another good day at work
Sep. 1st, 2016 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaToday started with a meeting with one of my SCA apprentices, who will also be my Master's student this year. She has been trying to decide if she wants to do a master's degree with the same mining company for which her grandfather worked, or if she wants to instead build upon her summer job giving tours of the Medieval Church in Gammelstad by doing a "geologic map" of the building stones used to make it. We decided that she would write up a project proposal for the mining company, and, if they say yes to funding her lab work, she can do that project, but if they say no, she can study the church walls using our portable XRF to determine the composition of the minerals.
Then I had a variety of new and reasonable urgent emails to deal with before doing a few things in the lab, before meeting with my other Master's student to discuss her project ideas. Then it was time to meet my personal trainer for the latest upgrade to my workout. After that I had planned to just head home, but there were a few new emails that came in that were worth replying to today (including "how much does it cost to use the lab?"), and as I finished that yet another student dropped by to chat (this one only to chat--he is a PhD student with a project of his own), but I did suggest that he drop by the Frostheim meeting tonight, and mentioned that choir is looking for more people on Tuesdays.
Much to my delight, he did drop by the Frostheim meeting for a bit on his way to an evening class, which brought us to a total of nine people tonight, though not all at the same time, since some left early, and another arrived late.
In other news, I have been delighting in a daily optical illusion. The bike path I take to and from work was built fairly recently, and the forest hasn't grown up to it yet, so there is a couple of meter wide swath next to the path that has only low plants (5 to 10 cm) scattered across bare dirt and a few fallen leaves. Lately, as I pedal down the path lots of small birds suddenly take to the air from that swath, yet none of the birds was at all visible to me before leaving the ground. I know that they are small and ground-coloured because it was hard for predators to see their ancestors, but it is still fun to watch the illusion of them suddenly telaporting into existence just at the ground-air interface and taking to the sky. Every day I see the first couple take off, and I start looking at the ground, trying to spot more birds, but I never see them til the next set takes off, and then the next, and the next, and the next. It is amazing how many of them can hide in plain sight like that.
Tomorrow is Friday, and I normally don't work on Fridays. However, if I get that feedback back from Grants office on that grant application I sent them yesterday, then I will work on that. (I am not holding my breath that they will have it done this quick, but it is possible.) I also need to head in to campus to pick up the second kettleball I am buying from my personal trainer, since my workout upgrade includes a couple of things that need two kettleballs instead of just one.
Then I had a variety of new and reasonable urgent emails to deal with before doing a few things in the lab, before meeting with my other Master's student to discuss her project ideas. Then it was time to meet my personal trainer for the latest upgrade to my workout. After that I had planned to just head home, but there were a few new emails that came in that were worth replying to today (including "how much does it cost to use the lab?"), and as I finished that yet another student dropped by to chat (this one only to chat--he is a PhD student with a project of his own), but I did suggest that he drop by the Frostheim meeting tonight, and mentioned that choir is looking for more people on Tuesdays.
Much to my delight, he did drop by the Frostheim meeting for a bit on his way to an evening class, which brought us to a total of nine people tonight, though not all at the same time, since some left early, and another arrived late.
In other news, I have been delighting in a daily optical illusion. The bike path I take to and from work was built fairly recently, and the forest hasn't grown up to it yet, so there is a couple of meter wide swath next to the path that has only low plants (5 to 10 cm) scattered across bare dirt and a few fallen leaves. Lately, as I pedal down the path lots of small birds suddenly take to the air from that swath, yet none of the birds was at all visible to me before leaving the ground. I know that they are small and ground-coloured because it was hard for predators to see their ancestors, but it is still fun to watch the illusion of them suddenly telaporting into existence just at the ground-air interface and taking to the sky. Every day I see the first couple take off, and I start looking at the ground, trying to spot more birds, but I never see them til the next set takes off, and then the next, and the next, and the next. It is amazing how many of them can hide in plain sight like that.
Tomorrow is Friday, and I normally don't work on Fridays. However, if I get that feedback back from Grants office on that grant application I sent them yesterday, then I will work on that. (I am not holding my breath that they will have it done this quick, but it is possible.) I also need to head in to campus to pick up the second kettleball I am buying from my personal trainer, since my workout upgrade includes a couple of things that need two kettleballs instead of just one.