Brian York's Life

Sources of excitement

Written on June 19, 2008

Back many years ago, when I was in high school, there was a particular phrase that I decided that I’d never use. Mostly, I decided this because it was a really overused joke amongst the type of people I hung out with, which may tell you something about the people I hung out with. Except that it won’t because you don’t know what the phrase is. Except that you will, because I’m about to use it. So, here it is. Welcome to the further adventures of the Life of Brian…

The first week of classes has been interesting. I didn’t have much in the way of actual classes (only ASTR500, which is the Stellar Atmospheres course, about which I’ve been warned that I’ll fail the midterm, because everyone fails the midterm). One of my two seminars also didn’t happen, because no speaker had been scheduled. As such, I spent a lot of time in my office. Some of it was spent checking my e-mail and so forth, but most was spent reading astro-ph back issues to find useful articles. I’m almost through my backlog, and will soon be able to start reading the actual articles (neat concept, isn’t it?)

On another note, this morning after my class I went back to my office to discover that Morgan had bought me a tea container (to hold tea bags for the daily coffee meetings, because I don’t drink coffee), a mug (to hold the tea once it’s ready to drink), and some candy for long days in the office. She’d also brought me some tea from the house, which I’ve been forgetting to do all summer (and all fall so far). This means that I’ll no longer be going to coffee time with a quarter-full water bottle. I have the most amazing wife. I’d been a bit down today, and that really helped.

This afternoon/evening was a bunch of stuff at the same time. There was the graduate student orientation session (which I missed), the Physics/Astronomy meet-and-greet (which I missed), the students with families orientation (which I got to, and which is the reason I missed the others) and the Physics/Astronomy welcome barbecue, which I also got to, and which was amazing, mostly for the chance to meet many cool people and find out some interesting stuff. More on that below.

The first thing I found out at the barbecue is that, if one of our observation proposals is accepted, I get to go onsite to do the telescope work. The telescope in question is the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), which is located at La Palma, one of the Canary Islands (near Morocco). Since it’s territory controlled by Spain, you have to fly via Spain to get there. I’m really excited about this, although Morgan is a bit jealous (I sympathize completely). Between this and the conference in Shanghai, I may be doing quite a lot of travelling — good thing I got my passport updated. Of course, the proposal may not be accepted, but I think it has a fairly good chance. We’ll see.

I was wearing my FilKONtario 9 t-shirt today, and at the barbecue someone stopped me and asked if I had gone there. It turns out to have been Don Neill, who was the filk waif that year. We talked about the convention and a few other things, and it turns out that he shares an office with my advisor’s husband. Small world, isn’t it? I’ll have to mention to him how much I enjoy listening to his songs on my FilKONtario CD at some point…

Well, that’s about it for tonight. Things are going well for me as far as school goes right now, so that’s good. Personally, there are a few stresses in my life at the moment (which don’t involve me personally, but which are affecting me) (and no, it has nothing to do with the marriage in and of itself). I’m not planning to be any more specific, except to say that it’s nothing I can’t handle, just something that is affecting me a little. Oh well, things like this are bound to happen from time to time…

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Entry last updated September 10, 2004