At the end of November a group of PhD students from RSES headed to ANU’s coastal campus in Kioloa for the first RSES writing retreat.
As expected of a ‘writing’ retreat, a lot of us were writing, but there were also people reading, coding, making figures – any work that can be done from a laptop.
The days had timetabled writing sessions, which were structured in 25 minute long pomodoros1 with 5 minute breaks, and longer stops for morning/afternoon tea and lunch. Working in short intensive sessions with regular breaks really helped to keep focused, and with everyone on the retreat keen to get work done, there was a good sense of solidarity.
Concentration during a writing session (Photo: Jennifer Prichard)
So you may have heard talks about the Earth Physics group within the RSES. You may not know this, but you do know some of them! They allegedly show up at morning teas and student lunches. Also various on and off campus gatherings. Some of them are quite loud, or so I was told1.
You may also have heard talks about this group being unsocial – this is a lie. I infiltrated this group about a year and a half ago and people are far from unsocial. They are lovely, witty, hilarious, social, warm and fuzzy and more than anything PhD students – just like you lot – and they in fact do love to party!
You may have also heard talks about Fluid Dynamics group. This is a group within the Earth Physics group. Everything I just said about the Earth Physics group applies to this small group too – basic tautology and Venn diagrams taught us this. But I have to admit here and now, that it is – unfortunately – very true, that we don’t see much of them. I don’t know why this is. I tend to believe that some horrible Mexican-like standoff went down – way-back in the days that separated this group from the rest. It’s not unlikely in the academia.
Artist rendition of a standoff
It may have been some water-level rise dispute, office space, or a maniac running around with an axe2. I don’t know – but what I do know is that from my limited contact with some of the people within this group, I can almost guarantee that they are amazing!
This is why I decided to go around all the prejudice and smugness and invite this group to our Cake Friday morning tea. I was told they would be there. They weren’t. Well, with the exception of one person who confirmed to me that the invitation DID spread out through the group (thank you my ambassador of goodwill – you know who you are and I appreciate your effort).
I found out later from the ambassador of goodwill that this group has their regular meetings at this particular time when the rest of us are stuffing cakes down our pie holes. Rumor has it they asked to have this moved to a different time. This is positive, eh?!
The revolution has started everyone! We will reunite once again – sooner or later. I am not giving up on this. I was called names for trying – I was accused of wanting more friends. I was told that the universe might explode because of something so improbable … probably happening. Well bring it on universe! Call me a friend if you want! In spite of all of this I have negotiated peace talks with the Fluid Dynamics group and we have successfully moved on. Some bribery in form of cake may or may not have been involved (people talk). Fluid Dynamics group is very welcome to gatherings, teas, lunches and whatnot. I am looking forward to see them there soonish. I’m inviting all of you to join me in this crusade and make them feel so welcome that we can all quickly forget that any separation ever happened.
Stay tuned!
1 The people, not the gatherings. Oh well, actually…
Just a little something for those who haven’t had the pleasure of wandering the halls of the Research School Of Earth Sciences at the ANU. Here we have the promotional video for the undergraduate department, where we all love fieldwork, and have aspirations to go on to geological greatness…Sigh, I remeber wanting to be great, now I’d be happy with submitting!
For a look at the research side of things click here, or here for a number of academic profiles.
OnCirculation 