Let’s Get Astrophysical

Here’s what I am doing at midnight on a Friday night.

You know, a lot of the time I feel a bit like a banker’s widow: sometimes he’s at work at all hours, or travelling doing important man stuff. At those times, I always feel a bit like I am holding down the fort. And that’s fine, it’s always nice when he gets back.

But right now, he’s an astrophysics widower. When he gets home from work, instead of having dinner waiting, I am wrestling equations and cursing the computer. When he goes to sleep, I am still wrestling and cursing. He got angry at me the other night because I dared to audibly grumble about something computational whilst he was trying to sleep. Yeah, well. He wakes me up every weekday morning at 4.30 and 6am, but apparently bring enraged at Python’s odeint late at night is verboten. Hrmph.

I never know what to say about my astrophysics stuff here. It’s sort of like my insane day job, except I am largely nocturnal: I procrastinate all day and work all night. My project has to do with cosmology and is a bit ineffable right now, but it is starting to coalesce and form some large-scale structure. (<—look! a cosmology joke! hardeehar)

Needless to say, if I seem a bit quiet, it’s because I’m cursing under my breath elsewhere. My MSc project is in full flow and my dissertation is due in just over a month. Cripes.