Day 72: Time's Fun When You're Having Flies

Seven weeks ago today, I told the folks at the University of Oxford that I had decided to accept their job offer. Seven weeks from today, if all goes according to plan, cheshcat and I will arrive in Oxford. Halfway point. How did it get here so fast?

Still lots to do between now and then. So far, I have gotten all six cats prepared according to the DEFRA regulations so that their six month "quarantine at home" period has begun. I have researched the visa system and decided how best to proceed. I have filled out my portion of the work permit application; the University has to do the rest, as well as the actual filing. We have determined that we probably will not have a car in Oxford. I have made contact with the accommodations office, to begin looking for flats. And I have finished the first draft of the technical paper on the Central Laser Facility that I am writing, which is the last major task remaining for me at my current job (the whole paper process, that is, not just the first draft).

What's left? Plenty! In the next seven weeks, for the move, I need to apply for a Work Permit Visa for myself and a Work Permit Dependent Visa for cheshcat once my work permit has been approved. I need to purchase plane tickets once the visas have been granted. I need to figure out what we are doing with Pazu, Lucretia I, and Lucretia II (our Honda Civic, Dodge Stratus, and Infiniti G20). I need to set up appointments to look at flats, clean out large chunks of our storage space, pack, move my music over to a portable format, revise the technical paper until it is approved for publication, start learning about dark matter and dark matter experiments (which is what I will be researching in my next position), boost my skills with the ROOT analysis package and C++, etc., etc., etc...

And all this is only what needs to be done regarding the move and the change of jobs. Plenty of other tasks going on, too. Today, for instance, has been particularly hectic. I set four sizable tasks for myself. Two have been accomplished (finishing the CLF paper draft and having a comprehensive Event Horizon house meeting), one was postponed until later in the week (working on the storage space with cheshcat). One large task -- as well as a plethora of small ones -- remain and it is already almost midnight. Also, I am leaving for Boulder, Colorado in the morning so I either need to sleep soon or reconcile with being very tired tomorrow. Knowing me, it is sure to be the latter.

Finally, for those who have been paying attention, you may have noticed that I have been very absent from LJ lately; my last post was over three weeks ago and I have not been commenting or reading much, either. If you have read the preceding paragraphs, you have some idea why. In addition to all of the move related tasks, there have also been plenty of other activities and events happening. Somewhere, in all the chaos, I lost my LJ momentum. I do have this "100 Days of LJ" experiment currently going on, where I was supposed to write 100 posts in 100 days. Clearly that did not happen. However, I still do plan on making all 100 posts before 200 days have passed, which will happen -- coincidentally -- on my birthday: March 13. Twenty eight more posts to go after this one so, in order to make it, I have to be back in the fold. Tomorrow I will post a quick catch-up of the most significant recent events and, after that, I hope to fall back into the pattern of updating on a daily basis...

Day 72: Time's Fun When You're Having Flies

Seven weeks ago today, I told the folks at the University of Oxford that I had decided to accept their job offer. Seven weeks from today, if all goes according to plan, cheshcat and I will arrive in Oxford. Halfway point. How did it get here so fast?

Still lots to do between now and then. So far, I have gotten all six cats prepared according to the DEFRA regulations so that their six month "quarantine at home" period has begun. I have researched the visa system and decided how best to proceed. I have filled out my portion of the work permit application; the University has to do the rest, as well as the actual filing. We have determined that we probably will not have a car in Oxford. I have made contact with the accommodations office, to begin looking for flats. And I have finished the first draft of the technical paper on the Central Laser Facility that I am writing, which is the last major task remaining for me at my current job (the whole paper process, that is, not just the first draft).

What's left? Plenty! In the next seven weeks, for the move, I need to apply for a Work Permit Visa for myself and a Work Permit Dependent Visa for cheshcat once my work permit has been approved. I need to purchase plane tickets once the visas have been granted. I need to figure out what we are doing with Pazu, Lucretia I, and Lucretia II (our Honda Civic, Dodge Stratus, and Infiniti G20). I need to set up appointments to look at flats, clean out large chunks of our storage space, pack, move my music over to a portable format, revise the technical paper until it is approved for publication, start learning about dark matter and dark matter experiments (which is what I will be researching in my next position), boost my skills with the ROOT analysis package and C++, etc., etc., etc...

And all this is only what needs to be done regarding the move and the change of jobs. Plenty of other tasks going on, too. Today, for instance, has been particularly hectic. I set four sizable tasks for myself. Two have been accomplished (finishing the CLF paper draft and having a comprehensive Event Horizon house meeting), one was postponed until later in the week (working on the storage space with cheshcat). One large task -- as well as a plethora of small ones -- remain and it is already almost midnight. Also, I am leaving for Boulder, Colorado in the morning so I either need to sleep soon or reconcile with being very tired tomorrow. Knowing me, it is sure to be the latter.

Finally, for those who have been paying attention, you may have noticed that I have been very absent from LJ lately; my last post was over three weeks ago and I have not been commenting or reading much, either. If you have read the preceding paragraphs, you have some idea why. In addition to all of the move related tasks, there have also been plenty of other activities and events happening. Somewhere, in all the chaos, I lost my LJ momentum. I do have this "100 Days of LJ" experiment currently going on, where I was supposed to write 100 posts in 100 days. Clearly that did not happen. However, I still do plan on making all 100 posts before 200 days have passed, which will happen -- coincidentally -- on my birthday: March 13. Twenty eight more posts to go after this one so, in order to make it, I have to be back in the fold. Tomorrow I will post a quick catch-up of the most significant recent events and, after that, I hope to fall back into the pattern of updating on a daily basis...