Thoughts of the Day

Hi!
So, basically, it's a Sunday morning, and it's a long time since I blogged, and I've been thinking of so many things I'd like to say and to put them all in a Facebook status would just be rude. So rather than writing a fifty page essay, I've come up with some thoughts of the day (/week/year) for readers to Digest, and I shall then be able to squawk more fully in future and you'll have a clue what I'm going on about.
So, 2011 thus far:

• I have a new phone; embracing the Android market felt a little like selling my soul, but I could justify it on the basis of having lost my old one, and its maps capabilities did come in very useful on a long trip to the middle of the countryside near Peterborough last weekend for some racing with the boat club.
• I have a new bike, because the old one died, and I couldn't quite figure why I was riding a mountain bike across the relatively flat Reading campus. I love it, and it makes me happy.
• I have become a bit of a chocolate addict in the last few weeks, which have been exceptionally hard work (I recently had the tooth-falling-out-dream for the first time since finals, which I'm told indicates stress, but only some of my teeth fell out so I'm obviously not very stressed).
• Meteorology is great. I did have a dream about Kelvin-Helmholtz instability last night, which is perhaps concerning, but I have had quite a meteorologically heavy week, with four coursework deadlines (no they are not all done; no I shouldn't be blogging)
• Went to a OneSound gig last night (www.onesound.org), it was amazing and I feel truly blessed, but I nearly got stranded in Winchester on the way home due to a train that the trainline said existed not existing, and thus my love affair with British Rail (i actually quite like train travel) has reached a bit of a low point.
• I'm applying for PhDs, because meteorology rocks so much. More anon...

xxx

the painful transition from math to met

[Quite apart from the fact that I have turned American and write math instead of maths :-( ]

Actually, the transition from maths to met is quite a pleasant one. I can now perfectly permissibly get excited about clouds, even if they aren't displaying kelvin-helmholtz instability; look up satellite images of hurricanes; and a significant proportion of my study seems to bear relation to everyday, real phenomena. Add to all that that I got to go on a FIELD TRIP; a real field trip, where I could wear my hideous yet warm ensemble of outwear gear, thus adding to my sister's possible reason's to disown me, and prance along the Dorset coast whirling meteorological instruments around my head and watching boys let off weather balloons (we girls lost out because 1) the boys were eager and 2)the boys were taller and less likely to pop said balloon on a spiky tree).

However, certain aspects of this whole application malarkey are rather upsetting.

For example, I am, for the first time in my life, the owner of my very own scientific calculator. Why?

Well, at GCSE and below, my poxy non scientific one coped (I still own it, and it has breakout 2004 stickers on it and my name in orange nail varnish). At ALevel I got to borrow a school graphical one, and learn to draw smily faces for my friends/teachers/self. As for undergraduate, there were two types of maths.
1) we don't need numbers, silly numbers, it's all about defining things, or manipulating things, or whatever, but we can generally survive without things so ridiculous as 7.9346x10^-4.
2) If we did need numbers, say to analyse a physical model, or a clever expression of pi, we wrote a PROGRAMME which did it for us (or a programme which spent eternity trying to compile and then exploded in a puff of smoke, but the point remains).
[this is an awful awful explanation of why I didn't need a calculator, but I didn't].
So, to the question 'you're a mathematician, can I borrow a calculator?' you could answer smugly 'no, ask a physicist' or 'no, ask an engineer'.
But no longer. while my brain can do division and multiplication and the like, it's not quite up to exponentials and logarithms (if yours is, I suggest you check that you aren't actually a computer.) and quite a lot of meteorological expressions seem to contain these pesky things. So I just spent £10 that could have been spent on
1)cake
2)cake
3)cake
...
(the veggie frenzy passed)
on a calculator.

But it is new and shiny, so I guess I can find it exciting for a short while.

and that is why they call me Decaff...

Ah, it was inevitable, really. I'd lasted a whole month. Not a whole month of conning my coursemates into thinking I was quiet, submissive and comprehensible, admittedly (we played monopoly which put paid to the 'submissive'); but a month without any particular hyperactivity. I've noted before, in fact, that my response to caffeine doesn't seem to be at all predictable; sometimes mugs of it have no effect at all.

