Breath and stop

It's that time of year once again when the sky turns to ochre and you feel constantly like you're having a picnic on the beach. Each year the sand from the Gobi desert heads Beijing way, and beyond, last year getting far enough to hit Tokyo. This year apparently the Chinese meteorological association, in cahoots with the army have been seeding the clouds in order to try and limit the effects of the incoming cloud of dust. Though this has come to me only through complicated routes of hearsay it seems reasonable as we've been having rain for the last few weeks, whereas last year there was virtually no rain in Beijing for 6 months, give or take.

This weekend has been a respite for me as the last week was an intensive mix of research with my collaborator, new insights into the power of language and me giving a rather last minute talk. I took the opportunity to give the talk (on heavy quark potentials in AdS/QCD) as a blackboard talk, my first talk of this kind and something which I can see takes both careful planning and practice.

I spoke for a little over an hour from a few sheets of notes and though I hope I got the general idea across, this is clearly something I need more practice at. I've been asked to give a couple of review lectures on AdS/QCD at an upcoming workshop in Beijing so may take this as another chance to use this technique which, when used appropriately, can produce very effective presentations. In particular this is because the pace is automatically slowed. The chance of large equations, which rarely elucidate a problem in a seminar, is small, and it makes the whole process a more active one for all involved.

I still have numerous projects on the go but hope to post up a few things of note over the coming days.

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