Ongoing Goings On

Measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale it seems that little damage was done to anyone or anything during the recent tremor. Apparently a woman in hospital 'felt a bit dizzy'. I'm thinking this isn't a great control test in terms of the affects of small earthquakes on the body.

Young and old practice their circus skills in the campus grounds:


Though my eyes are almost failing to stay open at the moment I'm doing the most enjoyable work that I've done for a long time. My particular style of working means that I'm surrounded by scraps of paper dotted with scribbled diagrams and equations and a large computer program on the screen in front of me. Half the time is currently being spent chatting through each stage with my collaborator, drawing possible interpretations of what's going on on the board in my office (from which I'm soon to be evicted). If I were a more sensible and efficient worker I would have a neat notepad in which the careful flows of thought were immaculately inscribed. However, my mind jumps from one thing to another and any notepad I've started has ended up being left behind.

If things work out, which they never do in my brief experience, this work may go some considerable way towards a rather interesting paper.

Unfortunately the last month's packed timetable has left no time for Chinese lessons. I'm hoping that the ten hour flight back to the UK may be a suitable gap in normal affairs in which to go through all the Chinese characters I've learnt and subsequently buried in the quagmire.