But take today, for example. 8 hours sleep (somewhat rubbish sleep, I admit, I kept waking up for some reason); nice big breakfast (bacon and eggs and crumpets- yes i have shed some of the Belize pounds, so I've decided bacon and eggs is permissible); no reason for the dormant caffeine monster to emerge. But emerge it did. I think i was my first mug of the morning too- I arrived in the department, only to discover our lecture was cancelled. I had a tutorial an hour later so went and got a coffee (15p!) and sat with some friends.

Well, I say sat. I was more kinda bouncing. and singing about biscuits (of zazzamarandabo- if you get the reference, sing along, and if you don't, check out silly songs with larry on youtube. singing cucumbers, yes yes yes), and belting out a bit of 'Poison' by Alice Cooper (who my friend said 'isn't really metal, more like boyzone'. Turns out he meant boy george...), and generally just being caffeinated. Hopefully no world renowned meteorologists walked behind me while I was boinging up and down.

In case anyone doesn't know, they DO call me decaff. it's my nickname on the support stewarding team at Greenbelt Festival, and it arose as a warning against anyone who should choose to give me coffee, after a certain late night when I got a little bit excited about the Wesley brothers to my team leaders...

Los Vegetatbles

(No, I didn't learn Spanish)

Hello everyone!
I am, as you may have picked up, no longer in Belize, but rather in Reading, Berkshire, UK, being a styowdent again and trying to make sure that
t(working) > t(coxing)+t(climbing)+t(singing)+t(at church)+t(other assorted activities)
Generally the thought is that one of the times on the left hand side needs to vanish to zero, probably coxing or climbing or singing, but it's all too fun. So more anon.

Meanwhile, I am settling into my house and in an attempt to budget I am determined to Never Buy Food Out. And also to Be Healthy. So on Monday, I trundled off to Morrison's (I would shop at the little fruit and veg stall next door, but it's not the best stuff and very overpriced so I thought I'd try the supermarket.) Sadly, I hadn't really made a list, so I did the Vegetarian version of shopping-when-you're-hungry (I'm not vegetarian by the way, I just had a bit of a veggie fit).
So, when I arrived home from Morrison's (a good mile's walk by the way), I had, among other things:-
2.5 kg of potatoes
1 aubergine
1 butternut squash
1 courgette
750g of mushrooms (I still have mushroom withdrawal symptoms for six months without them)
celery (Who BUYS that. Like, seriously? CELERY)
three tomatoes
one onion (clearly insufficient onion)
broccoli (remind self: I DO NOT REALLY LIKE BROCCOLI)
spinach

also, four (rubbish will not ripen) kiwis, five (fairly traded but entirely inedible) oranges, and six (UK, but also not remotely ripe) plums.

Therefore, the past week, when I have not had too much studying to do, I have been mostly trying to cook all these vegetables into freezable form (because that's a LOT of vegetables and vegetables tend to go sad). They are nearly gone, except some spinach, the celery (obviously), two tomatoes, half the aubergine, and NEARLY ALL THE POTATOES. And I LOVE the potatoes. I was actually quite proud of some of the food I produced, including mushroom carbonara, vegetable curry (with help from patak's), tuna and tomato pasta, and roast vegetables with goat's cheese. I should add that another small motivation to this epic cooking spree was that one of my housemates is from Mauritius and she and her friends cook up delicious meals like chick pea curries every night, and then offer me some, and I feel quite a bit self conscious if I then whip out the Fish Fingers and Potato Waffles courtesy of Captain Bird's Eye.

I should also add a small note about Take That. This week I have been listening to the radio again, and find myself both singing along to 'Robbie and Gary' (oh DEAR, they rhyme bus with toys 'r' us), and, after only ONE LISTEN, humming The Flood ALL DAY. The Flood has the added bonus of being accompanied by a video featuring Take That 'rowing'. Sadly, however
1) they are not in lycra, but old fashioned stuff
2) (which supercedes 1), they all look rather old, and not terribly fetching in rowing kit...
3) (which supercedes both the above) THEY CANNOT ROW. Anyone who's ever done a fair bit of rowing will identify with being a little bit dead on the inside when they witness Awful Rowing Technique, but the video cheats a little, in that you see a nice Zoom In View of Howard's left wrist (a few metres above his right wrist, because that's how you row, clearly), or of Mark's Face (who looked particularly pained), or of Gary (who's just preoccupied singing, which probably doesn't help his technique, although it might keep him Loose And Relaxed I suppose) or whatever, and it all looks painful and you're surprised the boat is upright, and then it zooms out and you see a 5X (a non-existent boat prior to now, I should point out) rowing perfectly down the Thames. I'm not entirely convinced that all of Take That were actually in a boat at the same time...

