hverdagsliv Arkiver - Side 23 av 61 -

Looking back – part 2

Sunniva5. februar 201622. januar 2017Legg igjen en kommentar

Finally - here's part 2 of the looking back at 2015 blogpost. This has taken too long, I know, but I guess my excuse is I'm trying to fix my PhD thingy (that's my excuse for everything this year :D).

July

Anders went with the guys to Asia. I missed him sooo much it's close to embarrassing 😛 These were pictures he sent me as he was looking through his phone - you see, I'm pretty sure he missed me to...<3

I went to Spain and Toledo, to David and Lucia's wedding...

...looking like this 🙂

And I worked on the same f*****g paper I'm trying to finish now...

August

I was honoured to give the main speech for all the new students at the University of Stavanger. OMG! It felt great.

I was a guest at the radio show "Salongen".

Anders and I (and Ann-Cecilie) went to Berkeley. We had a fantastic trip, and I don't think I have ever seen Anders as happy as he was when he rented this car...

(I still haven't got to do all the stuff I was supposed to do just before, and during the week we spent in Berkeley, and that does of course not feel especially good...why does everything take so much time?)

September

We went to Konserhuset to celebrate research and the Norwegian Research Council, and I'm quite sure we got much less food and wine than we've got there before... Was still a fun night, though 🙂

I wrote about what goes on inside our CACTUS. CACTUS is the name of the detector system you see here - it has that name because it looks like a cactus 😀

And I gave a talk at the book launch of Kathrine Aspaas' "Rosa er den nye pønken" - I feel very honoured to be mentioned in the book <3

October

Maybe the busiest month of last fall?

Since Anders was gone all of July, I promised Alexandra we would go someplace warm and nice, where they had lots of ice cream, a pool, and sea. Alexandra, Anders and I ended up going to Fuerteventura and Las Playitas - we were soooo satisfied with that place, and really want to go back to that exact hotel 🙂

I got glasses.

Anders and I were guests at "Abels Tårn".

I gave a talk at "Radiologisk Høstmøte", and annoyed some people by writing about How to dress as a female scientist.

I gave my third TEDx talk at TEDxBergen: "Could nuclear weapons save the planet?", and was so happy Anders could join me in Bergen <3

November

Focus, focus, focus! I started the #teamsunnivarose tag, and focused hard on working hard 🙂

December

I worked on my analysis and my paper on uranium, prepared for Christmas, and wrote about the anniversary of the Chicago Pile no 1 - the very first nuclear reactor.

Part 1 of the looking back at 2015 is HERE.

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I'm still at home, waiting for a delivery from IKEA that will arrive some time between now and one o'clock. Boring, but luckily I can do quite a bit of working from home. There will be focus on my paper (oh yes, it takes forever - that's life in academia for you), and later today there will of course be Friday Facts here on the blog 😉

Stavanger next

Sunniva1. februar 201622. januar 2017Legg igjen en kommentar

Hi everyone...

Alexandra's still sick. Yesterday I was so sure that today would be the last day with no kindergarden, but then she has actually been a little bit worse today, so it looks like tomorrow will also be spent at home. It's never a good time when kids get sick, and especially when it happens when you have deadlines and are going away...which is the case for me now :/ Tomorrow I'm going to Stavanger and I'm staying there until Thursday. I'll be giving two talks; one at THIS conference, on Wednesday, and one at a school - about nuclear physics and research and stuff, on Thursday. So I'll be heading for Stavanger tomorrow morning, and fortunately I have the best Anders <3 who's staying to take care of Alexandra.

// memories from another trip to Stavanger - unfortunately Toril's not there this time :/ //

Now it's time to finish booking my flights and my hotel room, and to look over my talks. Then Anders I will start season two of West Wing. We just started watching it, and oh my, the season finally of season one is the biggest cliffhanger I have ever seen...!

Kisses!

I fear… 5

Sunniva27. januar 201622. januar 20175 kommentarer

...a world without antibiotics.

Just before the weekend, Anders started feeling some pain around one of his wisdom teeth. It wasn't too bad to begin with, but it gradually became more painful, and on Friday he was popping painkillers continuously. On Saturday morning, it was still bearable with the painkillers, but he realised he had gotten an infection around this stupid wisdom tooth that didn't seem to go away by itself, and that he had to make an appointment with the dentist - so he did, but it still didn't feel that urgent, and he got an appointment on Monday morning. By Saturday night it was starting to be really bad, and during the night he called an emergency dentist, that would take him in on Sunday morning.

