Diary of a PhD Widow

We're moving!

2007-10-18T07:01:00.000+10:00

So I was going to let B2 comment on it first, but...he got a fantastic job at Industrial Light and Magic, so we're moving to San Francisco. For a few years. At least. Lucky I'm getting used to the oatmeal thing and am still liking the fog. And I've managed to find some very good local cheeses.

Actually, it's a pretty cool city. My general experience has been that people are very friendly, and I like the climate. On the down side, I haven't found a bartender yet who knows how to make lemon, lime and bitters, and ginger beer is hard to come by, let alone Vegemite... but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

On another note, I have previously commented on the inaccuracy of first aid/medicine on television. Here's a story about the relationship between medical facts and the need to entertain. - and an example of when the information was actually enough to help save a life. So I guess even a little knowledge is better than nothing, but you'll notice the article also comments on how poorly CPR is often presented...

Life in San Francisco

2007-09-16T16:49:00.000+10:00

It's midnight. I am about to leave to go out to a party. San Francisco life is CRAZY! That's my excuse for not blogging in so long.

In other news, B2 is arriving next week! And visiting for a full week and a half! Hooray!

Oatmeal just ain't porridge

2007-07-31T01:04:00.000+10:00

On my second night here, I went to the supermarket for essential supplies. One of them, of course, was breakfast (the most important meal of the day folks - a cup of coffee just isn't enough!).

The range of cereals on offer was a bit much to absorb in my befuddled, jetlagged state, but I espied a box of oatmeal. "Ah!" think I. "That's just like porridge isn't it? Well that'll do me, I love porridge".

Oatmeal ain't porridge. Porridge has more texture, less glugginess, and, paradoxically, more of a feeling like it's sticking to your ribs and cushioning your body against the demands of the day. The stuff I got sticks to the tongue, yes, but not the ribs. I should have been warned when I read the preparation instructions - just add boiling water. You have to cook porridge for at least 3 minutes before it's ready to eat.

Maybe it's just cause I've never bought easy-to-cook porridge at home, but if this is what all oatmeal is like, it's really not the same thing. Oatmeal is porridge's poor, weak cousin.

P.S. Even wikipedia thinks they're the same thing, however, look at the picture of the "instant oatmeal". Porridge shouldn't be shiny like that. I think there lies my mistake - I'll know better next time. So many traps for foreigners...

In San Francisco

2007-07-27T01:20:00.000+10:00

I like fog. Which is lucky, since it's a daily occurrence here. But it is cold, and I'm finding it harder to wake up in the mornings without sunshine. Mind you, that might just be the jetlag.

I've been here for three days, and I'm slowly getting more adventurous. On the first day I went to work, and the apartment I'm staying at - a full 15 minute walk away. Plus the drive from the airport to the apartment, but I don't think that counts.

On the second day I went from the apartment, to the office to (gasp) Trader Joe's, where those who know me will probably be amused but unsurprised to learn that I bought a basil plant (plus pine nuts and parmesan cheese - yes, I intend to live on basil pesto). I liked Trader Joe's, and would thoroughly recommend it as a shopping experience for any visiting the U.S.

But the highlight of my week so far was definitely last night, when Mariko took me to a Yelp party. Thanks Yelp for the free Guinness! I spent a happy forty-five minutes chatting with Mariko, Kqm (pron. Kim) and Matt while we were queuing for the free beers (Matt was wearing an Australia jumper, turned out he'd visited in March, and Kqm had been over for the Sydney Olympics).

Then Mariko and I found a corner (can't say a quiet one, there was nothing quiet about the place), where we chatted happily for an hour and nearly finished our pints of Guinness (which was pretty impressive since I normally struggle with a half-pint) before Marc showed up. Not having eaten much that day (and not being much of a drinker), I was feeling pretty light headed by now, so Marc and Mariko took me off to a very nice cafe which I can't remember the name of. On the way we picked up a copy of The Onion - it's in print here! For Free! I had some yummy Nachos and a great time. Thanks guys!

PhD widows on facebook

2007-07-03T08:08:00.000+10:00

Thanks to Tamar Wilner, we've got a place to get together and whinge:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2453604453

PhD update!

