The Witching Hour

What Darwin would observe these days (Should be read with Werner Herzog voice in mind):

Just after the majority of everyone reaches their climactic enjoyment of an establishment, and as people cross the threshold of being tipsy to disorderly, the dynamic changes sharply and suddenly. Any mingling after this point is pointless.

Girls, who have not made a carnal connection with someone, will huddle together in their cloister of girlfriends, playing with cell phones, and clearly are not interested in anything the party has left to offer.

Guys, who have not managed to meet someone, will either show decency and leave the girls alone, or not, and awkwardly flock to the gaggles of females and make an awkward fool of themselves.

"The dynamic" is more or less a measure of the energy of the environment. Given a good ratio of slightly too many females, good music, and a positive mood the energy of the system is easily sustainable for the entire night. In this regime, there is no witching hour. The end product is actually an exponential decay in energy instead of a sharp drop, with no one wanting to leave, until they are too tired to stay.

A Lesson

I was told I should write a book about astronomy for dumb people. I would hate to have a dumb audience for any topic, let alone for my academic passion, thus I would revise that and say I'll write a book for the uniformed, and those lacking patience to learn it the proper way, with the goal of having an intellectual audience by the end.

Some things really do need math though.

Gravity Waves In The Early Universe

This picture is circulating around the internet as proof of inflation. Grains of salt people!

I had to sit on the floor like many people.

As many people know, there was a big bang. It happened some 13.7 billion years ago, and ever since the universe has been evolving in mysterious ways. We suspect there was a period of time where space-time underwent a quickly period of expansion. More definitely, a quasi-de Sitter period where gravity waves were created. We've never had direct observations of this until now. We think we've found a signal. Today, we had a speaker give us the low down on this recent news. The room was packed. It was beautifully delivered.

Note the slide title: "The End of the World as We Know It".

Jacob's Visit

Jacob finally left The Shire, and made his way to Europe. He spent a good month travelling around having all sorts of unexpected adventures with Amanda. At the very end they made their way to Holland. They spent the days exploring on their own, and we would all meet up in the evenings eating good food, and go out. We also rented a car and did a day trip to Groningen, about 200 north of Amsterdam, to a seed event for Jacob. I hope he enjoyed his little tour.

Dinner at my place on the second night. Red wine. Provolone tortellini, with mushroom, chicken, broccoli, creamy sauce, spinach and red cabbage. Very spicy too.

Amanda helped me in the kitchen, while Mark and Jacob sat about in the living room. That night, Jacob had a column to submit to the Orillia Packet, a newspaper he puns for in Canada, so we helped him clarify his arguments after dinner, and generally made his topic of social inequality sound better.

Adding cabbage juice to the creme fraiche sauce for colour.

I totally enjoyed this night with friends, eating our faces off, and playing music. Also, managed to Skype in Samira from Toronto.

That's rooting hormone in the centre. We were doing some impromptu gardening before breakfast.

On the last morning, before Jacob and Amanda left, we had an amazing breakfast at Mark's place. Chocolate pancakes, fruit salad, melted chocolate, avocados, bacon, juice, olive leaf tea, and crushed nuts. We brought them to the station on the back of our bikes and said our goodbyes. With hugs, and full bellies, they were off on their own adventure again.

Pictures Off My Phone

Was looking at my phone's memory and noticed some pictures.

GSD I met at the train station. He's 15 years old. His name is Guss.

Cousin Scott visited, this is us cheersing.

Boob cobblestone in Amsterdam.

Sinter Klaus dancing with an astronomer.

Crocuses grow everywhere in the Spring.

Helped Mark carry a bed-futon across town. This is us taking a break on the side of the road. Shoulda brought beer.

Mark paid for my help with Greek food!

Garfield is the fattest cat in the neighborhood.

1 of 50 rabbits living around the Observatory grounds.

Maggie's look-a-like eating grass near my bike shed.

A guy who looks like an old neighbor back in Toronto. Tom.

