms in the Park , I stayed on to attend the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2013 at UCL. EPSC is a bit broader in scope than many of the conferences I go to, as it mostly focuses on Solar system planetary science, with a bit of exploration thrown in. Exoplanets are a relatively recent addition to the lineup, and for this year were mostly present in a dynamics/atmospheres capacity. The EPSC 2013 logo is rather spectacular. (Credit: isar.cnrs-orleans.fr)

I'm spending this week in London for a conference, so my girlfriend and I thought that we'd take the chance to spend the weekend in the capital too. It was a good chance to catch up with some friends, and to do something that I've wanted to do for a few years - the BBC Proms in the Park. The Last Night of the Proms, Hyde Park style. (Credit: David Brown)

This evening marks the end of my first week in my new job. It's been a little odd at times, and a little frustrating at others, but I didn't expect it to be a cake walk. I'm cautiously optimistic though, and I think I'm going to enjoy working with alongside the astronomy group at Warwick. Sadly, none of these buildings is the Physics department. But it's a nice panorama of part of the Warwick campus, so I'm using it. (Credit: en.wikipedia.org)

In this whole mess that is me moving to a new job, moving house, putting stuff into storage, and trying to finish up my PhD all at the same time, there is a ray of hope. That's right, my thesis is complete! Celebration time! It's finished! I actually finished it last Monday, but I left the complete version with my supervisor for him to take a look at before Friday. Needless to say he'd forgotten to do so, so we spent half an hour going over a couple of sections on Friday afternoon, then I printed it out. Which took 3 hours! Yes, I was printing three copies, but I'd forgotten just how badly my high-resolution png images affected the printer. Every time it got to a page with one of more of my plots the printer sat there thinking for a minute or two, and there are a lot of plots in my thesis! Sadly this meant that I couldn't get it handed in before I left, so I tasked a couple of my friends with securing my supervisor's signature, getting it bound, ...

This is the first in what will likely end up being a series of posts. Because lets face it, moving sucks. And this particular move doesn't look like it's going to have an end any time soon... My last post was about my flat hunt  in Coventry in preparation for my new job. That was my penultimate week in St Andrews. My last week in St Andrews involved a lot of driving up and down the UK, and actually not that much time in town! Oh St Andrews, how I will miss thee. (Credit: David Brown)