2016: let's hang out in a lab

Happy 2016.

Ev and I spent it hanging out on our balcony watching the fireworks light up the skyline. We really do have an excellent view for that. We can see the light shows in Rotterdam and Delft, not to mention the thousands that are lit off in the neighbourhoods around (and far away) from us. The annual fireworks spectacular is one of the only parts of living in a city I think we'll miss.

So we rang in the new year the same way we have for the past 4 years: nice bottle of wine (or champagne) and a cigar.

Left to right: Peru (2011/2012), Rotterdam with Ev's folks (yay) (2014/2015), (2015/2016). There's definitely a version of this pic from 2013/2014 from Dillingham, but I have no idea where it's at. 2012/2013 is a blur... I know there were scotch and cigars, but not much else.

Ok, I have to confess something: this year's picture took two takes. The first one looked more like this:

I wasn't prepared for the camera flash. It hurt.

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And so we kicked off the new year with minimal fuss and I promptly went back to the whole schooling thing.

I'm (supposed) to start my lab work tomorrow. This is kind of terrifying, since I was busy with some coursework and haven't acquired the insulation and heat transfer gel I need to actually run my tests. So that's a tomorrow morning mission: go to the hardware store near campus and buy stuff. Then cut to size, make sure the apparatus actually works, make 3 to 5 batches of test soil and make sure my procedure is actually ok, and hope to hell nothing goes catastrophically wrong.

Mostly the last bit.

A couple weeks ago I made a fancy schedule of my tests, since there are some serious time limitations to be negotiated. Namely, I can only break one sample per day (but I can have 6 tests going at a time). Given the different test scenarios, this makes things... complicated.

Want to know the scariest part? As soon as I have my first round of test results, this entire thing will have to be adjusted, since the cycle times will change.

I'm afraid.

I am very, very afraid.

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In other news, I may have made a questionable life choice yesterday: Ev and I booked tickets to go to Bonaire with his dad and stepmom at the end of March. According to that terrifying schedule, this should allow me 2 weeks of buffer time, and I can do extra short tests when I'm back and doing data analysis, but... needless to say, the thesis is coming on vacation with us. 

Still, I'm trying to keep myself from feeling guilty. I have only left the Netherlands twice since the school year started, and that is pretty damn abysmal. And, thanks to the time-sensitive nature of my lab work, I have a minimum of 46 consecutive days in the lab, which means no sneaking off for magical weekend adventures or going anywhere for spring break (which we learned last year is actually 'ski break', since it's the first week of February).

We'll see if I manage to stay semi-sane for the next three months.