So they make a movie about your job

This morning while reading the paper i found out that Michael Shanks is making a movie in my home state (ok, island then!) called arctic blast (www.michaelshanks-online.com/news/index.shtml) and this got me thinking about movies that contain “science”. To further clarify that statement i mean movies where the lead character(s) are science based and/or the problems they face are classed as being about science.

This got me thinking about several things:
· how i feel about movies based in my field (in a general sense)
· how other people must feel when there is a movie based on what they do for a living

To be totally frank i think is highly unlikely there will be a movie based upon what i do for a living as it is hideously complex and quite dull (and i ENJOY doing it!). Also it would be filled with not many “characters” and lots of sitting at computer monitors....so not probable.

But there are all those movies about policeman, soldiers, doctors etc. How do these people feel about it? Not so many about cleaners and telephone call centre operators though. Untapped fields of gold there i think. Maybe.

Looking around the net at various top worst or top ten best science based films i must admit to being confused. i liked watching a LOT of the worst films. I really wasn’t that interested in whether they got things right or wrong. Mind you i laughed myself silly in Jurassic park when there was a slider moving (like from a quicktime movie) as a “live” video was supposedly playing on a monitor.

So what i am trying to say is that even though i would be highly unsettled to be watching a movie about my work and would probably cringe at certain things - if it were entertaining and not misleading WHO CARES???

Specially if it had a cute guy in it. Just call me shallow and be done with it.

o.k. so what i hope is that this movie, about a weather man, is in no way a bad refection upon people who work in meteorological related fields. They have been some of the most interesting, clever, nicest, sharing people i ever worked with.

ALSO i found out that not as many people watch Stargate-SG1 as i thought.

http://www.aad.gov.au/ The site of cool information

looking toward the sky

Before I go on with what I really had to say I have this little whine i want to get off my chest. It is all about how something can just seem so mad you laugh rather than get angry:

So. Today was "national support staff day". I am support staff. You get a special morning tea. It is a lovely idea. Specially as i NEVER EVER get morning tea as i have to work through it. I usually just have a cup of tea while still working (10 mins.). I get a phone call asking me to leave my supporting role (which was doubly hard today for various reasons) and go help make the morning tea. The morning tea for everyone else. Then i had to go back and do the work i didn't do while away making morning tea (while others ate the morning tea). Meaning i didn't even get my own cup of tea in the end.

I think it might be karma telling me to finish my PhD and not be the least important person. Well, that is what my mother would say. She doesn't believe in moaning. You always have the solution right at your finger tips. Reads a lot of psychology books does my Ma.

Now don't think for a moment that i am upset or anything. Just i couldn't believe it happened on top of everything else about this week that has been crazy and crap (like why did this blokes kick over all out bins last night, wreck the neighbours letter box and swear loudly...right when i REALLY needed to be sleeping soundly?)

NOW on to what i really want to say:

What i really wanted to talk about today was something i noticed the other day.

When a plane flies over head i always look up. I don't know why exactly. I look at the plane, notice marking and direction, height etc. I mean i look at it. I think it is a marvelous thing. While outside with a group of kinders the other day i said "look at that plane". None of them did. They could care less! The same thing happened with a rainbow yesterday. They really had no interest in anything that was happening in the sky.

I asked my nearest and dearest little ones about it. They told me that planes were boring. That rainbows are only the sun passing through the rain drops. And then they looked at me like i was taking up too much of their valuable playing time.

For some reason this made me sad. I still find wonder in both these "things up in the sky". I think i always will.

but then i just bought myself a smurfs t-shirt (which i wore to work) so maybe i am not really the person to be passing judgement upon others.....

not only do i look stupid in it but i now OWN a smurfs t-shirt. idiot.

just running my mouth off....

Have I have I not been writing this week? Firstly I would like to say in my defence that sometimes you need “thinking time”. I would like to further add that this can in fact be years.
At some point I may have to actually stop saying that I am writing. But i am not there, yet.

To digress:

I had a lovely conversation with my dad about music this morning. We were driving into the city, I have no idea what the radio was playing, but it was loud. He was saying what a lovely thing it was that he could listen to the same music as his children and not care. Of course this is excepting discussions in which (a) I think country music pre-1990’s is CRAP and (b) he hates ALL dance music. He was telling me that when he was young his parents thought the music he listened to was “the devil” and horrible and hurt their ears. It was a lovely conversation. I think he is right. I don’t pretend to understand it all. I just like it that my dad respects my right to like different things than him. To do different things. To have a different type of life.

To get back on point:

OK. I did a little writing this week. Nothing earth shattering. I am going to start a new list (I like lists) and actually start crossing stuff off it...rather than keep adding to it.
... last night I started writing a fictional story while I was trying to go to sleep. I find that if I just write it down then my mind shuts the F*ck up and I can go to sleep. It was a bit weird. Don’t normally write fiction. Not to worry. As I can’t spell, have poor grammar skills and even worse have no natural ability for writing I will return to normal, i should imagine, very soon. As long as the OCD doesn’t kick in. And when I say I normal....I am talking about normal with a huge amount of natural variability.
Here is a picture of pancake fields...i think it is pretty. I you think that the pictures are dull you should see the HOURS of video tape of sea ice which i took. No one has ever lasted more than ten minutes....

my room with no view

Decided to answer two questions today. These answers come with photos so aren't y'all lucky

1. was your room (sorry, cabin) really that small?
2. what is shuga?

well my room on the ship (Aurora Australis) was very small. But usually your working or asleep so that is just fine. You can have a bunk each and sleep top or bottom or do what you like. Or you can have one side as a bunk and the other as a "lounge"/work area. This photo shows the latter. I always like the port side. This is cabin D12 - my fav.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis_(icebreaker)

before the desk (you can see the chair in the fore ground) is the shower/toilet cubicle and apposite that is where all the cold weather gear hangs. It is compact but perfect. A funny and true story involves two friends of mine playing chess on that little table under the port hole. We were at sea. A freak wave then came thru the port hole and drenched them, the chess set, their beds...well you get the picture. It was awesome (because it didn't happen to me)

This is a photo of a shuga "field". Shuga is an early stage of more visible forms of sea ice. It is an accumulation of spongy white lumps, a few centimetres across, just beneath the sea surface. They are formed from grease/slush ice if the freezing takes place in sea water which is considerably agitated. Pancake ice usually forms when the water conditions are calmer

I always thought i was more a shuga girl.

