Be careful what you wish for… (Part 2)

I bet you thought this wasn’t coming!  Oh yee of little faith!  I have been characteristically busy since I last wrote, mainly due to Vulcan experiment  which will feature in a later post!), but now I shall update events from almost 2 months ago.

I left you with me heading to Rochester, NY, after exploring Chicago.  Now I have been to Rochester before for an experiment at the Omega laser facility, and I was returning for the next leg of this experiment.  Things progressed similarly to before, with target characterisation, preparation, and the long shot day.  Unfortunately this time I was rather cack-handed and managed to knock a very delicate target off its alignment.  When these targets can take a day or so to make, you feel rather bad for pushing one off in half a second!  Thankfully it wasn’t damaged and was returned to its proper place quickly – and we ended up not using these targets at all!  The shot day itself had a few problems, not least with me almost not waking up in time, but I left feeling optimistic for the next run.

Before (left) and after (right) shooting our targets with the massive laser!

One of my main complaints of Rochester last time was the lack of things to do.  Thankfully this time I not only had my American colleague but also someone at the University that another friend had put me in contact with.  I therefore had visits to the supermarket – to buy pop tarts which unfortunately disintergrated on the trip home – and I saw some of the night life that Rochester has to offer.  Along the way I think I taught a few people some British-isms, and I even saw a Praying Mantis!

Casually sitting on the boot of the car!

I left Rochester after not having slept very much and, as such, was not immediately impressed when my co-passenger caught wind of my British accent and wanted to talk.  However; he turned out to be a rather interesting guy and now, whenever I return to Rochester, I have an open invite to go shooting for deer if I so choose!  The flight back to the UK was a lot better than the flight out, though the film selection was poor, and I was very glad when I eventually got back.

When I got back I had to catch up on work that had been set aside before I went and, of course, complete the next part of my transfer of status: preparing my presentation to other members of the department.  However; first I did manage to have a fun time in Birmingham for a friend’s birthday.  Birmingham is not so bad as everyone says, and I had a whale of a time from both the foam party and the cafe for breakfast the next day.

The number of empty shot glasses here probably explains a lot of the evening…

After Birmingham the deadline for my presentation was rapidly approaching.  However, slightly annoyingly, I had been told to go to a meeting in Paris and give a presentation as part of a return leg of a collaboration.  “What’s so wrong with a trip to Paris?!” I hear you cry!  Well, I feared that 1) it would be so short I wouldn’t be able to actually visit Paris, 2) the meeting would be irrelevent to me and 3) it was a distraction from my transfer presentation.  Unfortunately, all three of these were true; though we did have a nice meal in the centre of Paris one evening.  Sadly I could not add much to the meeting, and my topic area was unrelated to the majority of other people there, though I did get to practice my French.

The conference was set in the Paris Observatory, which we had a rather cool tour around.

The return to England, and the weekend, just led to more work on the presentation.  At this point, going on previous year student experiences, we were also expecting our transfer vivas to be soon after, so I wasn’t just writing and practising speaking, but also trying to work out which plasma physics derivations were useful to memorise!  I was more worried about the viva being sprung upon straight after the talk that I concentrated more on that, but did manage to have a practice of the talk in the lecture theatre beforehand.  The presentation was completely fine, and also to the largest number of people I had ever presented too, so I was pretty happy!  It also calmed my nerves for the viva as the tone of the questions were somewhat different to what I was expecting, yet I was able to answer them.

My presentation practice was a sell out…

After the presentation we were finally given dates for our vivas, and I had two weeks before mine was due.  It was also at the start of our Vulcan experiment, but that, I feel, is a story for another post!

 

Just Chugging Along

So, I thought to myself, “It’s been rather a long time since I last wrote a blog post, I should probably update it soon”, and then, as I start writing, immediately realise the reason for this.  My current life has been quite, well, monotonous.  That is not to say it hasn’t been busy (which is it has), stressful (on more than one occasion) or fun (in a non-work sense, which I don’t tend to write about), but it has been lacking somewhat in variety.

We finished the Summer School, complete with the coveted “Certificate of Attendance!” which will shortly be replacing my degree certificate in its frame, which was pretty useful: I met a good group of people and learnt some Physics along the way.  The final dinner at Teddy Hall was also very fun – I had the pleasure of being next to Mags all evening! – but it, regrettably, led to night school at the Purple Turtle; giving many of the visitors a true insight into Oxford student life!

Since then my work has consisted of three things: Report, Essay, Orion.  In order to enter 2nd Year, and actually gain the status of ‘DPhil Candidate’, a nice step up from my current rank of ‘Probationary Research Student’, we have to fulfill certain transfer requirements.  These include a 4,000 word report on the year’s work and future plans, a 4,000 word essay on an area of science unrelated to our research, a presentation on the work and a viva on the report/essay/grad class.

The humanities/arts amongst you will no doubt be shouting “4,000 words?!  Pish!”.  True but, as was pointed out by a fellow Hugh’s DPhil, when you sit down and try to start you soon realise you’ve forgotten how to write!  In science, up until this point, it has been few and far between when I have had to write an extended piece of prose on a topic that does not follow the intro, method, analysis, discussion, conclusion frame.  The ability to link the parts of the report together into a coherent story about the work is something that has been necessary to learn quickly.

The report however was fine, I have a draft that is actually over the word limit, as once you get started it is easy to write about something you know (at least in part!)  But then guess who rears his ugly head.  Oh the essay.  On an area of science I know nothing about.  Brilliant.  What’s that?  It took two weeks to draft a report, but I only have one to do so for the essay?  Splendid…

I did, in fact, enjoy reading about certain parts of my essay subject, especially the area of proton therapy using laser accelerated ion beams which would significantly reduce the cost, complexity and cumbersome nature of the current systems.  It was this kind of application of many scientific disciplines with a clear, useful, goal in mind that drew me to science, and I must admit I will probably try to follow this area of Physics as it goes on!

The final area I’ve been focussing on is trying to get the organisation of the Orion experiment completed.  While this would normally be fine, this, alongside the essay and report – and very unhelpful review meetings where I am basically told the laser is not functioning properly, nor are standard attachments to the target chamber ready – has meant it has not been so straightforward.

So, while my weekdays (and sometimes week evenings) have been filled with reading, writing, rewriting, word counts, daily word targets and whatshouldwecallgradschool.tumblr.com, my weekends have at least had some variation.  I went to visit my Mum at the caravan for her birthday and had a nice weekend with board games, ice cream, boating and failing to catch any fish.  I also recently visited Birmingham for Becky’s birthday which was fun, risqué in parts (Pac-Man anyone?!) and a great catch up with friends I have not seen in a while.  I discovered a whole new area of Oxford exists if you head beyond the furthest reaches of the jungle of Cowley Road, enjoying the large Vue cinema there, though not quite so much the film (Percy Jackson 2).  I also attended a ‘Frat party’, in a very loose sense, and finally experienced Park End / Lava Ignite.

Looking forward; I hope to finish these blasted drafts and hand them in!  This Saturday I’m heading to Chicago to learn FLASH code, and have engineered two weekends so I can explore again my favourite US city.  (Also, due to room availability issues, I have been given a suite for the first few days; ’tis a hard life!)  Then I shall head to Rochester for an experiment, and a King sized bed.  Things could be looking up :).