2007-06-19T06:00:00.000+10:00

He's actually submitting! To the actual university! As soon as he can get the darn thing printed - whoa but that's expensive. Anyway, should be all done with by the end of the week...so with any luck he'll graduate this year :)

To Andrea...I think it's the nature of PhD programs to just keep dragging on - and on, and on. B2's been going for nearly 5 1/2 years now I think. Lost count, might be 6...oh, and we're based in Oz. Sydney, to be precise.

I know one guy who completed his PhD in 3 years, but he's extremely unusual among my acquaintances - maybe most people I know are procrastinators. For all those out there doing a PhD who would like to still have a partner at the end of the process, my advice is what just about everyone will give you: start writing early, and write often. How's that for originality?

I've been facebooked - and I got a camera!

2007-05-27T15:48:00.000+10:00

I've finally succumbed to those of you who've been prompting me to join Facebook. I was originally turned off by the site's aggressive cookie setting, but I've been reconciled by B2's rousing endorsement - i.e. "It's just like myspace but it doesn't make your eyeballs bleed". Nice. Doesn't seem too bad. Only been looking at it for 10 minutes, my eyeballs aren't bleeding yet.

Much more importantly, I've got my own camera! I'm very excited - B2 and I have been sharing a camera since we got married, and that has had a few MAJOR drawbacks
(1) It's a reasonably high end camera, so it's hard to just shove it in your bag to take over to the family dinner for happy snaps
(2) I rarely get to use it. It wasn't that B2 hogged it, as such. He just always liked to use the manual settings, so when I got it the screen would be too dark, or something, and then he'd try to tell me that I should adjust this setting or that setting, and then the people/birds/whatever I wanted to photograph had gotten bored and wandered/flown off.
So now I've got my own camera, which is great. It's a nice, small, simple thing that fits just fine in my handbag and I've been going nuts with it...I'll get around to uploading the photo's soon.

Also, there's been this promising development in the media: Sydney Morning Herald - Health Check for TV As a slightly anal person who knows a reasonable amount about medicine, and especially first-aid, I have been known to walk out on television shows and movies because of the inaccuracy of the medicine they're performing...especially when it works. My skin's crawling just thinking about it.

So moves like this will be a great boon to me, the other nerds like me out there, and all of the poor relatives and friends who've had to listen to us shouting "Aargh! That's ridiculous! That would never work in real life!". Most of all folks, please remember - random punches of the sternum will probably only bruise the corpse. It's regular pressing down on it that'll help.

World Turtle Day

2007-05-24T09:30:00.000+10:00

I had occasion this morning to visit 123greetings.com, and discovered that today is World Turtle Day. So whoever you are, wherever you are, think - think of the turtles.

Talking to my brother

2007-05-09T07:22:00.000+10:00

My brother is insane. To be fair: (a) he's well aware of the fact, and (b) so are we all. One advantage of getting up early and logging in to my computer is every now and then he's still awake (on the other side of the world) and will message or Skype me. And then we talk for an hour about random stuff. Pretty much like this: his first blog and his other blog.

The browser seems to think I'm typing in hindi all of a sudden. I'm not sure how this will come out, so if it's hindi characters - Namaste!

In other news, my scarf is coming along very well. Celia gave me a lesson on how to start a new ball and also how to perl/purl (however you spell it - the knitting one, not the coding one). I'm not doing any purl for my scarf though, I'm sticking with the garter stitch.

Mike Slackenerny's done

2007-04-13T08:51:00.000+10:00

I don't believe it. That classic never-to-finish PhD student has done it! B2 is very put out by being beaten by that guy, I can tell you. Not to mention that I'm giving him hell about it ;)

Melbourne trip

2007-04-09T15:33:00.000+10:00

We went to Melbourne over Easter, to catch up with friends and family. Had a fantastic time. We stayed with Kavitha, who showed us around the city like a true sport. It was really good to catch up with her; she seems to be really enjoying Melbourne, and is very much at home there. I think it's really funny that she's settled in Auburn (for those not in the know, she used to live in Auburn in Sydney), though about the only thing the two suburbs have in common is their name.

