Back in business

Happy Thursday, and may I ask: how did it become Thursday already, and where did the first part of this day go?

Whatever the answer is, I'm back from a FANTASTIC week at Fuerteventura (a blogpost about the vacation will come), and now I'm "back in business", at my office. 

Actually, we got home to Norway on Monday, then I had a mission in Trondheim on Tuesday - I was part of a fake PhD dissertation, as one of the opponents, yesterday was a day filled with starting to get back on track workwise, family obligations, and do you see anything new on me? Yes, it was also time to get glasses. So far, I think I like it - suddenly I can see stuff that was kind of blurry two days ago (and I do look kind of smart, don't I? :P ).

So today is my first, full day, at Blindern; the sun is shining, and even though it's starting to get cold here in Oslo, it feels good :) Main goal of this day: get all figures and tables that I can possibly make into the draft of the article I'm working on (aka: the article that I haven't really worked on for some time...:/) - from this I will also know "where to go" tomorrow. I also need to be serious about the actual PhD thesis now, so writing on that will be quite high on my TO DO list in the next couple of weeks.

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BTW: There's something I've been thinking about. I often get questions in the commentary section either here on the blog, or on Facebook, on email, on Twitter etc, and many of these questions are too extensive for just a two sentences type of reply. Therefore I've been thinking about starting a "question of the month" thing - a dedicated blogpost for those extensive questions. I think if I'm going to do this, it should be on a fixed date every month, and I'm not sure exactly when that should be...but for now I think I'll start next week, and I'll just take it from there. What do you think, and do you have any questions? (I've been collecting questions from you for a long time, so I certainly have a lot to work on already ;) )

My PhD ("dumbed down")

A couple of days ago I came across what I thought was a hilarious post on a web site: PhD theses dumbed down... My favourites are these:

• Nanoparticles are weird and I accidentally made a bomb and electrocuted myself.
• Inpatients with schizophrenia are happier and socialize more in the context of a music listening group. It was obvious before we began the project and we learned nothing.
• Little things stick together. Here's a slightly easier way to calculate their stickiness. 
• This protein looks like it might contribute to asthma. Oh, turns out it probably doesn't. 
• Two proteins touch each other in a specific place in the developing heart. No idea if it's important for anything. 
• People sometimes think about animals as if they're people. People like those animals a little more than regular animals. Except when they don't. I can't believe they gave me a PhD.  
• Sand washes away, don't build important stuff on it.

Some of my friends, who have either finished their Phd's, or are in the middle of it, like I am, got inspired by this, and made their own "dumbed down" versions:

Jonathan: "All models are wrong, but at least now we can confirm they are wrong much faster"

Veronica: "Can electrons surf on an electric wave? Yes"

Kyrre: "How many sparks do we see when we push ridiculously strong micro waves through thin vacuum tubes? (And how do they work?)"

My thesis is, as many of you know, about issues with the thorium fuel cycle. Another day I think I will write a blog post about my thesis/project (so, a little bit more than just a one liner, but less than the entire thing - would you like that?), but it will have to be after I've finished my next paper, because after that I will hopefully know  a little more about how everything will be.

As of today, this is the best way I can "dumb down" my entire project, but I guess if it was just another day (when the weather was nicer, maybe, and it wasn't fall, and I wasn't feeling not like the best version of my self)I would probably write something different - maybe more positive :). Here goes:

Thorium is a nice thing for a nuclear fuel, but you get the f****** uranium-232 from it, and it makes everything s***. Now we kind of know a little bit more about it. Which is just sort of true.

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Here's yesterday's outfit - as I said I'm trying to be better at posting my outfits, and yesterday I was actually really satisfied with what i ended up wearing (after trying on, for example three different skirts and a pear of jeans) :) My problem these days is, well, I actually don't really know what it is, but it's just hard :/  It takes forever to put together a simple outfit like the one from yesterday. Luckily I got "awarded" when I got to the University, and I bumped in to Anders, and he was like "wow, you look really great today" <3<3<3 

I'm very happy with my new, pink coat, that I ordered from Nelly.

top: Zara // ear rings: Snö of Sweden // coat: Nelly // scarf: HM // hair: I grow it my self // boobs: I grew them my self // eye lashes: au naturel (well, that's not exactly true; I do wear mascara, of course ;) ) // skirt: 5 years old, don't remember where I bought it anymore // shoes: Bianco // lips: lipgloss from L'Oréal - otherwise they're like nature made them

Risks in perspective (#Selfie)

Today I've been busy all day - doing close to no actual research (#phdlife :P ).

A substantial part of this Monday was spent on radiation protection training (which, of course, is very important for us to be able to do the research we're doing - so it's not like the day was wasted...it just feels a little bit like I didn't do "anything"), and I just have to share this list where the risk of radiation exposure is sort of put in perspective. This list gives an estimate of basically how many days of your life you have to say bye to, when you do different things:

• smoking 20 cigarettes a day: 2370 days (6.5 years)
• being 20% overweight: 985 days (2.7 years)
• alcohol consumption (US average): 1 year
• mining and quarrying: 328 days
• construction accidents: 227 days
• car accidents: 207 days
• home accidents: 74 days
• receiving a dose of 10 milli Sievert per year, every year for 47 years: 51 days
• natural hazards (earthquakes, floods): 7 days

The conclusion is that the risk of radiation (even quite "large" doses; 10 milli Sievert in one year is much more than I have EVER received working at the cyclotron laboratory in Oslo, or at any other nuclear lab) is smaller than most other activities you do in your life - just wanted to tell you <3

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My physicist office look of today was in the comfy style I've become so fond of lately; favourite jeans (HM), #Selfie top (HM), and white (or maybe more like grey now?) Converse.