Some thoughts, mostly unconnected to each other

It's not unusual for me to not see the sun for most of any given work day. It is unusual for me to come home without feeling bitter about not having seen it for most of the day. I like the sunshine, believe it or not, and it'd be nice to be out in it more often.

Today (well, yesterday, by now), the only leisure time I spent outdoors (I don't count biking to/from school, mind you) was when I stepped out for a quick breather and managed to take the above photograph. I spent the rest of the evening at work, and if it were a normal night, I'd be feeling unhappy about having spent it all at the lab.

You see, work at the lab is often/usually/all the time a frustrating affair because sh*t breaks. A lot. In fact, I've come to expect it and am not used to having things actually work. Should it be this way? No, probably not. Is it the reality? Well, enough for me to form negative expectations anyway... :)

That said, some stuff worked tonight. It wasn't earth-shattering, ground-breaking, or even all that interesting to anyone at all (mostly because it has been done before), but the thing 1) didn't break, 2) seemed to be consistent with the physics as I understand it, and 3) matched very well with some calculations I had done 4 years ago (!) that I'd never really had the opportunity to "test" experimentally. That seems to have put me in a good mood, so now's probably not a good time to think about how I have to wake up in 6 hours to turn the experiment back on for the folks coming in at 11 am. Grrrr...

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On a completely unrelated note, I've been reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. It's an interesting book, and you should consider reading it, blah, blah, blah. That said, one of the characters says something about himself that resonated with me: "...he was in lazy doubt about everything; doubt was much more energy efficient than conviction." Without judging it to be good or bad, I will make the observation that this sentiment applies to me pretty well.