Chopin. Chopin is good at piano. I regret not going running this morning. I should have gone. I can't really go this evening because it's too polluted in the evenings. From build-up and because there's more traffic. I did lots of core strengthening this morning instead though. I didn't go running because i felt a little ill, but not really, just like maybe i was getting a cold. And i can't go running tomorrow morning either because of Nepali lesson. I checked if there was any zumba class nearby this evening, but there isn't really. Actually there's one at 6pm, but i can't make it by that time. I could make 6:30. But not 6. And maybe i'd be too scared of going to zumba.... i could do zumba in my own room perhaps. But i've never done it before, so wouldn’t be sure what to do. Well youtube. But also Tess might think i'm weird. She could join too. I could do zumba in the garden. But i guess it's a bit hard to motivate yourself when it's only you and it misses the whole point. I should try some zumba one day though, as everyone here is obsessed by it. We'll see. Still Chopin. I'm just planning a trek to Langtang, see below, i was just randomly using this word document, but i guess it can stay.

(we can do this trek in 9 days - sat to sun). Day 1: drive to Syaphru Besi (8-9 hours) .Day 2: Hike to Ghoratabela (2970m).Day 3: Hike to Kyanjin Gompa (3750).(or Langtang 3300). Day 4: trip to Langtang Glaicier - a long day (Langshisha Kharka 4100m)Day 5: Hike up Tsergo Ri (4984m), 6-7hr round trip. (or Kyanjin Ri 4773, 2 hours above Kyanjin Gompa). Day 6: Hike to Thulo Syaphru. Day 7: Hike to Gosainkund lakes. Day 8: Hike over Laurebina Pass to Ghopte then Kusumsang. Day 9: Hike to Thimpu road head and bus back to Ktm. (Option 2:Day 8: Hike back down to Dhunche, stay Dhunche for bus next morning. Day 9: bus back to Ktm)

apparently kyanjin gompa to lama hotel is 6/7 hours and lama hotel to tholo syabru is 5/6 hours. (last bit steep). This can be one day. then Thulo Syabru to Sing Gompa 4/5 hours, Sing Gompa to Gosainkunda Lake 4/5 hours. This can be one day. Gosaikunda to Ghopte or Thadopati (over pass) is 5/6 hours. Then 5/6 hours to Kutumsang. One day. Then Kutumsang to Chisopani 4/6 hours and Then to Sundarijalang 5 hours. 1 day.

(Option 1: Day 6: Return back to Dhunche, turn off main trail at Thulo Syaphru). (Option 2: Day 6: Hike from Thulo Syaphru up to Sing Gompa (3250). Laurebinayak is also beauitful. Lodges are on the shore of Gosainkund. 2 hours SE of Gosainkund is Laurabina La (4610), great views, maybe snow. Then descend to basic lodge at Bera Goth. A bit better one 3 hours further down (follow low route) at Phedi (3630). Can descend via quick route to roadhead at Thimbu (via Melamchigaon and

Tarkeghyang) or via Mangengoth to Kutumsang. Then 5 more hours on to Chisapani, then another 4-5 hours up and over park to Sundarijal.

Erg the internet being slow is really annoying.

Ahh i have to write an expected salary in a job application thing. For the Asian Development Bank. I have no idea! I have no expectations! I just looked it up. People seem to get loads! $81,000 per year in the minimum for Young Professionals, and max is $117,000. They also say it's market driven, their salaries. Hum, what to put. I guess in that range. That seems loads though. But i do have a PhD from Caltech, and now a little work experience. Plus people who go straight from undergrad to google get infinitely tons. $90,000? Is that extreme. I will put that.

Facebook don't ch0ose 480p! Internet is not good enough for that.

