Monday, January 21, 2013

Working at the JCMT

Well, I've been settling into my new job at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope this past week, and I think I'm really going to enjoy it.

For starters, every one of my coworkers is incredibly friendly and nice. Everyone's been great about helping me settle in, including inviting me along for dinner at a new restaurant in Hilo on my second day. I think I'm going to fit in rather well with all of the other astronomers/physicists/computer science people.

Also, I now have an office. I've never had my own office before, and it's a bit of a strange feeling – though a nice one. I don't have my name on the door yet, but I'll be sure to take a picture when it happens (which should be soon). I also have an absolute beast of a computer, with 128 gigabytes of RAM – necessary for dealing with the multi-gigabyte image files put out by some of the instruments – and a blazingly fast 16-core 3.10 gigahertz processor. It's pretty amazing.

One other fun feature of working for an organization primarily funded by the UK is that every day at 10 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon there's tea time, where anyone who wants to congregates in the staff lounge and has tea (or coffee, or soda, or...) and just talks about whatever, whether work-related or not. It's a really laid-back and informal atmosphere, and has definitely helped me feel at home.

All in all, I'm really looking forward to getting settled in and actually doing things!

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