Brewing Thoughts

So while I am waiting for the water to warm up for the third (!) batch of brewing here are some thoughts on the first year of teaching, winter break and more.

First off the winter break was awesome. I did very close to nothing. Close because I did go to a JWST workshop on proposal preparation and that was awesome. Brain fizzing (or should I say brewing) with ideas right after that. So much so that I hammered together the bulk of the first proposal in the plane home.

And then rest. Glorious nothing. Lazy parenting. No email. Sleep in (thank you kids!), 41st birthday and christmas. Yay.

Day after christmas I got a baffling referee rapport. I guess some issues are to be expected when venturing from one subfield into an adjacent one. It is sort of amazing to read what some people comsider important or what they have never heard of. Time to edit and send to another journal. Eh

Sent the first STARSMOG paper round to the collaboration. Curious to hear what everyone’s thoughts are there.

And I got my monthly/weekly/today emails down to below 20 each! For the first time...eh since starting inbox 0! Last year!

So now the kids are back in school and I am nominally back at work. But not really because the heat is out in my building and it is -13C outside. So still working from home.

This semester is going to be the one of proposals. JWST! ALMA! ESO and NASA Keck time. I have some ideas for SWIFT as well! Too many really.

But I need to be careful with the amount of energy I realistically have to spend on everything. Teaching eats up a lot of mental cpu and I was so tired at the end of last semester I put down some paperwork and now I cannot find it again for the life of me. There were many indications that I had redlined myself and so I want to make sure I do less of that this coming year.

Funny enough I have only one resolution for the coming year that is work related: write every day. That should ensure some progress on grant proposals, papers and telescope time proposals without the late night stress fueled error fest.

And as far as writing goes...
This blog counts right?