A microbus crashed on the Prithvi Highway yesterday. We were stuck in the traffic jam that it caused, and saw the smashed-up bus when we were coming back to Gorkha. The crashed microbus was going to Gorkha. A child died and 12 others were injured. It was trying to overtake a lorry, but then crashed with it instead, i'm not exactly sure how. The front end of the minibus was pretty smashed up. We'd been on a minibus going to Gorkha at the same day, but the day before. We were hoping it wasn't the same minibus we'd been in, basically because the conductor/child was.... i'm not sure. But we got to know him a little. He was firstly really moody, and then still for a while in a bad mood and being really grumpy. Then he cheered up and was being teased later on. The child that died was 7, and our conductor/child was definitely older than this, so it wasn't him. But i can't say good.

In the newspapers the leader (or someone) from UML, the party, is saying 'we've defeated India 5 times earlier, we'll defeat them again'. And this is not a war, this is politics - he thinks, and it's true, that India has been behind quite a lot of political decisions/suggestions in Nepal, like India didn't want the new constitution, but then Nepal got it anyway - that is defeating India. And now still with this new constitutional amendment, which has been going on since i got here, UML wants to defeat this motion, which would be defeating India. If you have $20,000 in your bank, you can live in Nepal for the rest of your life... like i mean you can get a visa to stay here forever. Why is it so much more expensive to fly from Kathmandu to Japan, than from for example London, or anywhere in Europe, to Japan. Even though Kathmandu is like over half way there already. If i don't go to the conference in Vienna, my friend Sarah wants to go to Japan. So it would be a lot cheaper for me to fly back to Zurich on my ticket i already have, then fly from there to Japan, which means coming all the way back here, rather than going directly from here to Japan. That shouldn't make sense. I did some business with a sadhu at the weekend, at Gorkha palace. Which wasn’t completely destroyed by the earthquake like the news and stuff seemed to have

said. In fact i didn't see any earthquake destruction in the Gorkha region. Ok, so mainly it was dark. And i think some of the Gorkha palace had been repaired already, and actually there were still repair-works going on. But it wasn't completely flattened like i'd imagined. Anyways. The sadhu had donations, and some were in foreign currency. He asked me if i'd take any of his foreign money and swap it for rupees. The only things of interest were 5 euros, and a 1 dollar note. Though i thought about it, and didn't really want the 1 dollar note. But i didn't have that much change anyways. So we argued a bit about the value of 5 euros in rupees, he was like 800 rupees! And i was like, no. Actually he didn't know, he was just saying random things. I gave him 600 rupees for it, which is a very good rate for him. And then i also gave a donation of 100 rupees, i'm not really sure what for. He had some Polish money - this will be hard for him to exchange. He'll have to wait for the next Polish tourists, and there aren't that many tourists, and of them very few are Polish. Unless others are going to visit Poland. Just the thought of living in Munich after living in Kathmandu, erg how terrible would that be! All grey and boring and cold and unfriendly. It's very annoying that i can't access wikipedia at work. Sometimes. Sometimes i can. And sometimes i can't. What if i want to find out anything! It's so annoying. It blocks way too many things. But it doesn't actually block wikipedia, it just makes it so sometimes it doesn't work. I just clicked on five apps on my phone before getting the one i wanted. I kept being confused and thinking i was thinking different, before i remember actually what i wanted to do. Which was see the Nepali word of the day. Which today is loving, dear, beloved, lovely, pleasant - pyaro, which is nice so i'll try and remember that.

I just read an article about the effect of increasing quinoa prices (driven by super-food rich western-types) on the people of Ecuador/Peru/Bolivia where it is produced. Because one could think 'oh prices are increasing, so the poor people living there now cannot afford to buy this food so they are starving', or one could think 'oh prices are increasing, so the people there are all getting richer'. Obviously there are consumers and producers, so there's that. The article wasn't very good, and i just kept thinking why not ask some people. Like spend two weeks going round asking people, not doing overly complex maths on bad data with dodgy statistical methods. But i think in conclusion, the rising price of quinoa because of rich first world people driving demand is good for peru/ecuador/bolivia because the quinoa producers are the poorest people of society, and quinoa isn’t that much of a staple grain for others. So the non producers don’t spend that much of their budget on quinoa anyways, and the non producers are also on average twice as rich as the quinoa producers. So increasing quinoa prices is beneficial. Whereas in some african countries, everyone is poor, including non producers of grains, and buying staple grains accounts for up to half their income, so then increase in the food prices of these grains are not good. They have also done their graphs in excel. No, that comment is too snobby. Excel is fine. It's free and easy to use. I guess that's all things really need to be. Wahoo Kathmandu Valley is maybe gonna get a sky rail! I was thinking about rail -based public transport here the other day, like there is not much space to build rails