The dentist found that the infection was starting to go down Anders' throat, and that the he needed antibiotics immediately, and the tooth had to be removed.

After this episode, which hasn't been any dramatic (except, of course, for Anders' pain, and I feel very bad for him and all that), I have been thinking about what could have happened if this was 150 years ago; where maybe the infection would have continued to grow down his throat, and a stupid wisdom tooth would have ended up killing a 28 year old, completely healthy man...

Thank goodness for modern medicine and dentists and antibiotics!

But, oh, how I fear a world where we don't have antibiotics anymore; or, more precisely, a world where we don't have any effective antibiotics left. A world where all bacteria are immune to all kinds of antibiotics. What if that's where we're heading, and that we don't manage to change the direction we're going? What if one of the biggest achievements in the history of medicine will be lost?

I'm not an expert on the issue, but one thing I do know we can do as patients is to follow the doctor's orders on how to take our antibiotics: especially when it comes to the issue of NEVER stopping the treatment just because you feel fine, and also we need to respect those times when the doctor isn't giving us antibiotics, because it isn't 100% necessary 🙂

PS: I think Anders would also have said thank goodness for real painkillers, if I'd asked him before posting this 😉

Late birthday present for my self 2

Sunniva20. januar 201622. januar 20172 kommentarer

On Friday I decided enough is enough: I'm sick and tired of being cold all the time, and that what I needed was a real warm jacket. I've been thinking about getting a real winter jacket for a long time, but I always end up thinking everything is either too expensive, or it's ugly. But the combination of feeling cold all the time, plus my birthday was recently, made me go online to Nelly.no and search for warm winter coats and jackets, and after not very long I found the perfect fit for me - a PINK down parkas <3 It was even 30% off, but that was not the reason why I chose this, it was just an extra bonus 😉

I tested it outside for the first time today, and so far I'm super happy with this late birthday present from me to me!

Did I mention it's PINK?!? 😉

Since I was online, I also checked out the new year's sale, and two dresses and a black shirt was clicked home to Rose Castle.

pink jacket // blue dress // pink dress // black shirt

Now I'm putting on my new pink favourite jacket, and I'm going out with Anders. We're going to get something to eat, and maybe a glass of wine (or two) - and I won't be cold 😀

Goal of the day 2

Sunniva13. januar 201622. januar 20172 kommentarer

Today I've been at the library, writing all day. It takes forever, but I'm starting to get used to it - and therefore better at making goals and to do-list. My goals today were:

finish (for now) the part about the so-called "Oslo Method" in my next paper
fix/make a figure (that f****g Fig. 4)
delete all the comments and thoughts (from my self) in the paper, so that it's actually possible to show it someone else without them saying WAT
send a draft of the paper to Jon supervisor in Paris
start making the talk I'm giving for our workshop on fission and gamma rays and stuff next week

By the end of the day I managed all but the one about the figure... "Figure 4"continues to look like a very bad drawing or something, and it will probably not be fixed tomorrow either, since then I have to work on thoughts for my actual thesis, since Jon plus more are coming next week. But the important thing is that I did send my draft to my supervisor even thought the figure isn't any good, and that was really the most important goal of the day 😀 😀 😀

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Here's a picture of a typical staying at the library all day, writing and therefore trying to wear something comfortable, but isn't all that keen on wearing a sweat suit out in public-outfit: tight but stretchy jeans, a simple grey sweater, and my big Russian scarf that I got as a gift from Sunniva supervisor after I finished my master degree - and I love it <3

Working your ass off-dinner #phdlife 3

Sunniva12. januar 201622. januar 20173 kommentarer

I love thai food! Often we order take-out (and I always have some kind of curry), but our "new year's resolutions" are about spending more money on actually going out, and then less money on just stupid take-out (not that it's always stupid, but we end up ordering take-out that isn't particularly tasty, and even though it's fast, it isn't that fast, and even though it isn't that expensive it adds up to being money that would have been more fun to spend on going to a restaurant, or the movies, or whatever). The "problem" is that both Anders and I work a lot these days, and we are often dead tired when we're finally home - that's when it's too easy to just grab the phone and order something to our door 😛

Yesterday was one of those days when I wanted to make something for us, but didn't really have the time, so I decided my new thing for 2016 is working your ass off-dinner 😀 Something that's super easy to make (so that we don't end up ordering take-out instead), and at least as tasty as the take-out we would have eaten instead - for people who are "working their ass off" 😉 A real working your ass off-dinner (either you're working hard because you're trying to do a phd, or you're a student or whatever) has to be:

