First week
Well, I've been in the country just over a week now. It's been a combination of being absolutely hectic and having stuff all to do. I've got a staff card but no email or access to my office yet, and my computer hasn't arrived either! So I'm working on my battered old laptop (it's third trip to Oz), spending most of my days trying to find somewhere to live and most of my evenings watching rubbish telly and playing the guitar.
Even though I haven't done any real work yet, I've already got involved with outreach. I'm helping out this afternoon with a visit by a group of 30-ish school students who have a strong interest in science. They're visiting the astronomy group so we're taking them up on the roof to play with some telescopes. I'm looking after the optical telescope - a little SC Meade with a solar filter and an LPI camera. There is also a small radio dish being looked after by Bruce, a PhD student in the group, and a low frequency dipole and receiver that my boss is going to demonstrate.
At coffee this morning we were discussing outreach more generally. The group gets a lot of requests for talks, school visits and the like and I've been asked to coordinate all the outreach activities. This is going to involve quite a bit of work for next year's International Year of Astronomy. I can't wait!
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