For further sea ice terms: http://tinyurl.com/qfco4z (WMO nomenclature - canada)

FIRE and ICE

For those who asked. Each voyage has a "name". V1-98 was called Fire & Ice standing for:

F*** Its a Real Emergency! & I Can't Email

If you don't believe me then check out the AAD (Australian Antarctic Division) web site!!

http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/voyages/display_voyage.cfm?voyage_id=93


I also have the t-shirt....

Personally i didn't much care that we were in a media blackout. But i swear to god my first thought at 2:30 in the morning when the alarm went off was "now who the F*** has a fire drill at at this time of night". Isn't human nature just amazing?

The voyage study area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertz_Glacier

Another friday gone.

I can not believe it is Friday. Again. I mean, when i am doing stuff it seems to take ages. Then WHAM. It is Friday again. I think i have time behaving in a decidedly non-normal capacity around me. I swear that's what is going on.

I was think before i went to bed last night that i might spend Friday writing something different. A short story, a screen play or re-edit that romance novel i have been working on. Did i just say that out loud? Damn. Anyway, i was thinking that because i complain and gripe about how hard i find it writing this thesis thing. To be fare it is not hard at all. The writing is easy. It is just me. I had trouble trying to make it perfect.

The biggest hurdle i have always had (apart from not being able to spell) is that i always hand in a 1000 word essays when 500 will do. It is not that i over write stuff, rather that i want to answer the question properly. I just keep going and going. Never being satisfied. Same with this thesis. I get all caught up in drama all of my own making. That is why i like working on other peoples projects and writing papers. If there are other people i am able to "move on".

I know. I am as surprised as any one to discover that i am a "team player". Never really saw it myself. Now i just need a team!





Here is a picture what was took. Sorry, poor grammar. Lovely photo of radiometers attached to rail (in plastic piping - heated) on the port side. This was my office people.

also found neat link about the '98 fire: http://tinyurl.com/mjbwhu ( scroll down to The Chilling Fields (pdf))

a slight change of plan

Last night in bed i had an idea. It has stayed with me all day. Instead of phase one of my thesis being all the polynyas around the entire coastline i am going to do the Mertz (MGT - Mertz Glacier Region) study area with the 1992-1999 hi-res data and then a look at 2009. I think this is exciting because

1. i can show a difference between a 1992-1999 analysis with the 2009 season


2. i have all the data at the moment


3. i can then make phase to ALL the other polynyas

What this really means i can stop freaking out about the amount of data and work (that goes with that data). I can finally have some result driven chapters FINISHED. I can then freak out about all the rest later. while still having results.

actual. results. written. up.

I got the idea from the shrinking sea ice areas of the northern hemisphere article i was reading the other night (i really would like to know for myself if any such changes are showing up yet in winter based southern hemisphere data. I mean they should) and looking over the following excellent article:

Massom, Robrt A., Recent iceberg calving events in the Ninnis Glacier region,East Antarctica,
Antarctic Science 15 (2): 303–313 (2003)

Dr Massom is the most awesome guy. I am inspired all over again to use my data analysis algorithms on a "real world" problem. To get off my arse and do something.

I am not trying to change to world or anything just finally be where and who i am suppose to to be.

I found this ships track last night. It hows each "days" plot of ship position during v199. It is so bizarre to think that ten years ago i was half way through this voyage. It was amazing. Also, do you have ANY IDEA AT ALL how difficult it was to get straight lines in sea ice??

*LOL*

Time wasting activities.

I have no ideas for this weeks blog. So i will just ramble on and on.

I have been writing (a little), working (heaps), eating better. In fact i have felt the best i have felt for ages right now. Today in fact. I am well aware that this might not last.

Visited my specialist this week who bagged me out for not knowing who the physicist was he was talking about.....dude i am ILL! I didn't come for a visit so you could bag me out about stuff!! But the man sure knows his stuff...he use to be a fighter pilot (i swear 2God that i know more about the man than he know about me...is that normal for a doctor patient relationship?)

This week there was a twitter/facebook hacker attack. I wish they had another term. I use to Hack stuff and i never did anything to hurt people or was mean or stole etc. It was about finding the little "ways" of the code and altering them to make things better....so ok, it wasn't always better. In fact a screwed up a lot but in those days stuff broke ALL the time....and it was the only way to get better at what you did....it wasn't always a bad term. Anyway i bring it up because it affected me....not a bit. not even a little. i am so out of touch with my roots.

found this cold article while trawling

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/08/the-big-questions-of-the-unive.html

especially question 12. This would be my answer to the question if i had ever been asked it. Well, i have but i i gave some "pretend" sophisticated answer...but that was me trying too hard.

Today i intend to relax. Really i will. I am going to go shopping as the kids want xbox games - please let them not be shooting and/or robot ones....live long and prosper folks.