I think I can blame the trip to France
Mar. 20th, 2012 09:45 pmAs I type this I have a minor case of sniffles happening--one of those annoying lightly runny noses that don't come with any other symptoms, but still encourage one to take frequent hot showers (much nicer to blow the nose there, than using a cloth or paper tissue and abrading the skin) and naps. This started this morning, occasionally punctuated by sneezes. I wasn't all that surprised when it hit though, since yesterday (Monday) morning and Sunday evening I had slightly swollen lymph nodes and something vaguely but not quite approaching discomfort at the top my my throat/base of my sinus. Since I only just got back from the trip to France on Thursday I am going with the assumption that I was exposed to something during the trip and my body is fighting it off, fairly successfully--these symptoms don't hold a candle to the colds some of my friends have complained of having recently.
This is the first time this year I have had to deal with anything resembling health issues, which is way sooner after the last time than was once the norm (the last time was November, unless you count the self-inflicted bruising in December), but is still better than many other folk have to deal with.
The trip to France was, odd. The meeting was for the Promine research group, of which my boss is an active member. He sent a PhD student who has been an active part of the research team, and me, to this meeting. Everyone else presented their progress on their research, so I am now educated on topics such as how one can use statistics to take information from a geological map and calculate which areas on the map are likely to contain undiscovered mineral resources, based on "rules" that define those resources elsewhere.
This is a very different side of geology than I have been part of hitherto. My primary research interests have focused on how mountains form, and the manner in which minerals grow and change when subjected to heat and pressure because they are at the base of an area actively growing mountains. I have never before touched on the "and how can humans benefit (or profit) from these chemical reactions?". Most of the research presented at this meeting has only to do with how man can find the resources that we require to maintain our current technology levels. Such a different way of looking at the science, though, to be fair, governments are far more likely to find those sciences which have direct benefit to humankind, so it shouldn't be surprising that if one stays in science long enough one will have to deal with these issues.
The meeting ran from 08:30 Monday morning to 17:00 on Wednesday. However, in order to get to Nancy, France, from here it was necessary for me to leave the house at 07:00 on Sunday to catch the flight to Stockholm. I then had a long enough layover to give myself a geology field trip, discovering outcrops within easy reach of the airport I hadn't known were there, before catching my flight to Paris. The above mentioned PhD student met up with me at the airport in Stockholm (he had the later flight out of LuleƄ, but that one had sold out before my travel was booked), and we traveled together the rest of the way.
It was good to have a traveling companion who had done this trip before, it made it easy to find the bus to the Paris city center and then the correct train out to Nancy. By the time we finally reached out hotel Sunday evening it was 21:30, and I had had quite enough of sitting for the day, so I did yoga, chatted a bit on the phone with
lord_kjar (since the internet connection in my room was too iffy to actually manage a skype connection that night), and went to sleep.
Monday's presentations and field trip to the Ion Microprobe lab went right up to the "ice breaker" at 18:30, so I stayed for a while and visited with the other geologists before heading back to my room to relax a bit. Several of my colleagues were staying in the same hotel, and had plans to eat at the restaurant there that evening, so I wandered out a bit later and joined them for the company (though, of course, I ate nothing at that hour--I didn't even eat any of the food at the ice breaker, as it was too late for me to be eating--I had my evening meal (left overs from lunch) during the coffee break at 15:50.
Tuesday's afternoon field trip was scheduled to go to a mineral processing plant, but I needed some exercise, so I slipped out at the pre-trip coffee break and explored a nearby park instead. That evening the others met at a restaurant in town at 20:00 for the official meeting dinner, but I didn't bother to join them, since I knew I wouldn't be hungry. Indeed, I had done my yoga and was asleep a good hour before their dinner broke up.
Wednesday we had to leave the meeting during the afternoon coffee break so as to be certain to get to the train station on time for the return journey. This time, rather than taking the bus between Paris city center and the airport we opted to walk a few blocks to another train station and take the train to the airport. This was a smart move in terms of getting to the airport on time, as trains don't get stuck in traffic the way buses can, but the walk reminded me just why cities have no appeal for me--they are crowded, stinky, and have not much in the way of plant life (though there is plenty of dog shit on the sidewalks attesting to the presence of animal life).