On the Sunday we went to mass at Father Bob's church, which was quite an education in how... differently... a priest can run a service. It was pretty challenging, but very educational, especially spiritually. Some of the messages have taken a day or two to sink in. I think B2 mainly enjoyed the, er, performance. Still, it was really nice to have him there. Tips to cross-religious couples out there: take some time to share with your partner about their faith, even if you don't share their faith. It's worth it.

After the mass, we went for a quick stroll around South Melbourne markets, and then headed on down to the Mornington Peninsula to catch up with my cousin Fiona. I hadn't seen her in over two years (since our wedding day, to be precise), so it was really good to catch up with her and finally meet her partner Jim, who exceeded the reports I'd heard of what a lovely, friendly guy he is. I was having such a great time I forgot to take any photos that day, and even more surprising, so did B2.

Yes. I got to take photos over the weekend. Most of them even all by myself without someone looking over my shoulder telling me how to frame it :P. I haven't done much photography in the last few years, so I really enjoyed it. My bent is playing with the framing and focus of the shot. Some of the results are here. This is one of my favourites:

And so is this, even though it's been incredibly over-done:

And for work peeps, here's one of Jones Bay Wharf looking over-shadowed by the city (B2's got a funky version of it he touched up):

There was a shop along the way to Auburn station called Marco fabrics...even the style of the place reminded me of someone I know...

I also had a bit of fun with images from the emergency procedures card on the plane. Guys, do pay attention to the pre-flight safety instructions, and read the card like they tell you to. In the right frame of mind, it can be very amusing. Plus then you'll be all fresh on what to do "in the unlikely event of an emergency".

So frustrating! So nearly there!

2007-04-01T21:12:00.000+10:00

I wish I had Jen's powers: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=836. Of course, maybe I would be if I was married to Mike Slackenerny, who has been a PhD student for at least 10 years...I guess I don't have it that bad after all. B2's thesis submission has been accepted, with a few revisions, by his supervisor, so now he just has to do the revisions and submit it. And then get it approved by the assessors...sigh.

In other news, I found my scarf. I'm knitting a scarf, apparently in garter stitch, but since it's my first scarf, I don't really know what that is. Celia could tell you more - she's my teacher. When I get to see her, which isn't often enough :(.

Anyway, I found my scarf. I thought I had left it on the bus on Monday morning - I've been knitting on the bus - and had somehow left it on the seat when I got off. But B2 found it this afternoon in the house. So I'm very happy to have it back. I'm very proud of my scarf, though if I ever get around to posting pictures of it you won't understand why. In my defense, it's my first attempt. With any luck I'll have it finished by next winter.

Limbo land

2007-03-12T11:37:00.000+11:00

This page won't be going for much longer...not even sure whether it should be now. When does a PhD end? When he finishes his draft? When it gets submitted? Or not until the ceremony with the funny hat?

I don't feel like a widow anymore, that's for sure. Since the draft was handed in and he got a "real" job, I see a lot more of him (he got a job with my company, for a start), and when we're at home, he doesn't spend all his time in the study.

So, if I'm not a PhD widow anymore, I at least need to change the name of this blog. I think more likely I'll be moving into his blog. I've been told I'll be welcome.

Meanwhile, I will try to post more often. Sometime soon I'll do an update on everything I've been up to in the last three months. Life's been busy.

The draft is done!

2006-12-01T21:15:00.000+11:00

He's finished his draft! Handed it in!

Supervisor is reviewing it now, which means B2's time is pretty much unoccupied. I'll pretty much got him back now I think, which means this blog is going to change names soon. I'm so excited!

In other news, my brother-in-law is in town, visiting from Heidelberg, my really good friend has just been visiting from the U.S., and my brother is visiting from the U.K. - and getting married soon. And Christmas season is starting. Life is very exciting right now.

It's a sign

2006-11-19T21:06:00.000+11:00

There's a sign above my head. It's probably very large - people seem to notice it fairly quickly. I'm not exactly sure what it says, but it's something like: ask me, I'll help!

I've known about it for years. I've never seen it though - my guess is that there's some sort of team of goblins who hide it whenever I look in a mirror or have a photo taken. But I now it's there. Why else would random strangers walk up to me in a crowded street and ask directions? Why pick me, of all the people available?

