8th July
I feel as though I didn't do much work this week. I had an afternoon off to take myself to the local Department of Motor Vehicles office so that I could get ID and become a real person here. And Wednesday was July the 4th, hooray for America. So that was a holiday too. This week I was officially allowed to take proper pretty pictures that can be published, now that I've taken all the boring ones needed for the measurements. It's fiddly, but some of the first versions are here. A lot of improvement is required, but at least you can see what's going on.
I've been preparing to move down to La Jolla proper - I'll probably move my stuff next weekend. And then I really will be living by the beach. And it's raining cats and dogs in England. I'm not smug, honest...
Question of the day: Am I becoming a blonde bimbo?
I started to worry about this yesterday, when I noticed proper blonde streaks in my hair from all the sun. Will I have to acquire one of those t-shirts that says "Natural blonde - please speak slowly"? I'm actually trying to stay out of the sun, as well. But then perhaps this is the real me emerging. What do you think?
(taking photos of your own hair is not particularly easy, so please excuse the style)
16th July
Lots going on... I moved house, I saw some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, I got very frustrated with my experiment and I discovered that plankton offal can help form clouds.
I now live by the ocean, which is very exciting! I'm sharing a house with Ayana, who's a graduate student at Scripps.
The bubbles this week look like the ones below. These are bubbling very fast and this is a photo with an effective exposure time of 20 microseconds. They have not been behaving themselves though.... the current experiment seems to be taking a long time. Hmph.
The view from just outside the house and my messy room. That's the ocean at the end of the road, just in case you were wondering.
The bubble aquarium is lined with angled mirrors, trying to direct lots of light on to the bubble at the top of the nozzle. The problem is that light can reflect off the walls of the bubble and straight into the camera, spoiling the images.
22nd July
One of the exciting things that happened this week was that I bought a jar of Marmite in a "World Food" shop. I had no idea that the sight of chocolate Hobnobs and Marmite could be so exciting - I don't really feel too foreign most of the time, but apparently I'm still a proper ex-pat.
I'm feeling very at home in this house by the beach, but I'm still looking for things to decorate my room with. I'm sure that there are things available, but apparently not within cycling distance. So for the time being I've just got lots of pictures of you lot on the wall above my desk. And my inflatable globe still has a slow puncture that I can't find, which is very distressing. The world is going flat.... I never thought that Thomas Friedeman meant it literally.
here you all are on the wall above my desk....
What is this? Does anyone know? It's the tree that is growing in front of the house and we don't know what it is. Any ideas?
29th July
Yesterday I swam over the top of a kelp forest, as part of an annual open water swim that my swimming club does. The conditions were perfect and the water was impressively warm (apart from the bits where cold water was welling up from the submarine canyon we swam over on the way). I thought that it would be a lot harder, but since there wasn't a lot of swell it wasn't very hard and was a lot of fun.
Other than that, I've just been pottering and training and working. I've finished the first big bunch of experiments and it's time to decide what to do next. At least it's a bit of a break from endless very very similar photos. I discovered that I can climb ropes, monkey-fashion, and found an extra mini-escalator in a department store that is next to the main escalator and takes your trolley up with you. And I'm still looking for good things to put on the walls of my room... I eventually gave in and ordered posters online , so hopefully I'll have a colourful den this time next week.
This was taken from La Jolla Cove and Scripps pier is about where the cross is. From the cove to the pier and back was about 4500 m in total, so I'm told (we just went straight across and didn't follow the coast). The kelp forest is right by the shore on this side. You can see some of the swimmers still coming in.
me!
just before the start