1) easy

2) no planning needed - it has to be possible to make the moment you think I'm hungry, I want dinner

3) cheap (if you're not a student it doesn't have to, but it's nice to save money on everyday stuff even if you're not a student 😀 )

4) fast - it has to be ready almost the moment you think I'm hungry, I want dinner

The goal is that you can use stuff that's in your freezer, or canned, or dry - stuff you can buy long before you're actually going to use it. I have now filled my freezer with frozen vegetables: broccoli, green beans, spinach, and a "thai wok vegetable"-mix thingy. Also I buy a big bag of mushroom that I chop and put in plastic bags in my freezer, and I do the same thing with chicken. I also have canned stuff, like coconut milk and tomatoes - they last forever <3

Yesterday I made working your ass off-thai curry, and here's my recipe:

You need:

curry paste (on the picture is a green curry paste, but I could just as easily have used a red one)
tomyum paste
mushroom - I use champingnon (prechopped, from the freezer)
coconut milk - I normally prefer the normal, not light version, but this was what they had this time, and it was ok (buy many at a time, since they're canned, they last forever :D)
vegetables - yesterday I used one small bowl of broccoli and one small bowl of green beans (both frozen)
meat - I use mostly chicken, but all kinds of meat works

You can also add: lime/lemon, fish sauce (Nam Plah), some cream - these are ingredients I always have, and I added. Yesterday I happened to have some spring onions that needed to be eaten, and they are perfect for more or less everything so 4 of them went into the curry.

both pastes (curry and tomyum) lasts "forever" after they're opened - just shut the lid tightly, and put them in the fridge

the IKEA zip lock bags are just perfect for freezing food - I have them in six different sizes <3

Do:

Put some flavorless oil, like rapeseed oil, in a pot. Heat it and put in a tablespoon of the curry paste. (You can use more if you want a hotter version, and less if you want a milder version.)

Stir, and put a tablespoon or two of the tomyum paste in the pot. Turn down the heat, and mix the two pastes together.

Put the mushrooms in the pot. Stir. Put the coconut milk in the pot. Stir.

If you have, you can add some cream - I love cream, so for me it's (almost) no question about this one 🙂

Add the meat (chicken or other type) and the vegetables. When the meat is cooked through, it's more or less ready.

Taste it. Add pepper and a little bit of fish sauce (or salt), squeeze a lime/lemon if you have. Ready!

I like to eat it just as it is, but Anders prefer some rice at the side. You can choose whatever you like 🙂

This is of course not my "very best perfect fantastic gourmet"-recipe for thai food, but the very easiest way (I can think of) to do it. It's easy, it's quick, it's simple, and it's quite tasty - what you need when you're busy working your ass off <3

You can of course also change all the frozen ingredients into fresh ones, and suddenly you have an even tastier more "fancy" curry version. And if I had more time, I would have chopped a chilli and some garlic and added them at the beginning, before the mushroom.

The actual cooking part doesn't take any more time, but you have to cut the vegetables, the mushroom and the meat, and you have to buy everything fresh...:)

Bon appétit, and good luck with working your ass off <3

Looking back. Part 1

Sunniva11. januar 201622. januar 2017Legg igjen en kommentar

I started 2015 with a hope that that year wouldn't be so much of a roller coater ride as 2014 was - and luckily, it wasn't <3

In 2015 I've spent more time on my research in a long time, and it has felt really good. And on Saturday I was out, celebrating maybe the best and "biggest" thing of 2015 - my one year anniversary with Anders <3 We even made some "new year's resolutions":

1. go more to bars (a nice cocktail is, well, very nice)

one of my favourite places in Oslo for cocktails: Étoile

2. go more to the theatre
3. go more (once a month?) to the movies
4. go more out to dinner

(5. spend less on everyday "stupid" stuff, like buy lunch instead of making it yourself, buy coffee instead of making it yourself, buy take-away instead of making it yourself - I rather want to spend the money on point 1-4 😉 )

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So I've been looking back at 2015 - a very good year - and here are some of the highlights from the first 6 months:

January
What can I say? 2015 started with me getting the best boyfriend...

I wrote about heavy water, since I was inspired by the fantastic series at NRK ("Kampen om tungtvannet").

I turned 31.

