I worked up a serious sleep debt over the last week that culminated in a horrible day yesterday where I felt very sick and hardly made it into bed when I got home from work around 7:30pm. I'm happy I packed some ibuprofen and tylenol. Not having to search for pain killers in some French pharmacy while feeling horrible is a big plus. I took an ibuprofen and fell into bed right when I got home. I woke up briefly to eat a slice of pizza I bought from a bakery near my work and then went back to sleep.
When I woke up this morning I felt orders of magnitude better. Work has been very full -- we've been working on this experiment for some time and we are making progress, but it is slow going. Today I learned that many of the capacitors that we take for granted in our electronic devices (controllers and the like) require an atmosphere that contains oxygen to function correctly. Since we work with battery materials, all of our work is done in argon. The dielectric constant of air and argon is very different and this difference is enough to cause serious quirkiness in electrical devices' functionality inside of an argon glovebox. Live and learn.
Nonetheless, we were able to make some good measurements today, and we will continue on next week. I plan to have a very quiet weekend filled with reading in the park and doing my laundry. It will be a much needed break from the intensity of the last few weeks.
Today I had an excellent lunch at this little tea room off of Rue Mouffetard. I ate some zuchinni soup with an excellent grainy bread -- it tasted like it was just baked, I'm not sure I've ever tasted such good bread at a restaurant. After the soup I had a mushroom and herb quiche (although anything that isn't quiche lorraine is not technically considered quiche. It is just an egg pie.) The quiche came with a side salad that was too salty for my tastes, but the quiche itself was great. My host Jennifer and I then both had a piece of cheesecake. I'm not a fan of cheesecake in the US, but apparently it is quite different here. The one we had was different from that in the states, but not too different. Jennifer was a little disappointed with it and said that she thinks they used a US recipe :) Oh well, someday I will taste a real French cheesecake. Anyway, it was a good lunch.
I just read that another Dreamliner caught on fire. Hm. Also, there was apparently a train that derailed just south of Paris. So don't worry, I wasn't on it. That's too bad though.
Sorry you felt so badly, but glad you were able to sleep and re- energize a bit. Interesting about the oxygen atmosphere. I assume when papers are published they include that kind of detail so someone else can replicate?
ReplyDeleteThe food sounds like a true experience.
I sent you an email about my dad.
Today in the elevator a physician, out of th blue, asked me if I speak French. I said no, but my daughter is in Paris! A weird Segway, but provided conversation up the elevator. He was obviously French and new to Kansas.
Scientific papers are notoriously horrible about containing small details like that. I wouldn't have thought of it until my adviser mentioned it.
ReplyDeleteThat's neat about the guy on the elevator! Hopefully he will enjoy Kansas. The rolling farmlands here are kindof similar to those in Kansas.