More gems from the silage trough that was the years 1980-1989. I have doubtless left out a few stone-cold classics (off the top of my head, Chaka Khan and early Whitney Houston might have been worthy), and am stretching somewhat the definition of soul music. But I don't care, I love them all and it's my party.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
80s Soul Genius (part two)
More gems from the silage trough that was the years 1980-1989. I have doubtless left out a few stone-cold classics (off the top of my head, Chaka Khan and early Whitney Houston might have been worthy), and am stretching somewhat the definition of soul music. But I don't care, I love them all and it's my party.
The fire hose
I have just returned from the annual works outing to the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting in San Francisco. This is a five day marathon of poster sessions, talk sessions, meetings, receptions, over-drinking and undersleeping, encompassing the gamut of quantitative geosciences from atmospheric science to volcanology, and including quite a few things you might not associate with 'geophysics', such as solar physics, biogeochemistry and voluminous beer consumption. 23,000 people made the trip this year, a record attendance, and the meeting expanded to fill almost all of the three buildings that comprise the Moscone Center. for the first time (that I can remember, anyway). This meeting is LARGE.
So large, in fact, that it is quite fashionable to complain about how large it is. Agoraphobics could certainly have issues with the crowds, but I find it quite inspiring to see so much science going on in one place. A more common line of complaint is that it is impossible to see everything you want to see, which is quite true. In any meeting of this size there are bound to be scheduling conflicts, but the fact remains that for anyone who has broad research interests (Hi!), this will always be a problem, even in smaller meetings. Instead, I have adopted a more relaxed approach: whatever will be will be, I may be unable to see every talk I might want to see but I will go to as many as I can, and I will see every poster. (And the posters are where you get the real discussion, the nitty-gritty stuff, often with the people who are doing the bulk of the work, i.e. the students and postdocs.)
Even with a relaxed mindset, the meeting is exhausting. Standing in front of posters (mine or my students') for multiple days left me with aching legs, a stiff back and sore shoulders, and the inevitable pre-meeting poster panic and in-meeting liver abuse ate deeply into my beauty sleep time. Pounding the streets of San Francisco at all hours of the day and night, while welcome exercise, left me desiring a day or two of complete immobility, possibly on a sofa. But it is all worth it, in my opinion. The intellectual shot in the arm, and the exposure to new ideas, leading to multiple cross-fertilisations in your brain, sustain you well beyond the time it takes to recover!
It is almost a cliché that attending AGU is like 'drinking from the fire hose of science', such is the variety of the work on display and the intensity of the experience. Given the physical effects it has on one, there might be a good case for amending that to 'facing down the water cannon of science'. In any case, it is my favourite event of the year, and I wouldn't miss it for anything.
So large, in fact, that it is quite fashionable to complain about how large it is. Agoraphobics could certainly have issues with the crowds, but I find it quite inspiring to see so much science going on in one place. A more common line of complaint is that it is impossible to see everything you want to see, which is quite true. In any meeting of this size there are bound to be scheduling conflicts, but the fact remains that for anyone who has broad research interests (Hi!), this will always be a problem, even in smaller meetings. Instead, I have adopted a more relaxed approach: whatever will be will be, I may be unable to see every talk I might want to see but I will go to as many as I can, and I will see every poster. (And the posters are where you get the real discussion, the nitty-gritty stuff, often with the people who are doing the bulk of the work, i.e. the students and postdocs.)
Even with a relaxed mindset, the meeting is exhausting. Standing in front of posters (mine or my students') for multiple days left me with aching legs, a stiff back and sore shoulders, and the inevitable pre-meeting poster panic and in-meeting liver abuse ate deeply into my beauty sleep time. Pounding the streets of San Francisco at all hours of the day and night, while welcome exercise, left me desiring a day or two of complete immobility, possibly on a sofa. But it is all worth it, in my opinion. The intellectual shot in the arm, and the exposure to new ideas, leading to multiple cross-fertilisations in your brain, sustain you well beyond the time it takes to recover!
It is almost a cliché that attending AGU is like 'drinking from the fire hose of science', such is the variety of the work on display and the intensity of the experience. Given the physical effects it has on one, there might be a good case for amending that to 'facing down the water cannon of science'. In any case, it is my favourite event of the year, and I wouldn't miss it for anything.
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