In any case, a quick update on what I've been up to... I was at MSSL for 5 weeks in most of June and early July, creating a new model describing relativistically shifted AGN reflection spectra. The model creation was reasonably straightforward, but the testing and verification has been an absolute bitch due to my inexperience in experimental x-ray astronomy, which wasn't helped by the fact that both my supervisors were away during my last week in MSSL.
Of course, on 7/7 the London bombings occured. I was at MSSL in Surrey (1 hour outside London) when it happened, so I wasn't directly affected by the chaos which ensued, but nevertheless it was emotionally catastrophic. It's not nice to have carnage happening in places which I'm familiar with (the Edgware Rd, Kings Cross and Tavistock Sq blasts were within walking distance of UCL, and I often take the No. 30 bus that got blown up with 13 fatalities). I'm familiar enough with the locations of the incidents to note the irony that the Tavistock Sq blast occured virtually in front of a statue of Mohandas Gandhi situated right in the middle of the square.
In the weekend after the attacks, I went to visit 'La Loco' Mel in Cambridge. The train to Camb from London departs from Kings Cross station (the National Rail trains were mostly unaffected, just the Tube), and there were missing-person notices plastering the walls in and around the station. A street corner outside the station was set aside for floral tributes from the public to the victims, with an army of journalists and TV camera crews nearby. I was standing outside watching the scene when I saw an old man giving his respects to the dead. It happened that the weekend was the commemoration day for the end of the Second World War, and this old gentleman had a chestful of medals, obviously a veteran of the carnage 60 years ago. It was deeply moving to see him quietly bowing his head to the victims, when he had already gone through the worst carnage in human history nearly an entire lifetime ago.
Anyway Cambridge was blast... Mel brought me for lunch at a tapas restaurant so she could laugh at my feeble attempts at speaking Espanol, we listened to a symphonic concert by the Camb Graduate Orchestra in the magnificent Trinity College Chapel, and took punt along the River Cam. Mel is doing her PhD in the Institute of Astronomy in Camb, so she brought me there to take a look... I was such a workaholic that I actually managed to get a fair amount of work done by remote connection to MSSL via one of the IoA workstations. It's a nice spacious place with plenty of large windows and greenery just outside. Mel also pointed me out to Andy Fabian a.k.a. King Carlos IV of Spain. Andy Fabian is famous because he's one of the most prolific authors in astronomy, and we nicknamed him King Carlos IV because he bears an uncanny resemblance to several portraits of the monarch we saw in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Separated at birth? King Carlos IV of Spain (left image, at left) and Andy Fabian (R)
A few days after returning from Cambridge I flew back to KL. I stayed in KL for only 4 days (although I managed to have a big argument with my parents within that time) before flying down to Melbourne in Oz, along with my sister. She's starting a degree in Creative Arts in the University of Melbourne, so as I was going down to Australia anyway, my parents decided to let me accompany her. Officially Melbourne was supposed to be a holiday for me, but I spent half the time helping my sister settle and sort out her things, while another part was spent trying to finish my MSSL project (unsuccessfully) via my hotel room's wireless connection. I didn't get to do much sight-seeing in Melbourne (my camera ran out of batteries, so no pics from Melbourne unfortunately), although I did manage to meet up with a couple of old friends (except *cough cough* Gin).
I flew over to Sydney last Sunday ... the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) where I'm working is in Epping, a suburb about 30 mins train ride from downtown Sydney, and surprisingly I managed to get to AAO without any hassle. AAO is in the premises of the Australian National Telescope Facility (ATNF), and I'm staying in a lodge within the ANTF grounds just a few minutes walk from work. My supervisor, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, just flew back from overseas in the weekend, and he didn't come in yesterday (Monday), so I spent the day goofing around reading science magazines and trying to finish my MSSL project (again, didn't get very far). Joss has just come in today, but he's entertaining a guest so I'm still goofing off at the moment.
I'll write more about AAO and Sydney later, but for now I'd better wrap up this post.
