Zompist Bboard Again

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 5:36 am What kind of person drinks warm soft drinks?

A Scot, apparently.

alice wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 2:39 pm

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 8:41 amWhen I was asked what football team I support on the Megabus, I said "Scotland". That is honest, and an appropriate answer to avoid football rivalry within Scotland.

Ah, but what team do you support when you're not on the Megabus?

If I ever would watch a football match again? Scotland, Germany, Réunion or France

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 10:30 pm

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Tue Apr 15, 2025 8:38 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 11:04 pm

After thinking about it and talking to as many people as I could, I accepted this offer yesterday. Thank you to everyone here who gave me advice! Of course, I’m still feeling very contradictory about it, but I’m determined to make the most of this opportunity.

(Climate is genuinely my biggest concern, since it’s the biggest unknown for me. A few nights ago I had a dream where I was walking through a city and it was -20 °C, and I think I ended up falling off a cliff into the sea and being frozen into an ice block…)

Congratulations! When will you arrive in my home country then?

September, I expect.

That's a shame because we shall have left again by then. We shall be over for most of July and the first half of August.

alice wrote: ↑Wed Apr 16, 2025 2:14 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Apr 16, 2025 5:32 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Apr 16, 2025 5:22 am

So you get the Australian winter immediately followed by the Scottish winter? I'm sorry to hear that.

Yep. I go straight from the middle of Aussie winter to Scottish autumn — which is the same temperature, note — and then it gets even colder. Ain’t I the lucky one.

(Still, there is a possibility that I may get to travel back to Australia in November. I’d better use the time to defrost myself.)

A glass of warm Irn-Bru is much cheaper and likely just as effective

How about mixing the Irn Bru with a whisky hot toddy?

bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 5:40 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 5:36 am What kind of person drinks warm soft drinks?

A Scot, apparently.

Cherried Out NOS, long since sadly out of production, tasted fantastic when warmed.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 9:16 am That's a shame because we shall have left again by then. We shall be over for most of July and the first half of August.

Ah well, the PhD is 3.5 years long, so I’m sure you’ll come back sometime during then…

bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 5:40 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 5:36 am What kind of person drinks warm soft drinks?

A Scot, apparently.

Not so unlikely when you consider the infamous deep-fried pizza, aka "coronary on a plate".

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 10:21 pm

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 9:16 am That's a shame because we shall have left again by then. We shall be over for most of July and the first half of August.

Ah well, the PhD is 3.5 years long, so I’m sure you’ll come back sometime during then…

Maybe. This is the first time coming since I went for fieldwork for my own PhD in 2022.

doctor shark wrote: ↑Mon Mar 31, 2025 6:28 am I've moved between a lot of climactic zones,

Maybe you mean “climatic”, referring to climates?
Maybe you don’t mean “climactic”, referring to climaxes?

It's amazing how quickly you can sometimes get stuff done once you've actually made yourself start.

My current boss opened up a position offering a permanent contract that I think I tick all the boxes for: it's effectively a second "him", helping him both with research, supervision, and teaching. All of these are things I have quite some experience with! (Plus I like Luxembourg.) But... apart from the fact that I don't know how competitive I would be in the applicant pool (and preparing a CV and all the application materials will involve a lot of work), I don't know good the position would be for me in the long run...

doctor shark wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 3:17 am My current boss opened up a position offering a permanent contract that I think I tick all the boxes for: it's effectively a second "him", helping him both with research, supervision, and teaching. All of these are things I have quite some experience with! (Plus I like Luxembourg.) But... apart from the fact that I don't know how competitive I would be in the applicant pool (and preparing a CV and all the application materials will involve a lot of work), I don't know good the position would be for me in the long run...

Is there any reason why the position could not be good for you in the long run? I there any better job coming your way at the moment?
Uncertain competitivity and job application preparation are par for the course with almost any job application in the past 4 decades.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Sat May 24, 2025 7:52 am

doctor shark wrote: ↑Sun May 18, 2025 3:17 am My current boss opened up a position offering a permanent contract that I think I tick all the boxes for: it's effectively a second "him", helping him both with research, supervision, and teaching. All of these are things I have quite some experience with! (Plus I like Luxembourg.) But... apart from the fact that I don't know how competitive I would be in the applicant pool (and preparing a CV and all the application materials will involve a lot of work), I don't know good the position would be for me in the long run...

