This week is the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM), which is being held at the University of St Andrews this year. NAM is always a great meeting to attend: the talks are very general, people are attend talks outside their specific niche, and of course there is a lot of banter when you have 600 astronomers grouped together in a little town.
I was super excited for the start of this meeting (to be referred to as St. NAMdrews from here on in). There are two reasons for this: the university is my alma mater and I relish every moment spent in such a beautiful town, and also it's July, which means long, warm days of summer. On top of these two pros, a large contingent of both students and staff from UCLan were able to attend this year, and we decided to stay all together at David Russell Apartments (DRA).
Thus far, I must say that St. NAMdrews has completely lived up to my expectations.....and beyond! The Local Organising Committee and the session organisers have done a great job of finding a fantastic venue for the event, putting up some yummy buffet lunches (although the tea and coffee served have been completely awful) and for getting a great variety of topics and sessions set up.
I'll just give a little run through of the UCLan experience of St. NAMdrews. As the only local in the group, I've been acting as self-appointed Social Secretary...which has been a great opportunity to revisit all my old haunts as well as re-visiting all the most beautiful spots in town.
Sunday: our travel plans broke down at the very first hurdle when we discovered our lunch pub was closed and we had to lug all our bags and poster tubes to KFC before heading for the train station. It was mostly smooth sailing after that - we got to DRA without too many more glitches and before we knew it we were settled down at the Westport Bar for a few drinks and a (not so) light dinner.
HIGHLIGHTS: many people consumed a portion of haggis for their dinner
nostalgia hit when I started imbibing pints of Tennents
some tasty rum at Drouthy Neebors
Monday: first day of the conference and thankfully we had the morning off to relax a little. After enjoying the first of many buffet breakfasts (which got later and more hungover towards the end of the week) I took the PhD kids out for a walking tour of the western part of town. This included a walk down through the Old Course and down on West Sands. We then had to make our way to the conference for registration, with a quick stop for lunch at the WheyPat. Everyone agreed that the nachos there were fantoosh, although they wished I had mentioned they come in sharing sizes.
The first afternoon of conferencing had some nice sessions: we were attending the talks in Galaxy Chemistry. However, the best times are always coffee breaks, when you get a chance to schmooze with collaborators and show off your work. Since the majority of my group were presenting posters, this is a key opportunity to do some showing off. I in particular got very lucky, because one of my two posters was in prime viewing position. As it was the first day, there was also a drinks reception to attend in the marquee, with the wine flowing nice and freely. And after that of course, it was off to the Vic for some dinner and drinks, as well as a bit of ping pong. It ended up being quite a late night!
HIGHLIGHTS:
everyone's face when the nacho plates arrived
Stew begging a bottle of wine off a waitress and then having it removed by said waitress
Getting my Tweet on with the conference twitter page #nam2013
Tuesday: The first early morning start - we had to be at breakfast for 8am if we wanted to make the first plenary of the day. We walked over to Younger Hall just in time for Hiranya Peiris to give us a pretty interesting talk on 'Planck's view of the origin of cosmic structure'. This was then followed by a day of sessions going by the title of 'Declining Star Formation and the rise of the Ellipticals', which included some really interesting talks as well as two minute poster adverts (which I had to participate in).
After conferencing was done for the day, we headed over to the Central for a couple of pre-dinner drinks, before heading over to the Dining Room for a Chinese dinner. This was a great choice - everyone had a really good time at dinner and I was super glad I had thought to make a reservation there. It was beautifully spiced and varied food, with some excellent wine to go along with it.
HIGHLIGHTS: my super spicy pork in broth
seeing all my old lecturers wandering around - it kinda felt like I was an undergraduate again
having a few drinks at DRA bar to top off the night
So I've given you a bit of a taste of what NAM has been like this year. It's not quite over yet, so I'll write another couple of blogs about it over the weekend, including some pictures that will be sent to me by the other PhD students. Catch you all later!!
I was super excited for the start of this meeting (to be referred to as St. NAMdrews from here on in). There are two reasons for this: the university is my alma mater and I relish every moment spent in such a beautiful town, and also it's July, which means long, warm days of summer. On top of these two pros, a large contingent of both students and staff from UCLan were able to attend this year, and we decided to stay all together at David Russell Apartments (DRA).
Thus far, I must say that St. NAMdrews has completely lived up to my expectations.....and beyond! The Local Organising Committee and the session organisers have done a great job of finding a fantastic venue for the event, putting up some yummy buffet lunches (although the tea and coffee served have been completely awful) and for getting a great variety of topics and sessions set up.
I'll just give a little run through of the UCLan experience of St. NAMdrews. As the only local in the group, I've been acting as self-appointed Social Secretary...which has been a great opportunity to revisit all my old haunts as well as re-visiting all the most beautiful spots in town.
Sunday: our travel plans broke down at the very first hurdle when we discovered our lunch pub was closed and we had to lug all our bags and poster tubes to KFC before heading for the train station. It was mostly smooth sailing after that - we got to DRA without too many more glitches and before we knew it we were settled down at the Westport Bar for a few drinks and a (not so) light dinner.
HIGHLIGHTS: many people consumed a portion of haggis for their dinner
nostalgia hit when I started imbibing pints of Tennents
some tasty rum at Drouthy Neebors
Monday: first day of the conference and thankfully we had the morning off to relax a little. After enjoying the first of many buffet breakfasts (which got later and more hungover towards the end of the week) I took the PhD kids out for a walking tour of the western part of town. This included a walk down through the Old Course and down on West Sands. We then had to make our way to the conference for registration, with a quick stop for lunch at the WheyPat. Everyone agreed that the nachos there were fantoosh, although they wished I had mentioned they come in sharing sizes.
 |
| The poster I presented on my published work |
HIGHLIGHTS:
everyone's face when the nacho plates arrived
Stew begging a bottle of wine off a waitress and then having it removed by said waitress
Getting my Tweet on with the conference twitter page #nam2013
 |
| My new project and a new poster |
Tuesday: The first early morning start - we had to be at breakfast for 8am if we wanted to make the first plenary of the day. We walked over to Younger Hall just in time for Hiranya Peiris to give us a pretty interesting talk on 'Planck's view of the origin of cosmic structure'. This was then followed by a day of sessions going by the title of 'Declining Star Formation and the rise of the Ellipticals', which included some really interesting talks as well as two minute poster adverts (which I had to participate in).
After conferencing was done for the day, we headed over to the Central for a couple of pre-dinner drinks, before heading over to the Dining Room for a Chinese dinner. This was a great choice - everyone had a really good time at dinner and I was super glad I had thought to make a reservation there. It was beautifully spiced and varied food, with some excellent wine to go along with it.
HIGHLIGHTS: my super spicy pork in broth
seeing all my old lecturers wandering around - it kinda felt like I was an undergraduate again
having a few drinks at DRA bar to top off the night
So I've given you a bit of a taste of what NAM has been like this year. It's not quite over yet, so I'll write another couple of blogs about it over the weekend, including some pictures that will be sent to me by the other PhD students. Catch you all later!!
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