Skiing

It's been a surprisingly busy week since the last post. Things should be winding down for me as I only have two weeks until I leave on July 14th. However, as is often the case many things seem to happen at the same time, I 'll avoid using any cliche's about buses.Since I last posted, not surprisingly, England's euro 2012 adventure fizzled out, losing to Italy on penalties, there was an air of inevitability about it all. At least Italy have gone on to the final, setting up an all Mediterranean final with Spain.
On Wednesday I gave the medical physics students their final exam so once the marks are all finalised I should have a bit of time free. I am not sure yet what exactly I will do or where I will go but it will probably involve some skiing. Also this week I have been working on a response to the assessors comments for an NHMRC funding proposal submitted back in March. These need to be submitted by Monday and are worth spending some time on as apparently these can make a difference for borderline proposals. Other work related matters I had the opportunity to attend a 'round table discussion' with last year's Physics Nobel prize winner Brian Schmidt. He is an astronomer at the Australian National University and he talked about ways in which Chile can improve its position both nationally and internationally in the world of astronomy and more generally science. He also talked about his experiences in Australia of dealing with government and their policies which was quite interesting as I could relate to a lot of what he said.
On Tuesday I went for my first ski trip of the year at el Colorado which is about 1.5 hours outside Santiago. The weather was absolutely incredible, blue skies and warm sunshine. There were also no crowds just a few rich Brazilians. I had a great day, some photos are below and more can be found here. I skiied pretty hard all day so my legs were pretty knackered by the end of the day. I had hoped to go again on Thursday or Friday this week but the weather hasn't been too good which means there has been lots more snow in the ski areas so next week should be good.

Santiago is down there somewhere in the smog.