I was reminded of the existence of the sign earlier this week when, walking down the street on my way home from work, on the phone explaining to B2 why I was late (again), a couple walked up to me and asked directions to a local restaurant. What made this particularly unusual was that one of my workmates had happened to leave work right after me, and was only 5 metres behind me. Why didn't they ask him? He wasn't on the phone. The answer, I must assume, is that he didn't have a sign above his head.

I don't mind too much. In fact, I've come to embrace my destiny, and if I see people wandering around the streets looking lost (and especially if they're frantically looking at a map), I'll even wander up to them before they've noticed the sign, and offered them a hand.

I even did it once while on a weeks holiday in Austria. Walking down the street, I saw a couple of obvious tourists looking at a map, then up and down the street in perplexity. I walked up to them and asked them if they needed help (in German) then realised how silly that was, since that was about the limit of my German. I may have been able to understand what they were asking to find, but my reply would have been limited to pointing and hand waving. Fortunately they were Americans, and could understand my English well enough to find their destination.

No, I don't mind the existence of the sign so much, I just wish I could see it. After all, what if one day the goblins get annoyed with me for some reason and decide to change it to something horrible?

Life is good

2006-10-28T21:51:00.000+10:00

This post is basically just a shameless plug for my work. I wanted to post up a link to them, and I'm having trouble publishing it. So I'm adding a post on the basis that this might help with whatever the publishing glitch is.

So, anyway.

My work is fantastic fun actually. There aren't many places, especially not in Australia, where you can work on cutting-edge technology and science, get paid to play games and watch movies (sometimes), all in a great location with magnificent views:

Heaps fun.

Oh, and an update on PhD widowhood...I think there might be less than a month to go! He's on the home stretch. Very exciting. I'll be getting my husband back! Still haven't decided what to change the name of this blog to...

It's paddling, not rowing

2006-10-21T17:17:00.000+10:00

I recently joined a dragonboat team (http://www.accadbr.com/) and it's a lot of fun...the first session nearly killed me (I ached all over the next day), but after that it got a lot easier. Which is to say, I only feel mild twinges the day after a training session, rather than aching all down my back from elbows to knees.

I even went in a (short) race the other day, and managed not to drop my paddle or even collide it with that of my teammate behind or ahead of me, which I consider a pretty good showing when I'm trying to paddle that fast. AND I've managed to absorb the fact that what I do is paddling, not rowing. Though I've still no understanding whatsoever of what the difference is.

It's brought to mind the fact that terminology to do with stuff on water is very pedantic. For example, I quite definitely paddle, not row, when I'm out on a dragonboat. And it seems there's a very distinct difference between a boat and a ship, though noone seems to be very clear on what that difference is. Does a yacht go somewhere in the middle?

It seems life these days is a perpetual struggle to try to understand the jargon.

Visitors

2006-08-19T14:59:00.000+10:00

We've had quite a few visitors in the past week, mainly friends from work, but last night we received our most interesting visitor - a cat.

It introduced itself to B2 while he was down checking the mail by rubbing itself up against his legs and purring, in true cat fashion. It then followed him through the block of units, up two flights of stairs, and - when he wasn't quick enough to shut the door - into the house.

Whereupon it wandered around sniffing everything and rubbing itself up against everyone. A very sweet and friendly cat, not to mention totally self-confident - as is the case with all cats I guess.

After a little bit of this we ushered it back out into the hallway and back down the stairs. It was clearly a well loved cat, very sleek and with a quite pretty collar that completely failed to have any identifying markings, so we don't know what the cat's name was. It did have a bell though. So we didn't feel to bad about ushering it into the hall, figuring it had a happy home to go to. Hope it comes to visit again sometime.

City2Surf

2006-08-13T22:20:00.000+10:00

I've only participated in the City To Surf twice, though I've also supported it as a St John member several times. But today I walked it, and I had a great time.

The day started out with a bit of a hiccup - I forgot my sunglasses and had left my hat at home because Sun Herald were giving out free hats, and I didn't feel in need of two. However, by the time we arrived at Hyde Park (8:30 am) they had already run out of hats (shame on you, Sun Herald! Shame on you, all those people who took more than their fair due in hats!) and, being a beautiful bright sunny day, I was already starting to get a headache from the glare.

