So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I meant to respond to the Kelvin bit, as well, but got side-tracked with funding woes... Oh well, it will have to be another comment; hopefully wiseheart will forgive my wasteful ways! ;-)

Do I take it from your comment about Kelvin that you studies in Cambridge? You saying that you have a BA in Natural Sciences, made me think this was likely; one of my colleagues here at Queen's did his degrees at Cambridge and he has mentioned how you don't actually apply for a specific science subject, but rather do natural sciences with some specialisation. I think this is a more sensible way to do university courses; students often don't know what to expect from a university degree in say physics, so giving them the ability to change their minds without having to start over seems very useful to me.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

And enough to share! How very sociable of you. :-)

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I LOVE CHEESECAKE!!!!

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

Yummy!

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

YAY!!!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It was rather nippy as I cycled home tonight, and felt as if we might get frost tonight. But then the sky was almost clear, so I would expect the temperature to drop a lot over night. The forecast seems to be for more rain tomorrow evening, so then it shouldn't be so cold...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

According to the dictionary handily placed within reach of my chair, light comes from OE 'leht' which looks very similar to the German, whereas 'lumière' presumably shares roots with all the English words sourced from the Latin, such as 'luminous'.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I have been mostly growing (new) things in pots; my garden had well-established bushes of different sorts and heights along the borders when I moved in and I thought it prudent to see what they were like for at least a year before I started digging things up. I have had reasonable success with my strawberries, and my tomatoes are doing wonderfully with lots of fruit. My attempt at radishes, ended up with greenery and flowers, and very little root and my lettuce keeps getting eaten by the slugs. I do have two beautiful mini sun flowers in a pot though, which make me smile each time I go out in the garden to get my bike to cycle off to work.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

We're 30 miles NW of NYC. Rockland County. A lot of it is typical suburban, but there are older pockets that are very wooded, and the county is adjacent to a large state part so we get wildlife. We don't have a regular garden to worry about, too much shade, so I don't mind them at all, they're beautiful animals.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

It's because I like to nibble at lots of different dishes myself :)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Time for me to head to bed! Thank you wiseheart for hosting such a fun party, and thank you to all party guests for all the fun and interesting discussions!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Indeed! Cambridge admits all science students to the NatSci tripos; in my day you had to do three subjects plus various choices of maths in the first year, three subjects in the second year (one of which could be maths), and then a single subject in the final year. A lot of people I know started out intending to read either physics or chemistry, and ended up reading whatever they'd taken as their third subject -- usually geology or some form of biology.

I certainly was never advised at school of the level of maths knowledge that was necessary to get anywhere in physical chemistry (which was what interested me). It was obvious that chemistry was not going to work by the end of the first week, when my inability to do partial differential equations made my supervisor despair of me!

[sammydragoncat]

mmmm! I haven't had Chinese food in awhile.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Ah, it looks like Wikipedia got it wrong (not for the first time). The hexagonal tower part is lovely -- some of the terraces in our nearest town have hexagonal or circular towers on the end terrace building, but I've never been inside one. I can see it would be a challenge for furniture fitting though!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

The three-year research project is brutal if you'd like to settle down somewhere. Many of the people I knew got out after their first or second post-doc, often to have children.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of people are worried about deer eating their garden plants -- not that we get deer here at all. In fact nothing bigger than badgers.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

That looks delicious, and reminds me of how long it is since I've had a decent Chinese meal.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Good night! Don't work too hard tomorrow!

[sammydragoncat]

I have to admit, the low maintenance of a newer home is tempting. But newer homes are generally built further from my work, and I would rather have a shorter commute time.

[sammydragoncat]

Especially after a hard day a work - who wants to cook.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

Only three years for university? How interesting. Four years or the equivalent stretched out over more time if attending part-time has been the standard in the US for a long time.

However, change is a-comin' to US post-secondary education. As tuition climbs ever higher and graduates leave with more and more student loan debt (me included: paid off the last of my college loans in my 30s, but I'll be paying off the loans for my master's thesis project until I'm 71), questions about both the costs and the value of what they're getting for that money have reached the level of public discussion in popular media. I think uni in the US will look quite different within the next decade.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Your cheesecake sounds delicious! What day is your actual birthday? Hope I didn't miss it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I did, but I so enjoy cookoin and backing for others... occasionally.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Certainly not me. :)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

The longer tha party, the more people may find the time to drop by.