so after one very long and quiet month i finally have two (2) new labmates, one other post-doc and an RA, both of whom seem very nice. i'm debating the wisdom of using names, although i suppose any reasonably diligent (and nosy) individual could be now easily work out who i am and where i currently work*. perhaps for now they should be the other post-doc, and the physics RA. no, something more exciting. well, the post-doc does FNIR (functional near infra-red imaging), so he can be dr. fnir. and actually, RAs are pretty unexciting so he can be RA #1. dr. fnir just finished a phd in the states and has very similar notions to me of what a lab should be like, which is excellent because i don't think the boss quite shares that vision. it's not always about numbers, but 2 vs 1 is a comforting start. RA #1 is me 6 years ago except that he knows a lot more about neutrinos.

in other news, i had lunch today with yl's friend, who i met at the japanese film festival last week, and who is interested in music psychology, homosexuality in religion, and a bunch of other weird and wonderful things. we landed up in the horrible arts and sciences cafe where the mashed potatoes look and taste like glue, and spent a pleasant hour chatting about argentina, and using BCI to turn EEG waveforms into music, and whether graduate education is worth the peril of pursuing it (totally). not that you don't know this already, but conversations like these are what make working in academia the best thing ever.

* i tend to only use names of people who read this blog, and even then.