“Todas las personas grandes han sidos niños antés. (Pero pocas lo recuerdan.)”Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Uno de mis libros favoritos es El Principito. También es el primer libro que leí en español. Yo me acuerdo claramente el día en que conseguí una copia. Era 2015, acababa de llegar en Quito, y me había asignado la tarea … Continue reading El Principito y sus estímulos improbables
“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”C. S. Lewis One of my favourite books is The Little Prince. It's also the first book that I read in Spanish. I remember quite clearly how I came across it. I had … Continue reading The Little Prince and its unlikely inspirations
"There were two desperate times. Two strong eruptions ... the first was the one that most scared us. Because we had not seen this type of eruption. Only ... we were already used to it. I believe the volcano was already erupting since when I was born. But it only bathed itself in fire, just … Continue reading Legacy and legend, and a volcanic prawn
"Geology is too important to be left to geologists." - Patrick Corbett Guatemala. Although by name the land of many trees, I encourage you to consider it fauna not flora. You will find it alive and bristling, breathing its hot breath. From its sinuous green skin spring spines of sheer earth, steep and sharp. The … Continue reading Guatemala Vuelta
This blog post is a condensed version of a research article published on 7th October in VOLCANICA. You can find the full article here. It's fully open-access and free to download. Volcanoes present one of nature’s most spectacular sights and, while most of us would be hugely impressed by the breathtaking spectacle of the flames, … Continue reading Fireside Tales
Week Five was an incredibly long and dispiriting week, in which I hung around, failed to do interviews, and was generally hard on myself. I started to write a blog post about my largest bugbear, which was my continuing difficulty in communicating in Spanish to the level I’d like, and then – the post felt … Continue reading Picture The Scene
It has been an intense couple of weeks at the observatory - so much so that I wasn't able to publish a post last weekend! (More on that on next week's blog post.) This was written on 10th March 2018, at the end of Week Four of Nine total. I hope you enjoy it. As … Continue reading Sequels and serials
It’s been a busy week! I am writing from my bunkbed in Fuego’s observatory, OVFGO1, in the village of Panimaché Uno (here). I am taking today (Friday 22nd February) off after conducting interviews between Monday and Thursday in the villages of Panimaché Uno, Panimaché Dos, Los Yucales, and Morelia. I am tired, but really stoked … Continue reading First impressions
For my first blog post while in Guatemala this spring, I thought I would write about scales of time and distance. It’s something I think a lot about, especially because my research is split between two distant countries, and because 2.5 years into my PhD, I have rather more time to reflect on than to … Continue reading A sense of scale
Guatemalan currency includes the one quetzal, that appears as either a crumpled green note or a round golden coin that flashes in the sun when new. A Q1 coin (approximately 10p) bears on one side the signature of the Accord of Firm and Lasting Peace, signed in Guatemala City on 29th December 1996 after three … Continue reading Loma Linda
Reasoning With Volcanoes 