Hard to believe it’s been a month since I last updated the blog. As you can probably guess it’s been a month of mostly settling in. So what have I been up to? Starting with the boring stuff. Work has been going mostly well. Still been mostly reading and admin stuff so far but I’m meeting with the boss tomorrow and will hopefully be able to start doing something more exciting. I’m now mostly settled in – I have a new laptop, have an office key and am getting to know my colleagues. However I still have to get a visitor pass everyday. Apparently when my faculty changed from being an independent institution to part of Dalhousie University a new agreement had to be signed between our hosts, the federal government, and us concerning our presence in their building. This is bogged down in Dalhousie’s legal department and until it’s sorted they’re not going do the backgrounds checks on me that would allow me to get a staff ID pass and building keys. I have a horrible suspicion this is going to last the whole of my two year post-doc. After I’ve yet to come across a university administration that is efficient.
In other work related news I’ve agreed with my boss that I’m going to go to a couple of conferences this year. First up is Evolution in North Carolina at the end of June. I went to this last year and found it both enjoyable and a good networking opportunity so am pleased to be going again. I plan on visiting Denver and climbing for a few days afterwards. Then in September I’m off to St Louis for a plant genomics conference. Hopefully this will allow me to meet people in my new field and get a better idea of what others are up to. My current plan is to go and see friends in Kansas City for the weekend afterwards – assuming any of them are still there. On the subject of trips I’m also doing a Denver / Kansas City trip for my birthday. Brought the flight with accumulated United miles so doing it nice and cheap and means I got to do a climbing birthday trip again.
I now own a car. Guess what it’s a Ford estate (UK) / wagon (US/CAN) again! A Focus this time. I looked a couple and decided I like this one more. I went to try and look at it the second Friday I was here but I went to the wrong site. Anyway they agreed to deliver it to me the next day and let me test drive it for the rest of the weekend. I decided I liked it and so agreed to buy it. The nice people at the dealers let me drive it while I was organising the money to buy it so I no longer had to rely on lifts from colleagues. Once I had the money I brought the car, they took it off my hands for the day to update the safety tests (as was legally required) and then returned it to me. Insurance is costing me a fair bit but that’s to be expected given my lack of Canadian driving record. Finally got the tags and everything sorted for it yesterday so it even feels completely like my car now. Hopefully this car will behave better than my American one but I’ve brought CAA membership just to be safe! Photos to follow at some point I hope.
My ankle has still been playing up although it’s definitely getting better. Last week I decided I wanted reassurance that it was healing OK so took my self of to a doctor’s. I would have done this sooner except I didn’t have my Nova Scotia health card previously so would have had to pay up front. Anyway she agreed it was taking a long time to heal and suggested physical therapy although she didn’t seem too worried about it. She confirmed that it probably wasn’t broken as apparent breaks are a lot easier to spot once they’ve started to heal and as my x-ray was done so long after they would probably have spotted any break. Physical Therapy isn’t covered by the government here but is covered by my work health insurance so having spoke to them I’m hoping to go and see someone next week.
I haven’t had much chance to get climbing yet, although I did manage to go ice climbing last Sunday. Top-roped three routes which was really rather enjoyable – I miss swinging my axes even if I’m still not very good at it. Met a few people there who I hope to go indoor climbing with although two of the three are away for a bit so it may be a while before I actually get to go although I’m hoping I may be able to arrange something with the third next week. I’ve also started swimming again. Still feeling unfit and a bit useless although I’m slowly building back up towards what I was doing before I hurt my ankle.
Haven’t done too much exploring yet – the weather’s been a bit too cold and snowy for it so far. The snow is more of a stopper than the cold as my ankle doesn’t much like walking on the snow. Still the weekend for last I went for a ten mile hike. This was the same hike I did when I came up for interview except this time I saw it through to the end. The views at the end (photos) were nice but probably not worth the five mile hike each way to see as the rest of the hike wasn’t that scenic. Last Saturday I also went for a shorter hike along the dykes around Wolfville (photos) which was more scenic if a little unpleasant at time due to the cold winds. It reached -20 C the other night but tonight it’s getting as high as +11 apparently before dropping off again to about -10 over the next few days. I’m looking forward to Spring!
Today I also looked at another apartment which is available from the beginning of March. This one is unfurnished and more of a long term option. I liked it really quite a lot so popped off a few questions to the letting agency. If the reply’s are what I want I think I may have found my home for the rest of my time here. Fingers crossed. I shall obviously let you know what happens in my next post.
Well there’s quite a lot so it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve forgotten something but I think that’s about all my news. In summary things are going well and I’m getting off my arse a lot quicker than I did in Kansas so hopefully I’ll get settled in quicker. Don’t worry friends in Kansas I’m not going to forget you and a very enjoyable 18 months any time soon!