A wall with the signatures of all the famous astronomers/physicists who have given talks at Leiden. Einstein, Planck, Dirac, ..., all of them.

More rabbits chilling.

Reflecting by a canal at night... See what I did there?

Anonymous showed up at the market. I'm sure they will be in the Hague this week, with the nuclear talks going on.

Bench that reminds me of the bench I'm making with my dad.

How to wrap leftovers, like a swan.

Finding My New Room

My new room has a map, which still has the USSR on it. Putin loves this map.

As I said in a previous post, there exists a housing crisis in Leiden. The price and availability of rooms for students, especially international students, is dreadful, and the services provided less than adequate. A total revitalization of the housing program is direly needed. Here is how my month-long search went.

I returned from the Christmas holidays, which I spent in Canada with my family and girl of my dreams, only to find I had to vacate my dwelling. I had a friend who was willing to let me sleep on their couch while I struggled to find a place. Thus I began my search.

Having done the house hunt many times before I thought this would be a breeze. I soon found out that the prices were grossly inflated for shabby living conditions. Sure there were paces with four walls, a floor, and a stinky old couch but I need more than that if I'm going to live there for 400 Euros.

To exacerbate the problem, the Dutch students looking for a new roommate will choose another Dutch person before they choose you. The fault usually lies in your inability to communicate in their language. This made it particularly hard to find a reasonable place to live.

For me, the most unusual thing they have here is the hospiteeravond which is where a house will invite all the applicants who wish to live there to a kind of small party with drinks and chips. Everyone has a few chances to talk about themselves, to impress the house, and at the end they vote who stays. Usually the questions consisted of "What's the drunkest you've ever been?", or "How often would you be able to hang out with us?". It did seem pretty childish, and compounded with the fact that no one would speak English, I was lost as all the other applicants were Dutch. I stopped trying with those, as it was a big waste of my time, and not where I wanted to live.

Sorry to my Dutch friends, you are very nice, but there are quite a few obnoxious apples in your population. Finding a normal room meant you likely would have to go through an agency. This meant paying a month's worth rent to the agency before signing the contract! It was so ridiculous to me, coming from Toronto where you simply look on Craigslist, or Kijiji, or Padmapper to find a room! I lost heart after sending 100 emails and receiving only two replies who would take an non-Dutchman. Luckily one of those place said I could have the place and after a little more than a month of searching I found this room. 300 Euros a month, give or take a few, and it's cozy too boot. My result may not be the norm, as I relied on luck to find me this room. Take heart knowing you are not alone in the house hunt.

Student Housing Prices Rock Poverty Line

Recession rocks the student economy in Leiden as rent rises far above the poverty line! You can read all about it on the student forums of social media. The Leiden Housing Facebook group is a place where people go to look for solace and comfort, as they try to find a new place to live. People can post places they have to rent, and expect a blizzard of replies, as the homeless grapple with each other for the new place on the market.

The reasons people find themselves homeless are diverse, however a reoccurring cause is the student housing company DUOW. This two company has formed a cartel, strong-arming the price of rent into an unaffordable regime. The university is an implicit player, as they supply DUOW a steady stream of international students who have no idea what they are getting into.

The horror stories abound, and I found myself in one upon arrival. The place I was given was the cheapest available of their offerings, located in a boggy swamp, and far from the city centre. As you will see in my other posts, the place was full of filth and squalor, dominated by mosquitoes, and in disrepair. The company spent no effort on maintaining the building, allowed the internet to go down for weeks at a time during exam period, and charged outrageous prices to the students crammed into each hovel. While being the cheapest offering, it was still 340 Euros ($520 CAD). For comparison in Toronto, one of the most expensive places to live, I paid $460 CAD to live in the downtown. Many students here are paying over 600 Euros per month simply for a place to rest their head at night!

Suspect in the cause of such high prices is the ill-founded belief that international students have more money. This myth has long since been debunked, and in fact international students are simply poor students just like everyone else, in search of an education.

I myself faced this challenge, read about it in a following post.