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Oddish day
19 December 2006 20:04Well, today's been rather odd.
I had a meeting at Kew. Scheduled it moderately late so I could have a lie-in (yes, pre-Christmas apathy has overtaken me) and didn't have to take a train with all the commuters on, so was able to relax a bit in the morning. Tubes were a bit delayed, owing to a signal failure, etc. etc. Kew area absolutely bleedin' freezing. Had meeting. Wasn't totally sure what meeting was meant to be about, but supervisor at Kew seemed keen on me having it, so I did. Came back with lots of data and useful Excel files, so it was worthwhile.
Had a long lunch break at Kew and wandered in the gardens a bit. I think I've now seen about a third of the gardens!
Got back to the lab in the afternoon just after another PhD student in the lab went in for his Viva. So I chatted to my supervisor here for a bit - I let slip an issue with database that I viewed as trivial but he saw as rather less trivial and wanted me to fix. Having had it up to here with the database, and not having the first clue how to fix it, I swore a lot over e-mail at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ford_of_bruinen (thank you, dear, for putting up with my mini-rant - I was feeling quite sorry for myself!).
Then I proceeded to fix the problem. Anyone else hate Nulls? I really really hate Nulls.
The Viva, scarily, took about 2 hours - we've had longer lab meetings! I hadn't even burned the database to a CD for my supervisor by that time! The outcome of the Viva was, as everyone expected, positive - well done colleague. He's staying here for a postdoc, and has been contracted for a few weeks already; because of departmental admin, he'd already been issued a badge with "Dr --" on, so had stuck a bit of white paper over the "Dr" (walking into PhD Viva wearing badge claiming you to be a doctor already might perhaps come across as mildly over-confident!) And so at half past four we all went to the pub.
Therefore, I've done about 2 hours' "real" work today.
But it was productive work, and I'm REALLY ready for a break, so I don't feel guilty.
Dinner today is the rest of last night's home-made curry. Yum!
I had a meeting at Kew. Scheduled it moderately late so I could have a lie-in (yes, pre-Christmas apathy has overtaken me) and didn't have to take a train with all the commuters on, so was able to relax a bit in the morning. Tubes were a bit delayed, owing to a signal failure, etc. etc. Kew area absolutely bleedin' freezing. Had meeting. Wasn't totally sure what meeting was meant to be about, but supervisor at Kew seemed keen on me having it, so I did. Came back with lots of data and useful Excel files, so it was worthwhile.
Had a long lunch break at Kew and wandered in the gardens a bit. I think I've now seen about a third of the gardens!
Got back to the lab in the afternoon just after another PhD student in the lab went in for his Viva. So I chatted to my supervisor here for a bit - I let slip an issue with database that I viewed as trivial but he saw as rather less trivial and wanted me to fix. Having had it up to here with the database, and not having the first clue how to fix it, I swore a lot over e-mail at
ford_of_bruinen (thank you, dear, for putting up with my mini-rant - I was feeling quite sorry for myself!). Then I proceeded to fix the problem. Anyone else hate Nulls? I really really hate Nulls.
The Viva, scarily, took about 2 hours - we've had longer lab meetings! I hadn't even burned the database to a CD for my supervisor by that time! The outcome of the Viva was, as everyone expected, positive - well done colleague. He's staying here for a postdoc, and has been contracted for a few weeks already; because of departmental admin, he'd already been issued a badge with "Dr --" on, so had stuck a bit of white paper over the "Dr" (walking into PhD Viva wearing badge claiming you to be a doctor already might perhaps come across as mildly over-confident!) And so at half past four we all went to the pub.
Therefore, I've done about 2 hours' "real" work today.
But it was productive work, and I'm REALLY ready for a break, so I don't feel guilty.
Dinner today is the rest of last night's home-made curry. Yum!