I thought about which scientific paper I like more - Chadwick's paper about the neutron, or Einstein's paper about E=mc2.

Then I gave a talk about publishing, as seen from the point of view of a young scientist - I was pretty nervous!

February

Alexandra turned 5! And I was excited. I was also super excited since Sushi and Nuclear got nominated to American Documentary Film Festival 2015 😀

#phdlife was important.

I could tell you I was going to be on TV.

I did my first radio show of the year.

I went to Paris for the first experiment of 2015, and I had to admit I'd made an embarrassing mistake on the radio...(I guess we all make mistakes from time to time, right?)

On the 27th of February I celebrated my favourite particle - the neutron.

March

We started filming Big Bang.

I gave several talks about thorium...

We celebrated pie day - of course 😛

I went on my first vacation with anders, to Barcelona, and missed the solar eclipse. Totally worth it, though <3

While we were in Barcelona, both Sushi and Nuclear and Big Bang premiered!

April

I wrote about math and self-esteem, and how I did it in math in high school.

I did science, and asked (myself and others) "silly" questions.

It was finally spring, and the university was beautiful!

May

We went on a trip to the forest - around Sognsvann, with Lise and Joackim 🙂 This was a preparation to see if we thought Alexandra would manage a "real" trip into the forest, where would spend the night and everything... It was a great day, and we concluded she was ready.

I scienced some more, and finally I was starting to figure things out 😀

Then I started to get some actual real results, and it was 17th of May and sunny and hot, and a happy time:

We (the nuclear physics group) arranged a workshop in Oslo, where I talked about my preliminary results, and I gave a talk to the INSEAD Alumni group about thorium and nuclear power - and I met some very interesting people.

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Hope you enjoyed this little throwback on my first 6 months of a very good year - I can only hope (I do!) that 2016 will be just as good.

Part 2 of looking back will come soon 😉

My original plan today was something like this:

get up
meet Ingrid for an early coffee
meet my little sister, Carina, to get lash extensions (it was her Christmas present for me, and it's a good idea to do it now before the semester turns crazy)
go to the University and write on my paper (write, make figures, and maybe even do some more of the remaining analysis).

Then I woke up at 06:30, by the radio as we always do: "North Korea has tested what they claim to be a hydrogen bomb", and then this happened instead:

VG sent me an sms wondering if I could talk to them about the H-bomb
I got in the shower
VG called me - I talked to them
I read a little bit about about thermonuclear weapons
I realsized there would be no coffee with Ingrid, and Anders and i decided to have a coffee at Kaffebrenneriet at Sagene - where he could esily get to the University, and I could easily get to Bjerke (where I had the lashes date with my sister)
VG called again, wondering if I could come to their studio, but I was on my way to my appointment with Carina, so I had to decline
TV2 called, and I talked to them on the bus to meet Carina

At this time I realised that maybe this day would be mostly about hydrogen weapons, and not so much about the theory of the "Oslo method"...:P

I wanted to be a girly girl today <3

Carina and I got to the lashes place, I muted my phone (but not my Apple watch), and we started the treatment, where I had to lay still with my eyes closed for 2.5 hours...
my phone rang, but I couldn't answer it
my phone rang again, but I couldn't answer it
Carina's phone rang
I got an sms
my phone rang again, but I couldn't answer it
I felt like I had to pee, and when I asked if I had to keep my eyes closed for much longer, the reply I got was 1.5 hours...
...and so on...

We finished what we started, I could go to the toilet, and I could check my phone. It looked something like this:

I realised I wasn't going back to University, but home to Rose castle to charge my phone, my Mac, and talk and read.

interview with VG
interview with Stavanger Aftenblad
I showered and picked out an outfit I felt was appropriate on TV
went to TV2
got make-up on
interview for the news at 18:30
live interview for the 17:00 news
took a taxi from TV2 to NRK
Dagsnytt18
interview for Dagsrevyen
met Anders, and we saw the strange lights on the sky as we were walking towards the metro, in the freezing cold <3

thanks Mari, you're the best <3

Now I'm finally home, and of course I have a long list of un-ticked to dos from today, which I'm not doing today, since now I'm going to bed. I've done my best today, and tomorrow's a new day, and I'll continue on my writing and my analysis and everything 🙂

Dagsnytt18 (I'm at 9 something minutes)

I think the "title" Nuclear Physicist and Girly Blogger has never been more suiting that today...

Kategori: hverdagsliv