Over the weekend, the family of a close friend left the province to move to the East Coast. We've grown distant over the past little while as we went on with our daily lives but I've known them for 16 years now. Between the two of them, they raised three amazing kids. If I could be half as good as they were with their parenting, I would be ecstatic. I wish them all the best as they pursue their dreams. But I will miss them nonetheless.
That got me thinking so I took stock of my relationships and realized just how many lives I've had the privilege to connect with over the course of the two decades or so since I arrived in North America. I try to call all of them at least once every six months or so. Our lives have intertwined at some time in the past and though we are not seeing one another daily any longer, when we chat it's like as if we haven't really been apart.
Friends are amazing. Seriously.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Pruning one's life
Well, I'm getting some responses back from folks I talked to at the conference recently. Looks like I'm going to be a pretty busy gal in a bit. There are four non-negotiable priorities: family, health, work and my studies. After that, I have my volunteer work (science outreach/education and computational support/analysis) and my D&D.
I have a nasty feeling that I'm going to run out of time mighty quick. I suspect that D&D's going to be the first to get dropped but I hope not - I really do enjoy not being myself once every two weeks. Helping out with processing astronomical data is my first step towards my new career so dropping that would pretty much mean delaying my dream of moving to an astronomy/astrophysics career. Science outreach/education is something I'm passionate about - anyone who's a parent or guardian these days will (hopefully) notice the precipitous drop in both quality and depth of science education. I don't expect to halt that but I do hope to bring the spark of knowledge to some child's life, even if it's just my kids.
Ah, choices!
p.s. Before I get IM'ed to death about it, yes, I *know* my avatar picture doesn't look much like me. I've already spent way too much time twiddling with it and I'm not doing anything more!
I have a nasty feeling that I'm going to run out of time mighty quick. I suspect that D&D's going to be the first to get dropped but I hope not - I really do enjoy not being myself once every two weeks. Helping out with processing astronomical data is my first step towards my new career so dropping that would pretty much mean delaying my dream of moving to an astronomy/astrophysics career. Science outreach/education is something I'm passionate about - anyone who's a parent or guardian these days will (hopefully) notice the precipitous drop in both quality and depth of science education. I don't expect to halt that but I do hope to bring the spark of knowledge to some child's life, even if it's just my kids.
Ah, choices!
p.s. Before I get IM'ed to death about it, yes, I *know* my avatar picture doesn't look much like me. I've already spent way too much time twiddling with it and I'm not doing anything more!
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Full
I have just had an amazing 5 days at my astro conference - 3 days of papers, 2 days of outings. The last outing was Banff National Park and the Columbia Icefields to see analogies to Martian landscapes here on Earth. I will never look at the Rocky Mountains the same way ever again. I had a chance to hold pieces of Mars and Vesta in my hands. I got to learn in detail many things I didn't have good coverage on, blind spots in my knowledge. Best of all, I got to pick the brains of live experts in those fields.
I also got to meet some very interesting people. Some were nice and friendly, others were stand-offish or rude. All very bright people with a great variance in people skills. I re-learnt an important lesson over the weekend: being smart is great but being personable is better. Why? Simple: science needs to be communicated well and if you can't do that or if you put people off with your attitude, what you know will be deeply depreciated because no one will care what you do.
I also got a pretty good map of the political situation of the various organizations. I'm a little saddened that there's so much politics going on; I'm no stranger to it but I had hoped that we could set aside our pettiness and focus on the science. *sigh*
I admit that I was feeling a little nervous going to the conference. There's a lot of very intelligent people there, most of them leaders in their field. To give you an idea of the caliber of the people there, we're talking about the Galileos or Newtons in their fields of research. So yes, it was quite intimidating and I really wasn't sure if I was going in over my head. While I can't say I understood everything, I did absorb about 90% of what I heard. I guess all that extra swotting over the past few years hadn't been a waste of time after all.
I'm totally exhausted. I'm more tired now than when I started. When I close my eyes, I see light curves. I can't wait to go out with my telescopes and see familiar things in ways I have never seen them before. So distant, yet a tiny bit closer now that I understand them a bit more. I've learnt so much it'll take at least a month to fully grok what I've learnt, including extra reading to fill in the gaps.
I have a headache.
But I'm full. Oh so gloriously full.
I also got to meet some very interesting people. Some were nice and friendly, others were stand-offish or rude. All very bright people with a great variance in people skills. I re-learnt an important lesson over the weekend: being smart is great but being personable is better. Why? Simple: science needs to be communicated well and if you can't do that or if you put people off with your attitude, what you know will be deeply depreciated because no one will care what you do.
I also got a pretty good map of the political situation of the various organizations. I'm a little saddened that there's so much politics going on; I'm no stranger to it but I had hoped that we could set aside our pettiness and focus on the science. *sigh*
I admit that I was feeling a little nervous going to the conference. There's a lot of very intelligent people there, most of them leaders in their field. To give you an idea of the caliber of the people there, we're talking about the Galileos or Newtons in their fields of research. So yes, it was quite intimidating and I really wasn't sure if I was going in over my head. While I can't say I understood everything, I did absorb about 90% of what I heard. I guess all that extra swotting over the past few years hadn't been a waste of time after all.
I'm totally exhausted. I'm more tired now than when I started. When I close my eyes, I see light curves. I can't wait to go out with my telescopes and see familiar things in ways I have never seen them before. So distant, yet a tiny bit closer now that I understand them a bit more. I've learnt so much it'll take at least a month to fully grok what I've learnt, including extra reading to fill in the gaps.
I have a headache.
But I'm full. Oh so gloriously full.
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