From: gardner@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Jonathan Gardner)
Subject: The Space Cadet gets to England
Organization: Institute for Astronomy, Hawaii
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 20:30:52 GMT

The door opens and a space-suited figure comes in. He opens his mirror-
faceplate, shivers slightly, and brushes off some of the fog which has
clung to him as he came in.

He walks to the bar, stopping just once to collect a hug from the Didi-
Sprite, who recognizes him as the Space Cadet. He pulls out his wallet
and sorts through what he finds. "Nope, don't need these any more," he
says, dropping some leftover American greenbacks, several thousand
Lire, and even a few Francs on the floor. "Ah, here we go," he says and
puts a thick brass Pound coin on the bar. "Now let's see, what do the
locals drink? Tea please, Mike, the best that the former Empire can
offer." Vax comes up and snuffles the dropped money. "Buy yourself a
new hose."

He looks around, perhaps a bit warily, as he expects to be blindsided
with hugs at any minute. "It has been so long since I really
participated in the Place I feel like I should re-introduce myself.
Well, maybe I'll get around to filling out that form that everyone has
been passing around. But in short, I first posted to the Place shortly
after I found out that I would be moving from Honolulu, a place I had
grown to love in the six years I lived there, to Durham, England. A
foreign country, and quite a bit frightening. To make a long story
short, well, here I am. But to keep it long..."

"I spent the last six months or so writing up my PhD thesis in
Astronomy. There seem to be quite a few PhD students in here, and I bet
you think you will be able to finish in a nice relaxed manner, and
won't have to panic like everyone else? Well, maybe you can, but I
couldn't. The last month especially was hard, and I pushed away most of
the people around me. Including this Place, although I usually managed
to lurk before things were wiped off the disk. Finishing my thesis was
the hardest thing I have ever done, which on the surface is not all
that surprising, but I was surprised at just how hard it was. But
basically, it was something I just had to do by myself, and I think in
the end it came out alright -- my thesis is something I am proud of. I
will need to put a bit more work into it before I publish -- some parts
more than others, but that is always true. I defended it successfully
on September 8, and thanks to Spacey for coming by with the
chocolates. Yum! Then I had a week to pack all my worldly possesions
for shipment. I was supposed to leave on the 15th, but I didn't finish
packing in time, and had to delay by a day. Drat! I didn't want to do
that, but, well, giving advice again, if you are moving a large
distance, say 10,000 miles or so, give yourself more than a week to do
it. ;->

"But I finally got off, and my first stop was San Francisco. I had an
absolutely wonderful time, and thanks to Mandelbear, Flowercat, TJ, and
SEA who made it so. My first stop was Grand Central Starpost for M &
F's Wednesday party. I was really sorry to have missed Firecat and
Aahz, who had been there earlier -- getting to the party was the main
reason why I was so disappointed I had to delay my flight. The next day
I spent with TJ, and in the evening I went for a guided tour of SEA's
haunted house. It was very impressive, and I would highly recommend
anyone who is in the area to go through it when it is open.  Actually,
more than impressive, I was amazed at the scope of the thing.  But
bring along someone to grab, as it will be quite scary when it is
finished. Or go with SEA, she is pretty huggable. But it is something
definately not to be missed.

"I spent Friday of that week with the friend I was staying with, and
got to do the tourist things -- like ride a cable car, and eat in the
Italian section. We spent a fair amount of time just walking around SF
soaking up the rhythms of the city. I really like it, and to those I
missed seeing on this trip -- don't worry, I will be back, hopefully
next time for a longer time.

"Friday morning at 7AM sharp I was off to Italy, arriving the following
morning in Milan. I was attending a week-long conference, and the
conference went very well. I saw some old friends I hadn't seen
in a while, and met some of the people from Durham that I will
be working with. There were lots of very good talks, and I was
able, somewhat, to catch up on all the lastest progress in my specialty
of Observational Cosmology. Milan itself, however, was pretty 
disappointing. It is quite a dirty city and was very very expensive,
despite the recent devaluation of the Lira. The only thing that
was cheap and good was the coffee, although the food, while expensive,
was excellent. They do have one impressive cathedral, and one 
impressive castle, and it was fun to walk around the downtown area and 
people-watch. Not, on the whole, however, a city I would recommend
visiting. But it is not really a tourist center anyways, like Rome
or Venice is. Maybe I will get back to see the "real" Italy someday.

"I left Milan by train, and despite warnings of a French train strike,
I made it to Paris with no trouble. Part of the way was by the 200
MPH TGV trains. I spent the night in Paris -- now there is a city
I like, and went on the next morning. Somehow -- I still am
not sure what happened, I was running about a half hour late, and
was going to miss my train, but when I got to the train station,
all the trains were running a hour late, while claiming to be on time.
I think that France just changed to Daylight Savings Time, but I'm
not sure. If so they hadn't yet changed the station clocks yet,
just the actual time the trains left.

"Anyway, I got up to Durham that evening (Sunday) and checked into 
a B&B. Yesterday I came in to work and, after getting a temporary
office and a temporary computer account (which is why I am still
posting this from Hawaii -- I will post my new address as soon as
I get it,) I went right to work writing a telescope proposal which
had to be mailed today. I applied to the AAT -- so all you Aussies
help me out by crossing your fingers; we can have a realspace down
there if I get the time. But, well, I am not overconfident, I spent
too little time on it for it to be my best effort. We'll see. 

"So that takes me up to today. I got the proposal off on time, and
tomorrow I will start to look for a place to live, as well as sorting 
things out like getting a bank account, etc. Looking for a flat
to let is not something I really enjoy doing, so wish me luck. I
haven't yet worked my way through my backlogged email, so to those
I still owe letters to, don't worry, I'll get to it.

"But here's something that seems appropriate for this group. In
some Eastern European countries people celebrate not only their
real birthdays, but also their half-birthdays. Since I was born
on March 31, I don't have a half birthday, really, but whatever I
have is (or isn't) coming up on September 31. So the question is,
how should I celebrate my twenty eighth and a half birthday that
doesn't exist?"

The Space Cadet looks down at the cuppa tea in his hand. "Oh yeah,
the toast. Well the main reason why I decided to post here in the 
first place 'way back in April, was so that when I moved over 10
time zones I would be able to bring some of my friends with me.
So, this toast isn't very original, but it is deeply felt,

"To the Place."

<<Crash>>

And to all those I haven't hugged in a while, <<HUG>>.

--The Space Cadet
--
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Jon Gardner                                gardner@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu
Institute for Astronomy                           University of Hawaii
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