starfish @starfish@sunbeam.city
v系 trash 🌟 hipster geek 🌟 physics nerd 🌟 late 20s 🌟 she/her 🌟 Finnish, post-doccing in Italy
alt @starfish
Joined Jul 2019
Looks like I'm going to Münich for my next post-doc. If anyone has any Germany-related tips, lmk!
(boosts welcome)
Christmas, positive, food
But for Christmas, I guess it's the hipster in me, but I just love being by myself. I got myself a Friends Lego set and built it last night (I was reminded that these exist when looking for duplos for my BFF's daughter a few months ago, 😅), I get to make food I am actually decent at making, and while I love the *concept* of a Christmas dinner, almost every savoury vegetarian Finnish Christmas food is on my (quite short!) list of foods I *don't* like 😂
Christmas, positive
People always say how awful it must be to spend a Christmas alone, but for me it's honestly one of the times I'd almost rather be by myself.
Generally speaking, I do really miss actually talking to people, having local friends, seeing family and friends from elsewhere, all that, a lot of the time, both outside and during other holidays (I've only celebrated new year properly once outside childhood, for example, and would love to do that again).
academia
Got a postdoc offer in Münich. It's slightly colder than I'd prefer, and it's not 100% in the direction I'd like to go to research-wise, but the group is lovely and it's still fun and interesting physics (and it's very close to me so it'd be an easy move. I could even buy a bike after all and take it with me).
Need to decide by the 29th, which I am *not* a fan of, usually people are expected to give until the 6th for the first round of offers...
I have at least one other position I'm shortlisted for atm, and I'd like to see if I get an offer from them first, it's closer to my goals research-wise, but my interview with them didn't go as well.
Happy solstice to all! 🌄
Too cold for the mountains, but walked through a small valley and saw some cool rocks. Beautiful day, reasonable temperatures (15C on the sides of the valley, 20C here. Bottom of the valley was absolutely freezing though, no sunlight and temperature inversion).
food, physical health+-
I've thankfully reacquired my voice, still feeling a bit ugh but not too bad.
HOWEVER, not being able to go outside properly (I did take small walks today and yesterday) meant I had plenty of time to make food! I baked bread on Friday, and made fresh pasta yesterday (the first pic, also made some tomato sauce and served it with tomini cheese), and also a serving of noodles while I was at it to use to make spicy miso mushroom ramen today (second pic, homemade overnight awase dashi too, and homemade chili oil, and SO MANY TOPPINGS, at least menma, spring onions, bean sprouts, ajitama, pickled mustard greens, fresh greens. I'm very full). Also made some cold-rise pizza dough for next Friday. Lots of good food!
ph-, covid adjacent (but not covid, hopefully)
I'm sick and have lost my voice.
Lost voice means I can't go to the doctor to get sick leave or a covid test (they won't communicate with me using slips of paper, I've tried that before.). I could get one of those take-home tests but "they don't count" and my symptoms don't really seem like covid, more just like a regular cold.
I guess 21 months of not being sick ( 😷 💕 ) was a good achievement
I'm writing post-doc applications, and while this is not going in any of my inclusivity statements for reasons, it made me remember when I was visiting a uni in South Africa and one of the professors said something to the effect 'we shouldn't have to hire people just to fill quotas, we should be able to require them to be actually good, good like you, able to give a great set of lectures as a PhD student'. While I felt like there was a bit of a ??? undertone that I didn't want to get into, it has stuck with me.
This happened a week or two before I came out at work, I don't think he had *any* idea whatsoever (I even removed my nail polish so I wouldn't get into trouble at Qatar airport...). And ever since then it's been one of my main reasons for wanting to stay in academia: If even people like him thought I was good enough to be a 'goal-post', I really feel like it's my responsibility for trans and otherwise queer students to show that it's perfectly possible to get there.
food
I've seen so many good soup tiktoks lately and craving soup as a result
it was, indeed
Good Soup
Research bucket list ✅ :
Defining and using a nonstandard generalisation of the zeta function.
Heights
So my fear that the walk before I left was going to be the last mountainous one didn't happen because it hasn't snowed yet!! I was so happy, it was even warmer at 2.5k than in Finland. Might be snowless for a few more weeks and if so I'm going to continue my Saturday walks, since based on this year there will be way much snow this high until early June-ish? Even 1.8k was awful in early May.
Good views, saw chamois and birbs, very tired but enjoyed it so much.
Back in Italy and the cold of Finland feels so far away 😊 I stepped out of the shower and DIDN'T FREEZE
I HAVE MY BANK CARD I will be able to escape this frozen wasteland tomorrow 🎉 🎊 🤩 ✨
The bank card I've been waiting for almost a month is stuck at another branch almost 500km away and I have to go there tomorrow so I can get it on time to leave on Friday 🤪 10 hours on train tomorrow followed by flight on Friday 🙃 the bank customer service just kept straight up lying to my face and said it was already in the mail a week ago, fucking idiots
Food
Made dinner for parents and brother :) grated daikon and cucumber, chilled sesame soba, spinach goma-ae salad, miso soup, miso-glazed aubergine (nasu dengaku-style), spicy pan-fried broccoli, and vegetarian tofu oyakodon.
Brother approved, he's a chef, I'm happy with that
I mentioned in the queer telegram chat of my old uni that I got my legal gender change done and one of the profs (who is also generally awesome) gave me this and omg it was such a sweet thing to do 
😭
