This photo is like an I Spy for deer!
The other day someone referred to me as Baby's mommy, and today someone else assumed I'm a straight cis man. Gender is made up lol
This morning it's 48 degrees and misty
and my heart says this is how the air is supposed to feel, just perfect and connected to the world
seems pretty clear we need to move back to Oregon
Every evening: Watching my baby expertly maneuver the spoon into her own mouth and still manage to get 99% of the food on her face. How??
Good morning! Yes, this is he
Gosh I swear this happens to me every 3 months like clockwork. Zero fun.
AAS President Dara Norman and Past President Kelsey Johnson published an opinion article in SpaceNews today titled "The future of astronomy is both on Earth and in space." The article is signed by 15 past, current, and incoming AAS presidents.
Husband has been doing all the cooking since Baby arrived. Tonight I said "hey btw I bought a salmon and forgot to tell you" and he's like no problem, sounds fun ♥️
My institution has declared a snow emergency "parking ban" tomorrow (i.e., no parking on campus), yet classes are not cancelled. How is that supposed to work? Did my faculty teleporter get lost in the mail?
Our daycare teacher at dropoff today: "so did your baby start eating solids recently? Because I got KFC for lunch and she tried to steal it right out of my hand... several times..."
Someone at work asked my pronouns and I was so excited I rambled on for several minutes straight. What the HECK, brain! That's not good for making friends!
Don't talk yourself out of it just because you don't know the state of the art in teaching. Tons of teachers do great work using just their pure intuition and vibes.
Middle school is an interesting age, though. "Classroom management" is absolutely a factor and worth a couple hours reading up on.
This was us at the start of semester! Winter break, 3 days of school, 1 week of illness, 1 day of school (a Friday), weekend... I was like, am I sure I'm still employed?
Pretty sure it's because this was the week my students had to do their "find and read 4 papers" assignment. :P
For a sec I thought this was Cambridge, U.S.A., and I was like WOW so much flying!
Reviewing my recent paper proofs has taught me that I really love hyphens... and my AAS journals copy-editors do not! 🤣
After 2 weeks of daycare, baby (and I) are on daycare cold #2, and I'm realizing I should have just stopped my immunosuppressants this month 😓
Astronomers/physicists: is the postdoc job market this year ultra difficult? I know seven people with no job offers right now, and I feel like they would have had many offers in previous years. In my career, I have never seen this lack of jobs at the postdoc level before. 🔭
Our AAS Education Committee report on 'The Landscape of Undergraduate Astronomy and Astrophysics Degree Requirements' is now available on arXiv: www.arxiv.org/abs/2602.03959. Please give it a read!
This is it! In most contexts I refer to it as ongoing.
Wow, the exact same date as the NOIRLab deadline? That is pretty brutal. :/
This paper was delayed for a few years, for many reasons -- dissertation, new job, pregnancy, depression -- so, even though it's not a fancy paper, it feels AMAZING to finally get it finished. I've got some wonderfully patient co-authors.
The next issue of "the Solar Neighborhood" is up! 🔭
In TSN 54 we present 54 orbits of nearby M dwarf binaries. These come from our 300-star, 4-year speckle program at SOAR.
Also included: 1000+ relative astrometry points -- keep watching these for longer orbits later!
arxiv.org/abs/2601.18905
Some new recommendations from our AAS Working Group on Graduate Admission: aas.org/posts/news/2...
Holy crap, teaching while parenting is a serious step up in difficulty.
Will baby go to daycare tomorrow, or will she stay home sick? Will she be ok with going to meetings? Will two zooms in a row be too many? Should I just cancel everything now?
And here's the Subaru, mid-excavation.
We got 20 inches of snow (and counting) in western Massachusetts. Here you see our fence (4 ft high), trash bin, and a mountain formerly known as our 2007 Subaru Outback.
Baby's first trip to the emergency room ✅ done!
(She's fine -- turns out she's so big and strong, she just needs way more Tylenol than the box suggests)
It was so awkward but I wanted John to have company 😆
It's like vacation! Everything is so peaceful! Never before have I had such fulfilling separation of work and life
