After about six weeks on the road, living out of a suitcase and depending on the kindness of strangers friends I moved into a house in Rotherhithe on Saturday. It’s going to be a further week or two until the housebox arrives with all my gear, and goodness knows how long until BT connect the phone line and I can get internetted at home.
‘Home’. There’s a nice word. I feel like I haven’t had one for quite a while. Sydney was never intended to be a final destination, an ‘endpoint’ of our travels—the intention had always been to continue on to New Zealand after a couple of years—but with time ticking and grants looking ever less likely I was getting frustrated and somewhat unrooted. Then the new job landed in my lap and we all came back. Home.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t regret any of it. It’s been fantastic, with highs and lows; a complete blast.
Since coming back, work-wise, it’s been just as breathtaking. I thought my role at F1000 was reasonably clear, even if how I actually did it was going to be a little fuzzy around the edges. But then, on my first day, the chairman sat me down and told me he’d dreamt up a new, different job title for me, and gave me a project that left me gasping for breath.
After two weeks (either side of Easter, so both of them a bit shorter than normal) I’ve clawed my way to the surface and am beating everything into shape. It’s going to be a lot of work, and it’s all rather new and exciting—and in a little while Martin, strangely, is going to tell you all about it.
This morning I left home and got to work nice and early, to find that I couldn’t log on to my PC because the ‘security log’ was full, and had to wait for one of the IT people to get in to fix it. Then, after I was in, I turned to a colleague behind me to talk about the weekend (and chickens and hiring cows—long story); and Windows crashed.
Bah. Thank goodness I’d brought in my new $SHINY and could write this.
Ah. That explains everything.
Everything?
At least it explains why there’s an “Evil Minion” t-shirt in the post for Martin.
Four words:
There goes the neighborhood.
Bah. You’re just jealous that my garden’s messier than yours.
Hm, T-shirts, that’s an idea. I could never wear the T-shirt from Science Blogging London 2008, S is clearly not the right size for me.
I’m just asking Richard a few questions about Faculty of 1000, that’s all.
That’s what you think, Martin. In reality you will be assimilated.
I’m going to have to go and look on
a mapGoogle Earth to find out where “Rotherhithe” is.Glad you’ve “clawed your way to the surface”. I hate that new-job feeling – not knowing who anyone is, what you’re doing, even trivial things like where the best place for a coffee is or where the pencils are kept. And having recently emerged from under one of those breathtakingly huge projects, I can sympathize I think.
I’d thought your long-term plans were to stay Down South™ – the F1000 gig and move back to England were a surprise. Glad it’s working out well.
Looking forward to Martin’s post…
It’s quite fun not knowing where anything is. A bit like doing science.
Down South was the long-term plan. We’re settling for South of the River instead.
I thought, from the title, that this was going to be about a car. You’re lucky I even clicked on it. Otherwise you would have missed this non-comment.
I’ve written about cars before. But thank you for your informative and insightful comment.
Did someboday say “cars”?
*looks around eagerly
Rotherhithe is near Canada. Well, near Canada Water. It has a famous tunnel (Isambard Kingdom Brunel, dontyaknow).
I had a ride in a funny smug car last week. It was an … experience .
…the new job landed in my lab
really? missing the lab already are we?? ;)
It sounds good that you have found a place to stay that is yours (doesn’t matter if it is rental or owned, it’s not someone else’s stuff in there, right?). After living out of a suitcase for more than 7 weeks last year I can only remember how wonderful it was to not do anymore. Best of luck with the garden…. :)
Oh, bum. Thanks for spotting that.
That’s what you get for writing a blog post on an iPhone because the PC is broken.
Richard> I was curous if it was an intended pun there…. but I guess it wasn’t. seemed very Freudian if nothing else ;)
No, I wish I was that clever. :)
Thanks, Frank. According to that Wikipedia article (so standard disclaimers apply):
The name “Rotherhithe” derives from Anglo-Saxon hryðer-hȳð = “Landing-place for cattle” or from redhra-hyð = “Sailor haven”.
One or other of these seems applicable, somehow. ;)
Well hello, bovine.
I just broke a link in F1000 or something. But that’s ok, since it insisted on taking me from a link on planktonic foraminifera to a trial subscription for F1000 Medicine.
Just thought I’d let you know, Richard, since you’re clearly responsible for everything there now.
Whoa. Richard W. is making non-Latin characters appear on NN. I didn’t know that was POSSIBLE!
[Tries to type Greek]
Pi! Mu! Zeta!
I don’t know how =(
Ringel-ess?
Steffi, could you email me what happened please? I’d try to do Greek characters Eva, but on the iPhone I’m really not sure how (and even less sure how to on the of at work!). I suspect RW simply cut and pasted.
Ooh, you are responsible for everything! Or is this a case of setting out to change the world – I do this too when I start a new job ;)
well, the website is my responsibility now, even if that just means making sure bugs get reported to the right people!
and even less sure how to on the of at work!That was genius. Seriously. I have no idea what you’re going on about, but I enjoyed it immensely ;)
I’m glad you’re getting settled in. Long distance moves are so disorienting.
iPhone autocorrects ‘pc’ to ‘of’. Rather spiffy, really.
Ohhhh. How mundane. I thought it was a transitional form in the evolution of your comment.
The autocorrect on my iPhone drives me crazy sometimes, e.g. when trying to input a name or a password.
Could be, Cath. Etymological drift?
I might turn autoshift off: it makes things rather confusing, especially when I hit return by mistake while IM-ing.
Don’t even ask what texting in two different languages means for autocorrects.
hahah
Yes. Um, that could be real confusing.
As you suspected, I cut and pasted that piece of text. I’m astonished it worked, especially since those aren’t your garden-variety “symbol font” Greek characters.
However, all of these Old English characters are supposed to be accessibly using the old Windows ALT-character code trick, viz:
lower case thorn: ALT-0563 Þ
and so forth. There’s Mac OSX info on that page as well, plus html and all kinds of other goodies.
P.S. Ooh, you are responsible for everything!
If so, I have a whole lot of things to blame on Richard (G.). Verrrry convenient.
Richard W., I tried once to grow garden-variety Greek fonts, but the slugs got them.
There’s a joke in there about geeks and salt but I’m buggered if I can work it out.