Before this trip my point of view was "I have no interest in ever visiting Paris". Now that I have seen the bit near those two train stations and the part between the airport and the train station I am certain that I have no wish to ever visit Paris again. Cities--the rest of you can have them, I am so not interested!
Sadly, the flight we caught from Paris to Stockholm got in too late to catch a flight to LuleƄ, so it was necessary to stay overnight at the hotel there before flying home Thursday morning. My traveling companion had a taxi waiting for him at the airport when we got home, because the Uni travel agent always books one with his flights. I am not that patient, I was met at the airport by
lord_kjar, I didn't want to wait for my welcome home hug any longer than that! He brought me home, we enjoyed an early lunch together, and then we both went back to work, where I got to do science of my own for the first time in weeks. That felt good after two weeks of preparing a grant proposal, wherein I talked about the science I will do, and then several days in a meeting listening to others talk about the science they have done.
Friday I left work a little early so that I could have some time curled up with a book at home before
lord_kjar and I did the two hour drive south to his brother's house for the weekend, where we helped them make progress fixing up the bus for the trip to Double Wars in May, and start costumes so that they will have something to wear at their first SCA event.
Saturday we took the required trip to a fabric store, where we found some black wool that was so lovely we bought the whole bolt--they get half for a dress for her, and we get half for a dress for me, and if there is any left over we might make a tunic or two for the boys. While the fabric was washed and dried we worked on patterns, and on Sunday morning we managed to cut out her under dress from the linen we also bought on Saturday and she started sewing it. Sunday afternoon we drove home so as to be here for Folk music and dancing in the late afternoon and evening.
Monday I worked from home, and today I mostly worked from home (not wanting to share whatever I am fighting off), but it was necessary to bring my computer back to the office in the afternoon so that it would be there for the great uni-wide upgrade to Windows7. I am not clear why they need to mess with my work computer for this upgrade though, since it has had Windows7 since I got it in early November. But when they sent the email reminding us to do backups before the upgrade I replied asking them if it is safe to assume that they won't be changing anything on my computer since it already has Windows7 and they replied saying that since my computer was installed on 7 November I do need to have it upgraded--they are upgrading all computers which were installed prior to 24 November. Sigh.
But since I live with someone who has to upgrade and repair computers for a living I know better than to hide my computer while they do the work, much better to let them do what they need to do, and then restore all of my settings to what they are supposed to be when they are done.
This week I have my final exam for my Swedish class, and next week I need to return to Boliden for work.
This is the first time this year I have had to deal with anything resembling health issues, which is way sooner after the last time than was once the norm (the last time was November, unless you count the self-inflicted bruising in December), but is still better than many other folk have to deal with.
The trip to France was, odd. The meeting was for the Promine research group, of which my boss is an active member. He sent a PhD student who has been an active part of the research team, and me, to this meeting. Everyone else presented their progress on their research, so I am now educated on topics such as how one can use statistics to take information from a geological map and calculate which areas on the map are likely to contain undiscovered mineral resources, based on "rules" that define those resources elsewhere.
This is a very different side of geology than I have been part of hitherto. My primary research interests have focused on how mountains form, and the manner in which minerals grow and change when subjected to heat and pressure because they are at the base of an area actively growing mountains. I have never before touched on the "and how can humans benefit (or profit) from these chemical reactions?". Most of the research presented at this meeting has only to do with how man can find the resources that we require to maintain our current technology levels. Such a different way of looking at the science, though, to be fair, governments are far more likely to find those sciences which have direct benefit to humankind, so it shouldn't be surprising that if one stays in science long enough one will have to deal with these issues.
