chesneycat

The referee for PKS2250-41: a case study for triggering only wanted minor corrections.  They're done, it's gone back to MNRAS, and I'm now a Happy Kath because this was the one thing I was determined to get done before flying out to Germany.

Hopefully it'll be on astro-ph within the next couple of weeks...

Now I just have an hour to finish packing up my office!  Shit, I've not backed up this week's work onto DVD... sod it, it's on the main backup, I can tarball it up and ftp from Heidelberg.

The trouble with going away on holiday is the accumulation of e-mails while your back is turned. The best was the referee's report for the recent paper - couldn't ask for better, to be honest. One sentence added here, a few "x marks the spot" scattered across figures 4-6, and a brief expansion to one paragraph in the introduction (and possibly a quick mention of the same stuff in the discussion), and it'll be ready for re-submission. And hey, sentences like "The paper is certainly to the standard expected for the Monthly Notices..." do give me a rather warm and gooey feeling inside. I may not be highly employable based on the disaster of the last two years, but at least I can write a damn good paper.

Anyway, thanks to kernowgirl for her e-mail - it was much appreciated, and I'll send a proper reply as soon as I can. Thanks.

As for the holiday... more posts later.

Today's rant of the day is Other People's Code.

Thursday and Friday last week, I wasted loads of time trying to track down subtle variations in the output from one massive pile of code.  Today, I've been wading through a different pile.  I know how it all works now, and it seems to be doing about what I'd expect most of the time... except that it seems to be doing something rather inexplicable to one parameter.  E-mail has been sent to the author, and I'm waiting for answers. 

In the meanwhile, today may turn out to be a useful day, or a complete waste of time.
Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

What a crappy week.  My antibiotics are making me confused, depressed, and all my food taste like oily metal. Work is frustrating - it was going badly enough this week anyway, but my one-true-programming language seems to have just disembowelled itself with a rusty shovel.  Cue plenty of wailing and screeching and fruitless hacking on my part.  Our local tech guru will be able to fix it, once he's not on night shifts on the far side of the world any more.

And it's pissing down with rain.

Good thing our first year examiners' meeting isn't until this time next week... I feel the need to hurt something right now.

*sigh*

*drinks MORE tea*

Don't think I can't feel you swelling up on me, you sneaky tonsils you!  And why does this always happen on a week where I have to talk to the public?

Anyway, the week from the sunny outskirts of hell is steadily getting a bit better than I thought it would be.  I've borrowed half a talk off a colleague, and I only need to speak for half an hour, not the full hour.  Plus, chatting to 7-10 year olds about space is always pretty good fun.  I've found out that the ride I'm helping to open at Flambards is one of three new developments, which is great news as far as I'm concerned - my z-list celebrity status will be kept further from the spotlight, which isn't a bad thing!  The poetry competetion I helped judge last week has now finalised the winners - two of my top four  with 10/10 have come first and second.  The third place poem was one I gave 8/10, so was probably easily in my top ten.  If it's the one I think it is, I only marked it down for spelling and scientific inaccuracies... so I think it's probably a good runner-up anyway - as far as poems are concerned, they needn't be perfect on the latter score!

It'll be nice going back home to Cornwall, seeing Mum & Dad and the grandparents, meeting Peugeot/Purr-Jo the new cat for the first time, and generally de-stressing from work.  And after that - it's holiday time!

One minor problem - the garage is getting my car back on Thursday, and I may be in the wrong end of the country...

Oh, and the telescope proposal I need to finish by thursday lunch, but haven't even started yet....

*yawn*

So tired.  Still, it's all in a good cause.