Chemical Heritage Foundation

This week I started my fellowship at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. They've given me an office near the library with the other fellows. They all back onto a big atrium and we get natural light through large windows. Occasionally someone will stop by and talk to someone else through the window opening but generally we don't feel too much like monkeys at the zoo.

Everyone has a computer in the office with a personalised account on a central server but it's all Windows. After a couple of days of fiddling around, hitting the wrong keys and not having my files with me, I decided to just bring my own laptop and only use their computer to print. I've managed to get the PC's keyboard and mouse working with it (and, although the CHF email won't work with the Mac for some reason, it does work with my iPod Touch).

There is a kitchenette and this leads to a lot of social activities. Every day around 10.30 people stand around there drinking tea and coffee (the folks here drink a lot more tea than your average American) and on Tuesday afternoons at 3 there's biscuits or cake in the atrium (which they call a "public square"). And today I noticed a lot of people walking around with rolled up rubber mats -- apparently it's yoga day.