The Chronicles of John: Friday, Saturday, & Sunday
To those few of you out there that check this regularly, sorry that I haven't updated this in a couple of nights. There was a birthday party on Friday and a Christmas party on Saturday that kept me from doing so, but I'm back with another exciting bulleted list!
-Just to reassure you all that I am actually still attending classes over here, I nailed down the topic for the poster I will present in "Dinosaurs." It'll be on the ecological structure of early dinosaur ecosystems. Whoopee!
-The dinosaur fossil record paper is coming along well, with our data analysis getting the thumbs-up from Mike. Now it just remains to write it up and wrangle over who gets to be the primary author...
-Briefly updating the PhD application process, Berkeley turns out to be not a viable option after all, so there's one more place off the list. I'm very close to giving up on ever hearing from the guy at Harvard as well. On the plus side, Washington just hired a guy who's work exactly in line with what I want to do, which is a very exciting prospect.
-I'll just hit you all with the highlights of the Christmas party, which really was a great time:
-Real Swedish Christmas cookies and glogg (spiced wine) straight from Stockholm itself.
-Actual turkey, not chicken!
-Childlike behavior and near violence involving wads of paper and cardboard
-My "secret Santa" gift, a copy of Instructions to American Servicemen in Britain; oddly, it's the second time it's been given to me.
-The ceiling almost caving it (seriously) as the result of the far crazier party upstairs.
-As you've all no doubt heard, there was an enormous refinery explosion in Hertfordshire (pronounced Hartfordshire) this morning. Turns out it was a good thing I cancelled the London trip I had planned today, as I imagine rail service was pretty well gummed up as a result. At any rate, the explosion is supposedly partially responsible for the pea-soup fog that settled on Bristol this evening. This is not an interesting story, I realize, but it seemed worth relating, and I do recommend checking out some of the fairly spectacular pictures on the BBC site I've linked to above.
-The reason I was out and able to appreciate the fog this evening is that Graeme, Manabu, and I all went to see The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe. The movie itself was fun, but gave me cause to complain about British theater adds. I enjoy watching trailers as much as the next person, but British cinemas take the idea several steps further, barraging you with a good 15 minutes of advertisements before you even get to the previews. Just to frustrate you more, they then have an almost 10 minute intermission before the movie starts to let people go buy popcorn. As a consequence, a movie that was scheduled to start at 4:45 actually began at 5:10 (and it was even worse at Harry Potter; one shudders to think what they'll do before King Kong). I'm really not sure why people here put up with it.
So, there are my random thoughts for the last few days. Hope you all had equally thrilling weekends.
-Just to reassure you all that I am actually still attending classes over here, I nailed down the topic for the poster I will present in "Dinosaurs." It'll be on the ecological structure of early dinosaur ecosystems. Whoopee!
-The dinosaur fossil record paper is coming along well, with our data analysis getting the thumbs-up from Mike. Now it just remains to write it up and wrangle over who gets to be the primary author...
-Briefly updating the PhD application process, Berkeley turns out to be not a viable option after all, so there's one more place off the list. I'm very close to giving up on ever hearing from the guy at Harvard as well. On the plus side, Washington just hired a guy who's work exactly in line with what I want to do, which is a very exciting prospect.
-I'll just hit you all with the highlights of the Christmas party, which really was a great time:
-Real Swedish Christmas cookies and glogg (spiced wine) straight from Stockholm itself.
-Actual turkey, not chicken!
-Childlike behavior and near violence involving wads of paper and cardboard
-My "secret Santa" gift, a copy of Instructions to American Servicemen in Britain; oddly, it's the second time it's been given to me.
-The ceiling almost caving it (seriously) as the result of the far crazier party upstairs.
-As you've all no doubt heard, there was an enormous refinery explosion in Hertfordshire (pronounced Hartfordshire) this morning. Turns out it was a good thing I cancelled the London trip I had planned today, as I imagine rail service was pretty well gummed up as a result. At any rate, the explosion is supposedly partially responsible for the pea-soup fog that settled on Bristol this evening. This is not an interesting story, I realize, but it seemed worth relating, and I do recommend checking out some of the fairly spectacular pictures on the BBC site I've linked to above.
-The reason I was out and able to appreciate the fog this evening is that Graeme, Manabu, and I all went to see The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe. The movie itself was fun, but gave me cause to complain about British theater adds. I enjoy watching trailers as much as the next person, but British cinemas take the idea several steps further, barraging you with a good 15 minutes of advertisements before you even get to the previews. Just to frustrate you more, they then have an almost 10 minute intermission before the movie starts to let people go buy popcorn. As a consequence, a movie that was scheduled to start at 4:45 actually began at 5:10 (and it was even worse at Harry Potter; one shudders to think what they'll do before King Kong). I'm really not sure why people here put up with it.
So, there are my random thoughts for the last few days. Hope you all had equally thrilling weekends.
posted by John D. Orcutt | 11:11 PM
1 Comments:
John, I think you and I both know why you got another copy... You didn't follow the proscription about insulting the Queen the first time 'round. It is just a polite "reminder" about this hard and fast rule of English society.
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