So, the entirety of British Academia is on one network and yesterday every university in the UK lost their internet connection to the outside world. Pasty-faced, glassy-eyed grad students crawled out of their basement offices, moaning 'SUUUURRRRFFF....'. They wandered mindlessly over our department but discovered no web-surfing to be found anywhere ( Read more... )

That's a contented ah, not a ranty ah.

We went on a 20 mile bike ride today to the neighboring town of Ely and it was *nice*. Lots of pretty country-side views and cows and horses and sheep and lambs and foals and swans and ducklings and generally very fenland-ly landscapes. And, of course, a giant cathedral at the end. Apparently 20 miles on a ( Read more... )

And that is very strange. Ever since I can remember (since I was about 18 months old, I think...) June has meant some sort of break, some major change in routine. But this year it doesn't. This year, June just means squeezing in another week or two of work before buckling down to write up a thesis. Nothing to make you feel all grown up and stuff ( Read more... )

We (meaning my parents and Daniel and I) got back from our Italy trip late last night. We had a great holiday - a day in Venice, a day in Florence, 5 days in Rome and a couple travelling days in between.
( clicky for long description )

Work has eaten my soul, chewed it thoroughly and spat it upon the ground in an amorphous oozing mass... maybe I'll blog about it later

However, this cheered me up somewhat:

Don't ask me why... it just does

Music meme from tdapenguin. Comment and you get a letter. List favorite ten songs starting with said letter ( Read more... )

Late to the party as usual, but...

First two lines of the first 20 non-instrumental, non-repeating-artist, non-title-in-first-line songs from my randomized everything-I-have-jumbled-together-'cause-I'm-too-lazy-to-sort-or-filter playlist.

Guess the title and (where applicable) the artist:

1) You were born in a palace by the sea ( Read more... )

There's been several discussions lately concerning high school curricula and what's wrong with current versions (thanks to Caethan for a cool link) and how to fix them. So I've been thinking about this stuff from the perspective of my own schooldays my experiences with tutoring younger kids. Here, in no particular order, are what I consider the ( Read more... )

It's been sunny nearly all weekend. The happy gambol-through-the-fields kind of sunny. So this morning we decided to take advantage of it and go on a 9-mile bike ride down by the river. And we saw lots of swans and geese and canal boats and rowers and marshes and little black dogs that Daniel says look like they ought to be monogrammed. And we saw ( Read more... )

Everybody stand back! I know augmented Lagrange!