So, a big THANK-YOU to the Krispy Kreme donut City To Surf organisers, who gave me one of their spare hats. I don't actually like Krispy Kreme donuts, but thank-you anyway. You saved me from having a miserable, headachy day.

Me looking very happy because I have my husband and a wonderful, glare-reducing hat.

We met Ray's friends Tim (who I'd met once before), Gaurav (who was very impressed that I knew how to spell his name in Hindi - I've been taking lessons) and Michiko, a Japanese diplomat.

I'm also quite happy because I beat Ray and Bhautik to the finish line (but then Ray pushed in front of me to get his time card, how rude). My official time was 193.48, but once the back-of-the-pack start time comes off that, it should be well under my target time of 3 hours. Yay!

More photos are here, thanks to B2 - he was the official photographer of the day.

Baby things

2006-08-05T22:28:00.000+10:00

No, I'm not pregnant, just in case anyone is wondering :P I seem to get asked that a lot by friends/family. Maybe we've just been married too long, and everyone is keenly looking out for any sign of a bun in the oven.

Anyway, I'm not, but my sister is, and she's had her baby shower yesterday. Cue a trip to the baby things section of the local department store.

What a range of options! I expected the dozens of variations on the theme of bib, dummy and educational toy. I expected the blankets, and the jumper suits, and even the bottles and nappy pins. But the sheer number of gadgets available to new parents is just amazing, and would satisfy almost any geek - though I suppose the worst ones would be tempted to build their own bottle warmer or steriliser and baby monitor.

Even a simple stroller is no longer so simple - there are different styles depending on where you're going with the thing, there are all the accessories to go with it - special bag attachments and rain covers, the only thing I don't remember seeing were the fluffy dice.

It's just absolutely incredible how much thought and gadgetry goes into the first year or so of a person's life.

And yet, somehow, at the baby shower, it was still all blankets and bibs and jumpersuits :)

I've moved! (again)

2006-08-05T22:13:00.000+10:00

Hello to anybody keen enough to still be checking my blog :) Two months since I last updated - a new record.

Moved out of the dog-hair infested house last weekend, and my allergies improved almost overnight, so I'm very happy. It's also good to have our own place again - even if you can barely move at the moment for all of the boxes that are still everywhere. It never seems to cease - you empty one lot of boxes, and that just makes room for several more to be opened and emptied out. And all this in the 2-3 conscious hours I manage to spend at home each day.

B2 isn't able to help much, though he does his best. Being more than 6 weeks overdue in finishing his PhD write-up, sometimes I'm more of a widow than ever. Still, I can't complain too much - as I write this, he's doing the after-dinner washing up.

Not much longer to go either. I've stopped asking how much he's done/still got to go - it just makes one or the other of us stressed. Tip for any who spend any sort of time interacting with PhD students. Never ask them how long they've got to go, it's like asking a woman how old she is or how much she weighs. I suppose once he does finish I'll need to change the name of this blog ;)

I hate dog hair

2006-06-12T23:13:00.000+10:00

This is going to be my personal rant. You've been warned.

I hate dog hair. I'm generally an easy-going person, don't hate much, but this stuff just gets to me. Literally. Sticks to me, gets in my clothes and is generally just yuck. Plus I think dust mites like it, 'cause my allergies have been worse since I've been living in a dog hair house. I will, never, never, never, EVER again live in a house that allows it's dog inside. And for good measure, my dog will be a non-shedder. Maybe even a bald breed of dog. I love Tipu, the labrador we're babysitting, but I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE his hair. Yech.

But I'm feeling much better now that I've shared it with the world. Thank-you all.

New job, new home and the geek code

2006-05-14T13:41:00.000+10:00

Hello. I really have been poor posting lately, sorry to those of you who asked me whether I'd stopped blogging.

I've just started a new job, which is great fun. It's really interesting, which unfortunately means I'm tending to work silly hours (11 - 13 hour days). I used to laugh at the people who worked hours like that, and now I'm one of them. I hope they're doing their long hours for the same reason I am.

Anytime I get stressed at work I just turn and look out the window, the view is fantastic. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention - it's actually a requirement at work for me to play games occasionally. I've played some Tetris, and I'm learning to play Quake 3 (Mostly I just die spectacularly fast).

