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Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Pure joy!

Good morning everyone <3 Day two of this California/Berkeley trip has just started, and so far I'm very happy 🙂
Yesterday I "finished" the first part of the uranium analysis (which is to find the nuclear level density of uranium-234) - that I wrote about in my last blog post - and started the second part of the analysis (which is to find the gamma ray strength function of uranium-234). The picture above show the very first result of my gamma ray strength data (the squares - both black and white) plotted together with different data from the big nuclear data bases. When I wrote "plot" and this appeared I actually screamed with excitement and joy, and hugged Cecilie, who was sitting next to me and helping me, because it looks soooo pretty - even before I've started to "tweak" my data to fit with the ones from the data bases (the ones on the right side of the plot - the little triangles). 
The goal of this trip is btw to put these two properties of the nucleus (the nuclear level denisty and the gamma ray strength function) into simulations of different reactors (that uses thorium based fuel) and see if they affect the results of the simulations - when we compare to standard simulations where we don't do anything about these nuclear properties 🙂 *excited*
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Below are a couple of pictures from yesterday and today. The first one, of Anders, is probably more like what you would imagine when I say "pure joy"...;) He has just rented a nice car and is on his way to Palo Alto as we speak - he is also excited. (Actually kind of wish i could go with him, but I'm on my way to the lab now, with Cecilie - and that will of course also be fun...but in a quite different way 😛 )

beautiful morning at Berkeley campus
cutest squirrel at Berkeley campus

Cecilie and Darren discussion something important (I'm guessing 😉 ) at Jupiter, where we had dinner yesterday - and the day before, when we'd just arrived

Jupiter <3

Jupiter <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Berkeley next
Listen to "Going to San Francisco" - check
Packing - check (but in a hurry, so not really sure if I'm bringing everything I want to...)
Passport - check
ESTA - check
Print of tickets (yes, I'm old school) - check
Print of hotel booking conformation (still old school) - check
Wearing comfortable clothes - check

I think we're ready for Berkeley/San Francisco, and a week of PhD life on the other side of the Atlantic, now <3
Below is what I did yesterday, as part of my preparation for this trip - on the first picture, the dotted line is not in agreement with the black squares, but on the second picture, it's like a perfect fit 😀 This means that the first part of my uranium analysis is coming to an end (if you ever can say that anything in science is "coming to an end" - I guess you actually really can't...:P), and I'm really excited about this trip!

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Just do it!

I'm a master of procrastination, and not doing what I'm supposed to. Especially when it comes to stuff that I find hard - write the first 50% of an article, analyse new data, do new stuff that I know I wont understand all of by myself...so, more or less doing my job 😛
Yesterday I spent all the time before lunch not writing on my article, but browsing stuff on line instead. How silly is that? I didn't even realize how much time I spent on this, before I had to leave for my interview with P1 and Norgesglasset (which is HERE, in Norwegian...). One of my colleagues said that "sometimes you just have to sit down and do it, not all the other stuff", and she is just so right. So when I came back, I sat down, opened my article document, and attacked the introduction part. I made a real plan for what should be included in this article, and what should be in the next one, and from this I made a real outline for the article I'm working on now. Even though I know stuff can happen, and that maybe I have to do minor (or major) changes, that's ok, and I can't worry about that. At least if that worrying is gonna stop me from actually doing something.
So f*** everything else (like "oh, but I should just answer these e-mails, and maybe I should go get a soda, and also I need a coffee, I think, and I'm just gonna check facebook, and then think about all those blog posts I should write about different aspects of nuclear physics, and I have to explain why science sort of works to these people who think that Big Pharma are trying to kill them with vaccines") and just do it. It's as simple, and as difficult as that. JUST. DO. IT.
I think it will help me if I become better at making plans and lists that are actually possible to get through, too. Now I feel like a total failure everyday, since I always have, like, half or more of the stuff I was supposed to do, not checked off at my list by the end of the day. My "list" for today is as follows: finish this blog post, finish draft of the "intro" for my article, finish the "experimental setup" part (almost there, I think), and get my preliminary results into the "data analysis" part. Then I will send what I have to supervisor Sunniva, and ask her what she thinks.  If there should be some spare time before the library closes, I'm 100% sure that I will figure out more smart things to do with that extra time...;)
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After work today I'm meeting Charlotte! We haven't been out in a very long time, so I'm really looking forward to have some wine, and talk, and have fun <3
I bought this relaxed, white, thin shirt and this big yellow necklace (I think I'm in LOVE!) at H&M yesterday. Think it looks quite cool, with the hair and the tight jeans and the heels 🙂
PS: I still miss Anders - only 19 more days to go now... <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Norgesglasset i morgen
Da er tirsdagen over, og det er "bare" 21 dager igjen til Anders kommer tilbake (ja, jeg savner ham fremdeles 😛 ).
Dagen i dag kan oppsummeres med skriving av forord, til et veldig spennende prosjekt jeg jobber med, så stengte biblioteket (klokken fire, allerede - pga ferie, tror jeg), og Therese og jeg ble ganske betuttet over at vi muligens måtte gi oss, men da kom jeg på at vi kunne dra hjem til meg og drikke vin og jobbe videre. Som sagt, så gjort! Jeg fikk sendt fra meg utkast til forord, og kunne omsider begynne på abstract til artikkel og foredrag - noe som gjorde meg mest forvirret, og litt oppgitt og trist ("åååh, jeg er bare utrolig dum, og jeg skjønner ingenting, og dessuten vet jeg ikke hva som skal være med i denne artikkelen, og så vet jeg ikke hva som kommer ut av turen til Berkeley heller, og dermed er alt umulig" - var ca det jeg følte, sånn kort oppsummert). Therese tittet på noe av det jeg jobber med, og ga meg innspill og tips, jeg fikk lagt en slagplan for morgendagen, og vi fikk snakket en del om hvordan det er å være i sluttfasen av PhD'en (Therese leverer kort tid etter sommeren). 
Jeg er har altså en plan for morgendagen, som bla inneholder:
- ringe til veileder og sutre
- se hva jeg får til av TALYS-beregninger (som egentlig betyr at jeg skal finne ut hva jeg kan/må spørre Cecilie om)
- skriv på introduksjonen til artikkel
Dette er de tre tingene som skal gjøres på Blindern i morgen. I tillegg skal jeg bevege meg ned til Marienlyst og NRK, for å være sommergjest på Norgesglasset på P1. Klokken 12:40 - sånn ca. Jeg skal bla ha med meg det jeg viser frem på bildet under, og snakke om det...;) I tillegg er det nok fare for at det blir litt fysikk og forskning <3 
"Høres" vi? 😉

