A Grand New Year

It is 2013 and a whole new vista of opportunity is open to us all. It was there before of course but hidden behind the fake blind that was New Year. As a result we will make promises in the next few days that we know will be almost impossible to keep, from behind the sheen of the rose tinted glasses of January 1st, the day that makes no sense.

As the great shady Oak of Time bends to the Great Wind from Clomp's ego we wonder what will come in the weeks and months ahead, and whether we will appreciate all or come to rue our actions.

In many ways, which I will not uncomfortably recount, 2012 was a rather upsetting year. A rather important bridge was burnt and several major life changes occurred. Humans don't like changes, but can love surprises. It's a facet of how our brains evolve. We see far more negatives and postives and self-training is required to take our lives on in a positive manner. Also in 2012, I finished my PhD and made major progress in the world of self-awareness and general niceness.

Let's be more positive in 2013. I, for example, will work very hard to nail down an article draft within three or four days and then work on my new modelling project and look for MATLAB/Python jobs. It's all fun in the world of scientific computing! Or the total opposite of fun. Sometimes the distinction is very hard to find.

Scientific computation: The process by which we take some equations that have been quite fun to work out and then turn them into mindless programming drudgework. Oh, what fun and glamour the life of a mathemacian can be! Actually it can be sometimes fun to do all the coding, sometimes, when the world has turned to charcoal and snowy cherubs are blasting you with arctic breath. Sometimes the identification of a little bug that has been tormenting you for days or even weeks and then the smooth rolling out of a solution can be the most amazing experience, the fantastic culmination of such enormous amounts of stress you've stopped being able to process mango. Oh, if only there could be more of those moments and not the annoyed wrinkling of eyes as a jagged line creeps across a plot in some nonsensical manner.

Mutter mutter.

So, returning to the topic, there is a brave new world in 2013. There will be a job, papers, people to visit, a new place to live and maybe a whole lot more Spanish and Greek to learn.

Let's get started.


PS Happy New Year!