The meeting ran from 08:30 Monday morning to 17:00 on Wednesday. However, in order to get to Nancy, France, from here it was necessary for me to leave the house at 07:00 on Sunday to catch the flight to Stockholm. I then had a long enough layover to give myself a geology field trip, discovering outcrops within easy reach of the airport I hadn't known were there, before catching my flight to Paris. The above mentioned PhD student met up with me at the airport in Stockholm (he had the later flight out of LuleƄ, but that one had sold out before my travel was booked), and we traveled together the rest of the way.
It was good to have a traveling companion who had done this trip before, it made it easy to find the bus to the Paris city center and then the correct train out to Nancy. By the time we finally reached out hotel Sunday evening it was 21:30, and I had had quite enough of sitting for the day, so I did yoga, chatted a bit on the phone with
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Monday's presentations and field trip to the Ion Microprobe lab went right up to the "ice breaker" at 18:30, so I stayed for a while and visited with the other geologists before heading back to my room to relax a bit. Several of my colleagues were staying in the same hotel, and had plans to eat at the restaurant there that evening, so I wandered out a bit later and joined them for the company (though, of course, I ate nothing at that hour--I didn't even eat any of the food at the ice breaker, as it was too late for me to be eating--I had my evening meal (left overs from lunch) during the coffee break at 15:50.
Tuesday's afternoon field trip was scheduled to go to a mineral processing plant, but I needed some exercise, so I slipped out at the pre-trip coffee break and explored a nearby park instead. That evening the others met at a restaurant in town at 20:00 for the official meeting dinner, but I didn't bother to join them, since I knew I wouldn't be hungry. Indeed, I had done my yoga and was asleep a good hour before their dinner broke up.
Wednesday we had to leave the meeting during the afternoon coffee break so as to be certain to get to the train station on time for the return journey. This time, rather than taking the bus between Paris city center and the airport we opted to walk a few blocks to another train station and take the train to the airport. This was a smart move in terms of getting to the airport on time, as trains don't get stuck in traffic the way buses can, but the walk reminded me just why cities have no appeal for me--they are crowded, stinky, and have not much in the way of plant life (though there is plenty of dog shit on the sidewalks attesting to the presence of animal life).
Before this trip my point of view was "I have no interest in ever visiting Paris". Now that I have seen the bit near those two train stations and the part between the airport and the train station I am certain that I have no wish to ever visit Paris again. Cities--the rest of you can have them, I am so not interested!
Sadly, the flight we caught from Paris to Stockholm got in too late to catch a flight to LuleƄ, so it was necessary to stay overnight at the hotel there before flying home Thursday morning. My traveling companion had a taxi waiting for him at the airport when we got home, because the Uni travel agent always books one with his flights. I am not that patient, I was met at the airport by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Friday I left work a little early so that I could have some time curled up with a book at home before
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Saturday we took the required trip to a fabric store, where we found some black wool that was so lovely we bought the whole bolt--they get half for a dress for her, and we get half for a dress for me, and if there is any left over we might make a tunic or two for the boys. While the fabric was washed and dried we worked on patterns, and on Sunday morning we managed to cut out her under dress from the linen we also bought on Saturday and she started sewing it. Sunday afternoon we drove home so as to be here for Folk music and dancing in the late afternoon and evening.
Monday I worked from home, and today I mostly worked from home (not wanting to share whatever I am fighting off), but it was necessary to bring my computer back to the office in the afternoon so that it would be there for the great uni-wide upgrade to Windows7. I am not clear why they need to mess with my work computer for this upgrade though, since it has had Windows7 since I got it in early November. But when they sent the email reminding us to do backups before the upgrade I replied asking them if it is safe to assume that they won't be changing anything on my computer since it already has Windows7 and they replied saying that since my computer was installed on 7 November I do need to have it upgraded--they are upgrading all computers which were installed prior to 24 November. Sigh.
But since I live with someone who has to upgrade and repair computers for a living I know better than to hide my computer while they do the work, much better to let them do what they need to do, and then restore all of my settings to what they are supposed to be when they are done.
This week I have my final exam for my Swedish class, and next week I need to return to Boliden for work.