The last week: my geology fieldtrip to Westport and surrounding rocks. An entire course and assessment fitted into 7 days, with travel either end ( Read more... )

To my surprise, I now have an Honours project. In fact, I have both an Honours project and a special project course, so a big 3/8 part of next year is now spoken for ( Read more... )

(1) the time when I went to bed last night and the night before ( Read more... )

Cool. The sensitivity required to measure such things is astonishing.
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article2005.html

I have two things of the moment to be happy about ( Read more... )

Two of the most frenetic hours of this year are now past - the MATH 361 partial differential exam from Hell is over. Our noble lecturer would call it "challenging"; I believe the rest of the class would agree in calling it "impossible" (and less complimentary phrases that shall not be repeated ( Read more... )

I think every year I forget just how tiring the exam weeks get. Having a cold all study week definitely didn't help clear-headed thinking. But it's begun now... almost feels familiar from previous years, heading off to exams, once more unto the breach ( Read more... )

http://www.edpsciences.org/journal/index.cfm?edpsname=aa&niv1=others&niv2=press_release&niv3=PRaa200611

I should point out to mpj17 that this makes ~58 planets in one and a half years, which is slightly more impressive ( Read more... )

And you might have thought they just had giant tube worms and crabs. Wonder what different kinds of life are around this particular vent ( Read more... )

An entertaining weekend; Friday spent almost entirely on a frustrating corner of a partial differential equations assignment, with a much more enjoyable evening viewing X-3 and chatting until late in the company of mpj17 and theunsSaturday passed in a slightly happier tussle with the maths assignment; it is now consigned to its postbox on the 4th floor of ( Read more... )