I clearly know little to nothing about alcoholic drinks

@LSchoon You want to know what's holding me up now? Lack of a damn microphone. I have the excellent one that's broken. Somewhere around here is the $20 karaoke one that would work just fine if I could find it. I gave away my wired/bluetooth headphones with a microphone in a fit of misguided generosity and the wired headphones I use all the time with my phone to listen don't have a mic.

I desperately don't want to use my damn phone. My fingers can't take it anymore.

How the hell does anyone survive just a normal move?

This is just flaying me.

@Jolenealaska Struggle upon struggle, eh? We could try good, old-fashioned text-based communication.

The cheap mic has GOT to be here.

Within damn 15 feet of where I'm sitting.

You can cram a lot of junk in a 15 feet radius

Yup

Not looking forward to my move at the end of the month

And, my right leg is so blown up with cellulitis that it registers on the bathroom scale as 15LBS of edema.

@LSchoon UGH. Really?

Yup. Tenancy is ending a month before my PhD is, I've nothing lined up for afterwards so I have to divide my stuff between a self-storage place, my partner's and my parents's, then live out of a suitcase for at least a month

@Jolenealaska :(

The cellulitis would be a non-issue if I could find my damn $20 mic. Buying one isn't an option. I tried to buy an outlet for the bathroom to install and save my landlord the headache of failing a HUD inspection for a code violation. My card was declined. There will be no buying of a new mic this month. Meanwhile, tik tok, US election looms.

I will look again with a hopeful attitude in 5 minutes.

Or at least try.

the old joke about everyone needing to live in the same town comes to mind.

then someone could drop over and borrow a mike ._.

And on that note, I give the f*ck up for the night. I can't take it without some sleep. Now.

Night night!

I made fried rice with carrots and made the mistake of adding the carrots (and veggies) in after the rice and not the carrots are hard. Since it's all mixed up, I probably can't soften the carrots up without ruining the rest, can I?

@GdD I am not so sure about your statement. Different people react a lot differently to the taste of ethanol itself. Maybe you are one of those who don't have receptors for the "strong" notes in its taste.

I am quite certain you couldn't make a cocktail which tastes to me like fruit juice and knocks me down - I once had an ice cream in which I very clearly recognized alcohol without expecting it at all. Turned out the swirl-in sauce had a bit of batida de coco in it, and the box listed something like "no more than 0.3% total alcohol content".

I was even envious when reading that to some people, pure alcohol doesn't taste gag-worthy, but slightly sweet, and so all the alcohol-based drinks taste to them like amazing fruit and plant extracts, not being dominated by the strong unpleasant taste to which I apparently react.

@Jolenealaska ugh! I hope you are settled in soon. Moves are a chaos, always. Even without your other stuff going on.

and @LSchoon that sounds both a bit scary and a bit of "you get to be a free soul in ways most of us don't experience in our adult lives"

You're just special @rumtscho ;)

@GdD I am special in so many ways :) But from what I've read, the alcohol-tasting-subtypes have some kind of typical distribution, maybe 25% taste a strong unpleasant smell and 75% don't?

I have forgotten it, it was quite a while ago

so is your hobby being a cocktail-mixing person? (what is the correct English word for it, barman sounds a bit too broad?)

I like making cocktails @rumtscho, it's not quite a hobby on its own though. Cooking and baking is a hobby I guess, as is flying, auto mechanics, making and writing. I have too many hobbies

don't we all!

flying too?

do you have your own plane?

I don't have my own, I rent at the moment. I used to have a share of a bulldog, which is a 2 seater aerobatics airplane, but I sold it. I'm keeping an eye out for another share, maybe a tailwheel or even a biplane

@rumtscho Haha, well, I would prefer to have a little more certainty, but I appreciate the sentiment

@rumtscho And I think the word you'r looking for may be 'mixologist', although various people do not like that term

@LSchoon I know, uncertainty can feel quite overwhelming - and yours is a big uncertainty

do you know what kind of job you want afterwards?

Roughly. I have been sending out applications, but I don't have a lot of actual experience for what I'm applying to (due to, you know, spending all my time on fundamental research)

heh, I think that is quite common (applying for something other than the previous experience)

are you OK with sharing what kind of job title you are applying for?

Mostly data science/analysis stuff, but I'm also considering consulting or finance. In the end, as long as it's in or near London, not physics research and lets me rent a place by myself, I'll be content

are you in London already, or planning to move there?

Planning to move. I'm about an hour out of the city now

ah, so it is already your "base of operations" but you had to live on the outside? I know that feeling. That renting stuff is hard - luckily, I think you have good chances in the current job market.

Not quite my current base; my university is in the town I live in, but it's a small town nonetheless. Plus my partner has lived in London for a while now. I think I have decent chances too, but it's proved non-trivial to convince employers of that ;-)

@LSchoon, there's lots of data analysis work in London, it's a real growth area. would you say you are a data scientist then?

Get on jobserve.co.uk, type in data scientist, there's probably lots of opportunities.

@GdD The thing is, while I am a scientist, I have barely any hands-on experience with data science/machine learning stuff. I'm sure I'd do fine at it, read some of the theory and have had some practice and none of it's particularly complicated so far, but a company isn't going to hire me based on "I'm sure I could do it"

Luckily for you, there is such hunger in the area, that there are enough companies who do hire people with your credentials in such positions

you might have to go through a "training on the job" period first

That's what I hope to find, yes

I know somebody who found exactly that and was happy in it - it was in a very large German company, but the position was in a small German town. I hope there are similar positions for London.

@LSchoon HA! That's the story(ies) of my life. Quite literally.

Since I starred that, I took the liberty of editing the typo :)

Perpetual editing in chat was the top reason on my list when I decided to run for moderator.

Anyway, screw it, I'm not finding a mic so phone Skyping it is!

My Skype is going into my profile right now.

@LSchoon, @rumtscho is completely right, you're in a very good position as there is so much call for it. A hard science degree is a real asset. Quants are very well paid in the financial sector, many of them from hard science academic backgrounds