[a notebook page decorated with watercolour British butterflies washi tape, titled "March", with lists of seeds as need planting and long-term projects I want to advance this month]

Back in about October, I realised that I was coming to the end of the notebook I've been using since 2011 for, well, a bit of everything (lab notes, lecture notes, poetry, therapy notes, thoughts about books, meals out, shopping lists, med logs, sketching out the arrangement of furniture in new flats, BSL class...), and coaxed myself into buying A New One to continue in... and at the same time coaxed myself into acquiring a ridiculous frivolous self-indulgence with dot-grid pages.

I also discovered that the Staedtler Triplus Fineliners I'd been coveting for many a long year were available in a pack of 60 from Ryman's with a significant discount.

And then I sort of queried the ether about What This Bullet-Journalling Thing Is, Anyway, and lo did celeloriel answer! Two introductions I found particularly useful: Bullet Journaling for Beginners (and Impatient, Unartistic People Like Me) and Finally Understand How to Keep a Bullet Journal (content note for a dizzying glimpse of an alternate universe from the Before Times in that second link). I also particularly appreciated Thorough Guide to the Bullet Journal System (content note for intentional weight loss) and, for a specific approach to keeping a record of Matters Upcoming, Future Log: The Alastair Method.

In practice, for me, the bit of bullet journalling that is New And Useful is the approach to keeping organised todo lists where every single item can be ticked off -- in a meaningful fashion! -- at the end of the day/week/month. The thing that makes this Work, and that makes it work for me, is the concept of using multiple kinds of tick-mark -- half-crosses for half-done, arrowheads for "scheduled for A Point In Time" and "migrated to A New List", strikethrough for "in fact I've realised I don't care that much about this any more". Scheduling I already had in Google Calendar (because that's how lab space and mass spec time are booked in my research group), and the "rapid log" I already had in the form of my tada lists.

What I didn't have, though, was todo lists that were working for me, in terms of "possible to look at without being overwhelming" and "possible to keep track of" and "such that I ever remember to look at them".

( Read more... )

Short version: I am getting on very well with the decidedly-modified system I'm circling around settling on. It's a somewhat more structured version of things I was doing already, in ways that I find helpful. And, as a bonus, I am very much enjoying the small indulgences of zoological and botanical art, and tactile notebook, and bright colours.

And even, this past month, I have managed to mostly avoid dripping water from my hydration device all over the pages covered in water-based inks! Long may this continue.

volcan01010, which -- like it says on the tin -- is volcanology and, also, the free or open-source software we (can) use to Do It.

I got there by looking for someone, anyone, who'd made a base for TAS plots using python. Turns out the module this guy wrote isn't trivially-to-me interoperable with veusz, at least with my current general cope levels, but the code did contain everything I needed to put shit together manually, which involved more irritating fiddly bits but substantially fewer meltdowns.

Ta-da:
Data from Mangler et al. (2019) (open access!), with IUGS fields and naming conventions per Le Maitre et al. (eds) (2002). Larger symbols (for stratigraphic units in bold in the legend) are samples I've analysed.

specifically: the FAKE SNAKE I Bullied Terribly at the plot Friday last.

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Slow worms are lizards that Forgot how to Leg. I am super fond of them; there are a bunch of them at the allotment, but I've consistently utterly failed to get half-decent photos, hence swooping (cruelly) on this opportunity. I put it back down within fifteen seconds of picking it up; it wiggled affrontedly off.

look at its little face

On Monday morning, I had an obnoxiously early routine medical appointment of uncertain purpose in Hammersmith. By the time you've got to Hammersmith from Enfield you're about three-quarters of the way to Kew, and they'd just e-mailed me to tell me that they'd extended this year's orchid festival by a bonus extra week, so having despatched said medical appointment (rather more productively than I'd expected to, to be fair) I bimbled around the Hammersmith charity shops for a bit before getting myself on a bus out toward Richmond.

And I am so glad I did, because it turns out that this year KEW BUILT ME AN ORCHID VOLCANO.



This does not do it justice but you'll just have to trust me, okay. It's on the waterlily pond in the Princess of Wales glasshouse, and words are insufficient to express my glee: it's a dark base, some sort of sculpting material over chicken wire, only they left some of it unsurfaced so that they could arrange plants through it. They've got a riot of red and pink and orange orchids and bromeliads and lilies and various fascinating foliage plants cascading down the sides evoking lava flows; they've got amazing structural white bits coming out top as an ash plume. The reason for this is that this year their focus is on Indonesian orchids and other flora and fauna and, well, Indonesia has a lot of volcanoes, but just -- they could have made this JUST FOR ME, PERSONALLY, and I had NO IDEA it was a thing and I am DELIGHTED BEYOND WORDS.

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The run's been extended to the 15th and I very much enjoyed pootling around (being as I'm already a Friend of the gardens so it was functionally free); lovely and quiet on a Monday afternoon. I didn't buy a Vanilla planifolia from the gift shop because they're twenty-five quid and there's no way I'll be able to keep one functionally alive, but Adam's deeply curious about the concept so I might see if they're reduced next week -- when hopefully both the camellia (in bud, starting to blossom, not yet spectacular) and the wisteria (likewise in bud) might be slightly further advanced.

Rainbow paracord shoelaces, Made By Me with scissors & a soldering iron & a pair of pliers & some aglets. I've since discovered that aglets can come in filigree; I have yet, however, to find a Better Rainbow in Paracord. Had them for a week and change now & they've not broken yet, so it's probably time to tidy up the laces on my hiking boots, which are definitely in need of some TLC.

[A very small snail crawls along the edge of a blue bucket, in three-quarters profile with one eyestalk elegantly extended.]

(With no apologies at all for the quality of the photo, but mild apologies for the lack of apologies.)

I have also, I informed my counsellor yesterday afternoon, Engaged in a Hobby.

... you have Engaged in a Hobby, my counsellor repeated, looking slightly mystified.

I have made Custard, I said. (And did not add "look at it! it's got anxiety!")

... you know, I really do look forward to our sessions, he said, while wearing his the-NHS-is-actually-and-for-realsies-paying-me-for-this-shit face.


All of which being as it may, turns out that the butane-fired soldering iron does an excellent job of bruleeing creme, at least when wielded by A as I look on suspiciously (the suspicion being in large part because it's his soldering iron and What If I Break It). Lessons for next time (we have another two ramekins of custard in the fridge!) are "use a thinner layer of sugar"; and something a little perplexing happened to the texture (it was grainy until reheated and then... stopped... being... grainy?), but that at least is going to have to wait until the next batch gets made for further Experimentation.

("Okay but what in fact is the Hobby to which you were referring," sed A, "because it's clearly not actually cooking, you do that a lot." "Pointless culinary one-upmanship contests against myself. OBVIOUSLY.")

We went to Skansen, which is what happens when Sweden decides that what it needs to do is transplant representative bits of village from all over the country to a hill in Stockholm. I was fond of it last time I went and I was fond of it this time, too, not least because it is full of AMINALS, of which no photographs sorry, but trust me when I tell you that the elk and lynx and wild boars and European bison et al were adorable.



( Five more slightly more sensible pictures below the cut! )