However, despite all this, I am still rather happy that Take That decided to make a video with rowing in. Although it would have been better if they'd just stood round the boat house (mine, preferably) singing and paid some national (preferably attractive) champions to do the rowing properly.

Anyway. Take That rant over.

Time to go and forecast the weather...

x

I don't Belize it: Beer Pong, Barnacles, and Book worms

I feel this entry shouldn't go in the I-work-for-the-church page as it contains mention of Alcoholic Beverage, and indeed, consumption of alcoholic beverage. But in this respect I am not my father's daughter (my first words in Spanish, uttered the other week, were 'dos cervesas por favor') and therefore my Methodism/Christianity permits moderate such activity.

SO,

on my weekend down in Stann Creek I was introduced by some lovely new American friends to the concept of Beer Pong, which either my incredible good behaviour, or my choice of friends, or my Englishness has thus far sheltered me from. I won more than I lost, and I claim that the credit for this is fairly equally shared with my playing partner.

Post beer pong the four of us remaining went for a swim in the sea and attempted to clamber onto the dock. Alas the (lack of) upper body strength of myself and the other female present made this quite a struggle and (although she did manage it and I didn't) we both ended up with legs ripped up by barnacles . We tried to come up with a believable story to explain these cuts including being mauled by a jaguar which we wrestled to the ground with our bare hands... but for some reason, it wasn't very believable.

My other discovery of the week was to find bookworms (apparently a misnomer, but they were worms burrowing through a book) in an edition of Winnie the Pooh, which I had opened to recite in an English accent when my American friends were chatting about my accent (which they do a lot). I am rather sad they'd chosen this particular book, but the patterns they make are admirabe and rather aesthetically pleasing, so long as you can't see the worms themselves.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, English Accents and English humour

I seem to be mostly squawking about England at the moment...

Anyway, I caught the BBC world news from the world service today. And I thought, did English people on the radio really talk like this? Do English people full stop talk like this? The fact that I mostly listened to radio 1 might be part of it, but I'm sure even the Today Programme wasn't that posh... maybe they put their distinctive accents on the World Service.

Anyway, I then listened to radio 1 and Matt Edmondson which sounded much more like I remember English people talking (even though I lived for years in Exeter and then went to University in Cambridge...) I also found it very amusing; obviously there is something in English 'humour' although I can't define what I mean.

I am however listening to radio 1 on "listen again" and keep forgetting the fact it's not actually happening right now (and that I'm in another country anyway) and thinking 'ooh i could text in with such and such...' Although the times I've sent a text into a radio show could be numbered on one hand of Bart Simpson.

Marks and Spencers

This weekend I have to sing at a wedding, and since I did not have the foresight to pack Standard Concert Clothing (smart black and white and covered, pretty black shoes) I had to take a trip down Albert St, the hub of Belize City shopping, to find suitable shoes. I managed, although my big feet meant I couldn't find any heels, but anyway, this is beside the point. I was with a Belizean friend, and found myself, as we browsed, telling her about the wonders of, yes, Marks and Spencers (she has lived in the States so Big Stores are a familiar concept but M&S is not. Poor Americans).

Having been thinking about how I miss M&S, I happened to read the blog of someone I knew at University who's been in Cameroon doing VSO, and although our experiences are incomparable on all other scores, I found her saying that she can't wait to visit M&S on her return to England for the summer. Now, her missing of it is probably more acute than mine, since I have Brodies down the road which is a general all-purpose store, which plays Amy Grant and sells most things you could want, including Patak's curry sauce if you're prepared to pay about £6 for it, which funnily enough I'm not. (I rarely go to Brodies since it costs too much). Yet I was still able to giggle at the English love for M&S.

In other news, I have earache, which I'm hoping doesn't develop into anything nasty, and some new 'pants' (american use of the word!)