One month down…

I’ve been away from home a month today.

this was my screen saver when we started dating 😉

Mostly, I miss Thomas. The time difference is rough, but thankfully he has some night shifts, so we can actually talk when I’m done with work here and his shift hasn’t begun yet. At home we spend a lot of time doing our own things, but we’re there in the same room together. We’re laughing at the same jokes in Big Bang Theory reruns. So it’s not actually the constant conversation that I miss, but the constant presence of him there in the apartment.

Secondly, I miss being able to talk to people. Really need to work on learning French…

Thirdly, I miss air conditioning 😛 I can only hope sweating all day every day is helpful for weight loss.

Defeat cultural hiroshima

On weekends like this, when I would have racked up the overtime if we got any overtime, it’s important to keep things in perspective. The bigger picture.

To help us all understand the bigger picture, here’s a particularly insightful gem from ISSP in June. This was slide 136 of the school organizer’s presentation (yes, that’s right…slide 136). He defines cultural hiroshima as: “The existence of Science is totally forgotten for political decisions (at any level) and in every day life as if it is not thanks to Science that the new Technologies have been invented.” Overkill? Nah….

I’m still alive!!

When I left home I thought, “this will be ok, I’ll have less chores, plenty of time for reading and crafts in the evening”.

HA. Ha ha ha HA.

Instead I’ve been working flat-out since I got to France, the 9am – midnight schedule. This morning I finally emailed out an analysis note draft to our working group for some comments. WHEW!! A couple days past the deadline, but I think it will be okay. I’ve been feeling like I was thrown in the fire with this job, and I’m probably going to feel like that for a while yet. But at least I can rest tonight and relax for a few hours… I need it. It’s been rough going keeping my spirits up about work.

So what’s happened?

Summer school finished up pretty well, and I have some new friends that I’ll see here at CERN this summer. I got the “James Chadwick diploma” from the school. This doesn’t mean a lot, but I got to shake a Nobel Prize winner’s hand (Gerard t’Hooft) and I have his signature on a piece of paper. Gold. Here’s my awesome poster and my “diploma”.