Ringing a change

Right, it's about 3 weeks before we move into our new building and I reckon it's time to get going on resolution no. 5, "Leave a Legacy of Institutionalized Tea Time at KIPAC". I found this shiny ship's bell on eBay and am about to get our admin to order it for us - she, and the rest of the staff and postdocs think its a jolly good idea for us to be able to make a (big!) pot of tea and then summon everyone within earshot to come and drink it, at 4pm, every day. Still not sure how well it'll catch on with the yanks but I am feeling pretty optimistic.

Quite by chance David just came round looking stressed because the bigwig signed up to write this month's commentary column (in the national lab magazine David edits) just pulled out. We came up with the idea of a piece on the importance of tea-time in research, and he then furiously ghost-wrote it in the hour before the print deadline. Here it is!

"There is no problem so great or grave
that cannot be much diminished
by a nice cup of tea."
Bernard-Paul Heroux

The January Report for Richard J

That's got to have been the longest, yet fastest, January on record.

For those that didn't know, I directed a play. I'd begun in October last year, but was up to 4 rehearsals a week in January, with opening night on 31st.

So:

1. Trust your instincts
I let my instincts be the judge on almost all directorial decisions and the results were very highly praised.
[follow the progress retroactively at arturoui.blogspot.com]

2. Write something else
Being director also meant being main publicist, so I've written flyers, programmes, magazine articles as well as being asked to write the flyer for the next show [Pride & Prejudice on in April for those interested].

3. Find a new job/career
Hmm. That's been on hold mostly while the directing took over, but things are moving.

4. Look after my back
Very bad on this one. Lots of standing around and leaning over theatre balconies to watch the play coupled with no time to do exercises has left my back locked up like a nun's pants.

5. Eat healthily
The play's the thing, again, to blame here. Rushing from work to the Studios meant I even cut out the meal commonly known as dinner completely last week. But at least I've been making up for it with some big lunches. Now the war's over, I'll get on top of this one.

So 3 out of 5 going very well, and only one complete failure. Not bad, but it was resolution-fulfilling-January...

Not Forgetting a Single Birthday

I have made some progress on this one, figuring out how to get my Yahoo calendar
to send me reminders about people's birthdays, 2 weeks and then 1 week in advance. Not wanting to pay Yahoo for a proper email service, I registered my mobile phone and should now get text messages telling me to go to the post office. Hopefully it won't cost too much getting this kind of interweb sms - I got stung by Cingular wireless this week for using up my minutes so I wouldn't be surprised if it costs $2.79 per message or something stupid like that.

Anyway, I now need a full list of dates to enter on my calendar, and thought you might like to see them too. Here's the list so far, Ill add to it as I get emails/blog comments from the angrily left out:

• Johnno ??/??
• Phil 28/2
• Jen 14/3
• Jane 20/3
• Ben 20/3
• Zoe 3/4
• Imogen 24/4
• Matt 27/4
• Jack 20/9
• Sarah 15/10
• Louise 2/11
• Katie 4/11
• Greg 16/11
• Adam 24/11
• Richard 10/12