Is there any reason why the position could not be good for you in the long run? I there any better job coming your way at the moment?
Uncertain competitivity and job application preparation are par for the course with almost any job application in the past 4 decades.

Well, I applied because why not, and my boss did the first screening... with only 11 actually making it through the eligibility screening (and maybe I'm among them). My concern, though, is that I don't know how independent the position would end up being: my aim is more as a group leader, which this could end up being, but it's not clear and especially not unless/until I would get a habilitation-equivalent. Which I'd be up for.

As for jobs, I do have about fourteen months remaining on my current contract. I also, though, only have about one year of eligibility left for the big European Starting Grant, so I need to start thinking about that soon. (Plus, you know, also working on my Luxembourgish citizenship application...)


Other Contradictory Thing: I leave to go to Prague for a conference tomorrow, which I'm very excited for, but AAAAH I LEAVE TOMORROW

With all these activities,
do you even find time for what's important,
conlanging, to keep that door ajar...

doctor shark wrote: ↑Fri May 30, 2025 3:16 pm My current boss opened up a position offering a permanent contract that I think I tick all the boxes for: it's effectively a second "him", helping him both with research, supervision, and teaching.

those jobs where you're told "you have to be a second me" are, in my limited experience, not the best: people who say such things unironically tend to have poorly defined expectations, which isn't ideal when those expectations are one's job. not the end of the world, tho, just, you know, beware.

then again, my current position started out under that premise, and by now i've found my place in the company and it's probably the coolest job i've had so... yeah, don't be too ware.

Good: I've gotten quite a lot of writing done recently.

Bad: None of it was for the specific writing project that I had posted about recently on the ZBB, and that some people might expect me to work on.

Wild bees are apparently building, or have already built, a nest under the planks on our balcony. If they were wasps, I'd have posted about them in the Venting Thread, but since they're bees, I've got more mixed feelings. I mean, bees are pretty useful for all kinds of things, and they've had various troubles recently, and I think they're even a protected species here.

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 4:07 am Wild bees are apparently building, or have already built, a nest under the planks on our balcony. If they were wasps, I'd have posted about them in the Venting Thread, but since they're bees, I've got more mixed feelings. I mean, bees are pretty useful for all kinds of things, and they've had various troubles recently, and I think they're even a protected species here.

What sort of wild bees? Over here, most of the native varieties are stingless.

Last fall, I saw at the top of a tree in the garden an Asian hornet's nest
as big as a basketball (or should I say a basketball ball...),
that must have been active all summer,
without ever interacting with us...

unlike the hives that a beekeeper placed in the forest
and whose bees stung us copiously in the spring
while we were just passing by on the path...

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 4:47 am
What sort of wild bees? Over here, most of the native varieties are stingless.

I have no idea. A quick internet search tells me that apparently, all the wild bee species in Germany have stings, but the smaller species don't have big enough stings to easily pass through human skin.

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 4:55 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 4:47 am
What sort of wild bees? Over here, most of the native varieties are stingless.

I have no idea. A quick internet search tells me that apparently, all the wild bee species in Germany have stings, but the smaller species don't have big enough stings to easily pass through human skin.

Well, then maybe the first step would be to attempt to identify the species. (Good luck…)

Wild bees in France have stings (depending on species), but they're not agressive. Most of these aren't social, so you likely won't have a lot of them.
They're essential for pollination and endangered, so good news.

As xxx said, Asian hornets aren't agressive towards human beings, and in fact seem shyer than ordinary wasps or European hornets -- unless you attack the nest directly, of course.
They're extremely dangerous to beehives, though.

Here we get carpenter bees, they're enormous but completely innocuous; those nest in the woods. In the house we have the weird looking Sceliphron.