back in Milan, enjoyed the short course

[kareina]

I had much fun at the short course--unlike some of the geology conferences I attended, this time I actually *spoke* to some of the other geologists. And I enjoyed doing so. I think a big part of the credit goes to the fact that we all stayed in the same hotel, in a small enough "village" that there weren't many other options to distract us. The rest of the credit goes to the Italian eating style. While this format of doing meals would be dreadful for my waistline, it lends itself very well to getting to know the other confrence attendees. We were given 1.5 hours ever day for lunch break, and generally just over one of them actually required we be in the dining hall. They'd bring out a rice dish +/- veg and/or cheese, and 10 to 15 minutes later a pasta dish, followed another 10 to 15 minutes later by the main lunch (usually some sort of meat plus one other item, often a vegetable), and most days they'd follow that with something in the desert family. Then, for dinner, they'd bring us a soup, followed 10 to 15 minutes later by a pasta dish, followed 10 to 15 minutes later by the main course (usually meat plus a veg or other accompaniment), followed by desert 10 to 15 minutes later. Those of us from other countries remarked at how it wasn't really possible to go grab something quick to eat and hurry off to do something else with the time, because of the way the serving was in stages. We also all agreed that the serving sizes were quite generous if you didn't insist that you only wanted a small amount of each.

I don't think I'd care to switch to this sort of meal, with more talking than eating, and more eating than my body needs, on a regular basis, but it sure did help me get comfortable with my classmates. That said, it sure was nice to come home and cook exactly what I want, in the amount I want it, and eat it curled up with a nice, quiet book...

This evening I've done a bit of work, mostly only organizing the files we were given during the course (many of whcih look to be *very* useful) and downloading a few papers I will want to read in the near future. Reading the abstracts of those papers brought my current run of reading 1000 words of Geologic Literature a day to 37 days in a row. This is now my second best run since submitting my thesis. I'm hoping that this time it will break all previous records (47 for my post-submission attempts, and 118 days in a row while working on the PhD).

This weekend we will be hosting a couple of couch surfers from Macedonia. I also hope to make time to come in and weld a couple more capsules, since my current experiment which is running will be done soon, and it will be good to get the next one going as soon as my colleague (who is ready to run one) is done with his. If I don't manage that goal it isn't the end of the world, but I do enjoy working when no one else is in the building.