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til OSCAR #happy
So we just finished our group meeting, and let me just say YEAY!!!! The group meeting today was really nothing else but drinking Cava and eating (a very rich) chocolate cake (all meetings should be like this 😉 )...
The reason? Today it's official: the Norwegian Research Council has approved our application for new detectors at the Oslo Cyclotron Laboratory ❤️ We are getting 21 million NOK for replacing all of our old sodium iodide detectors (CACTUS - may you rest in peace), with new lanthanide bromide detectors (OSCAR - we welcome you!).
Read more about here (we are the "NEW GENERATION SCINTILLATOR DETECTORS FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH IN NORWAY")
This is soooo exciting - experiments in Oslo will be better in aboslutely every way! 

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Forms

As (some of) you know, I'm going to Berkeley in August. One exciting week to work on my next paper, and to do some simulations of some reactors. To do this I have to fill in forms - and I HATE forms 😛 (But love Berkeley <3)
I tried to do it yesterday, but did of course not have everything I needed to complete it.
The problem was my passport, which wasn't located at the same place I was... I was at my office at the University, and my passport was at home. So why didn't I just do it when I got home then? Well, I got home just after 11 PM, from dinner with the Ludvigsen committee and the minister of education, and at this time my mother was trying to sleep (she was there because of Alexandra <3), and I didn't want to wake her/keep her awake, and besides I was exhausted and didn't even remember that I was supposed to complete my form with the passport information. Luckily I remembered to bring my passport this morning, and now it's finally done.
Sorry, Berkeley people, that I'm so scatterbrained <3
 

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Supervision
Today I spent three hours with Supervisor-Sunniva - I always feel great after supervision from her, like I understand everything (ok, maybe not everything, but I think I understand more every time), and now I have a list of stuff to fix and check before we continue tomorrow 🙂 (I should, of course, have done the things today, after I left Sunniva, but somehow there wasn't any time...don't think I will ever understand why that happens.)

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Monday again…

...and a new week and a fresh start - again 🙂

I'm just here to wish you all a great week, and show you my TODO-list this week; which turned out longer than I thought it would 😛 Anyway: here it is - I have to run to start on the list, meaning today: move from the old office, read Cecilie's article, and spend one hour on old e-mails (BIG I'm sorry to all of you that haven't received a reply!)

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Berkeley baby!
It's official: Cecilie (my fantastic and talented colleague) and I are going to Berkeley, one week in August!!!
It is of course for working (but who doesn't want to go to Berekely and work there, huh?!?), so the trip basically takes away (big parts of) my summer vacation, since I have to do a lot of preparations before we go - or else I have really no reason to go, since it wont help to go there unless I have my results that I need to get more results 😛 On the other hand, this trip will (hopefully) enable me to write my third paper, and if so, I'll be a GIANT  LEAP (like, really) closer to my degree, so I think losing a summer vacation will definitely be worth it! 
I have some plans for that third paper (article) that I'm not yet ready to share with you - but I'll do it later, when I know more about how it will go...;)

We're flying with Norwegian, directly from Oslo to Oakland (which is even closer to Berkeley that San Francisco - where we normally fly to), and it will be so nice not to change flights somewhere. Also I'm excited about flying Norwegian on such a long-distance flight - wonder how it will be...:)


Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til My plan
A while ago (January or February) I had a very brief plan for the rest of my time as a PhD student, and how I should manage to finish my degree. Since that time, some things have changed; first of all, my contract at the University of Oslo lasts until the end of 2016, so I wont be submitting my thesis in December this year, but rather next fall.
An updatet, and more detailed version of my progress towards the Big Day (which is what I will refer to when I talk about the day when I submit everything from now on) now looks like this: 
So this is not a plan all the way to the Big Day, but rather a list of the first half of 2015. The rest on this list should be finished by the end of June - if I don't manage to do that I'll have to work (much more than I've been planning on) during July, and then it's bye bye summer vacation...:/ I hope there wont be any big surprises during the next five weeks, so I don't have to use my "buffer" (July), but I'm still optimistic, and the feeling of crossing out stuff on the to do-list is amazing! I think I should make these updated lists every month, actually 🙂
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Yesterday I gave a talk for the INSEAD Alumni group on the topic of nuclear energy and thorium from a Norwegian perspective, with the title "Thorium is Norway's "new oil" - or is it?". My (very) short answer to this is a very, very careful "Maaaaybeeee"...;) I felt it went pretty ok, and some even wrote that it was a great talk - so I guess I shouldn't argue with the audience 😛 Anyway, it was great fun, and I met a lot of nice people; and since several of the people in the audience stayed after the talk (and 30 minutes with questions and discussions), I guess it wasn't too bad 🙂
If you want to hear more about it (thorium and nuclear and stuff), you can come to the "breakfast talk" I'm giving next Monday at the University <3