We've spent the last two days moving house. Thanks for the help, anyone who's reading this and helped us move :). We're moving in with B2's parents (yes, for those who don't know I'm B1, he's B2; it was arbitrarily decided by a friend of ours years ago). We'll be housesitting and dogsitting for them for a few months while they're travelling round the world.

And B2 sent me an email the other day with a Geek Code block at the end, which included that he lived with another geek. Which must mean me, unless he has a second household, so I thought I'd better generate my own geek code:
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GE d-(+)@ s:--(---) !a C++(++++)$> ULC---()@ P(--) L+(++) !E-(----) W++(+++)$ !N o? K w(+)>-- O? M(+) V? PS+(++) PE-(+) Y+(-)? !PGP-(--) t(+++)@>-- 5? X++(-) R tv-- b++(+++)>++++ DI++++ !D- G++(-) e+++>++++$ h-() r+++ x?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Enjoy :)

PhD widows unite! - no I'm not dead

2006-04-14T20:06:00.000+10:00

Hey to anyone who was wondering if I'd ever post again.

Sorry it's been so long since my last post...been busy. There's so much to tell of I don't know where to begin. So I'll answer a comment that was posted a while ago, and then the plan is to post about some of the stuff I've been up to sometime during the week.

To Megan, who probably thinks I've ignored her comment...I can't believe there's not much out there about what partnering a PhD student is like.

Well, having a partner doing a PhD is hard work, you've both got to be very dedicated to your relationship, and, to be honest, there are times when you are so frustrated you could scream. That was despite a huge effort on both our parts. I've heard that some people seem to manage it just fine, but that might just be rumour - everyone I know has found it a struggle.

Sounds pretty down I know...but we're getting towards the end of it now, and I know we'll make it, hard as it is. There are support groups out there for everything else, we should start a forum for partners of PhD students. Are there any others out there willing to share their stories of survival with a partner doing a PhD?

Drinking games

2006-02-18T20:01:00.000+11:00

I don't drink alcohol much, so I've never been one for drinking games. It's just not the same with ginger beer.
I make an exception for movie drinking games, because they're often more fun when you're not drinking alcohol, as then you get to watch the whole movie (the rules then are how long you can go before needing to run to the toilet). The trick is to look for various peculiarities in the movie, and drink each time you see one (usually double drinks if you miss it, in our house rules).
I've played it often with Star Wars (the original series) - there's a very common set of rules existing on many sites (e.g. here).
Watching Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (now there's a movie that's still a mouthful initialised LOTR:FOTR - bleh) the other night, it occurred to me that it was also a movie, or series of movies, that could do with a similar game. So I looked it up, and found that, of course, many people had already had a similar idea. I particularly like this one, which is very funny, but not really practical. This one was also very funny, and a lot more practical, as was this one, but although categorised ones are good, because you can easily pick a subset of the rules and just play those when you feel like it, it does tend to mean you end up with a LOT of rules, so it's harder to play and keep track of all the rules (a major drawback in terms of our double-if-you-miss-one house rule, you end up drinking way too much too quickly). So I've made up my own set of rules, not too long, though I may add a few rules later. Thanks to those three sites mentioned for some ideas on rules.

Take a drink when:
- Bilbo's book is mentioned
- Someone drinks anything (2 if they belch afterwards)
- A Hobbit talks about food
- Someone sings a song
- Someone speaks a language other that English (dwarvish/elvish etc)
- Sam says "Mr Frodo"
- Frodo says "Oh, Sam"
- Black Riders appear (2 if they speak)
- The Great Eye appears
- Someone draws a sword, but doesn't attack anyone
- Pippin acts like an idiot (2 if it puts his friends in mortal danger)
- Frodo nearly gets killed
- A hobbit gets picked up and carried
- The one ring appears
- Someone tries to give the one ring away (2 if they succeed)
- Someone tries to snatch the one ring away
- Someone falls off a cliff/tower
- We see a close up of someone's unusually long or dirty fingernails
- Gollum hacks up a "gollum! gollum!"
- Peter Jackson makes a cameo
- Someone who was apparently dead turns up again/recovers

Well, let me know what you think, and I'll decide whether it's worth reviewing any further.