for a train/tram thing. And digging an underground, well, the thought of that just makes me give up and say no. But yet, a sky rail. That could be cool. As long as it doesn't fall down in earthquakes.

Is it weird if when thinking of living in Washington city USA, my main concern is that i have sold my car. And so what would i do? Would i try and by another, i.e. the third version of the same car. But also. Washington, oh yes i just remembered haha, it's called Washington DC, not really city like before but i'd forgotten. Washington is not California. I think i'd prefer to live in Manila. Or somewhere in a developing country. Or Japan. But not Dhaka. There was a disaster risk job advertised in Dhaka, but i don't think i'd enjoy that. Especially as being a little white girl, being stared at all the time. I was going to mention something about Gorka trip. I have forgotten though. I forget too many things. The problem with the world bank jobs application thing, yes i'm applying for something i'm not sure i'm really qualified for, but he ho, or hay ho, hey ho yes that,. Yes, i will apply anyways. But the thing is, you have a time limit of two hours to fill it out, then you are logged out and the info all disappears and can't be saved. But before you start the application, you don't know what questions they're going to ask. So you have to do it at least twice. And so the first few pages are just normal general chat, which are compulsory questions, so you have to fill in a little to just be allowed to see the next pages. Haha shall i troll trump in my application. I want to apply my skills, which i have lots of, by the way, ... i have all the skills, my skills are great. No i won't do that. But i kind of wrote the first bit almost automatically on the form. Strange times. But do i really want to live in America again? It kind of sucks. I mean, apart from LA is the best place ever and so is California and America's great. But still. I feel a bit like 'been there, done that'. Plus West Coast Best Coast. Hum i'm writing that here in Nepal i've 'seen the devastating effects of the earthquake', but really i haven't. I will not write that. It's barely apparent that there's been an earthquake. So that's here in Ktm. But in my very limited time in Gorkha too. I guess the Durbar Squares were more beautiful beforehand, everyone tells me they were, but since i have no comparison, they still look super nice, so. I started a new book, All the Light we Cannot See. It's very boring so far. Like blah blah blah. Like a very typical book. A typical fairly good book, but still, it's not intellectually simulating at all so far. I just finished reading And the Mountains Echoed which i greatly enjoyed. There were many characters and stuff happened and it was interesting. This new one so far is just a bit cliché. But it's in the reading group, Biddie's who book, that my friend set up as a mini group, and we are going to talk about it at some point in early march. If i can make it. I may well not be available, so then it would be a waste reading this book, but not really because it's reading a book. I think it won a prize. I'd much prefer to read the book that was discussed previously, which i can't remember the name of, i would have to check, it was set in Africa. I also want Carol to come back so that i can persuade her to go to at least, and probably only, one zumba session with me. It's so difficult to live in america. It's such an effort. Not like here in Kathmandu, where always, everything is fine. Everything will be fine. And there are no problems. It's just so easy. And it's nice being walkable! - unlike LA. Though i did love driving my car round... Everything here is just, kinda cute.

I had a dream i was birthing chicken eggs out of my mouth. And this travel diary is falling apart. Listening to Armenian music. That i couldn't spell. I'm not having a mental breakdown ( i just reread the past little bit), in fact i think the reverse of that. Which is why this writing is going bad. Haha 'going bad' it was already bad. Just doing latexdiff, which goes like this: latexdiff draft.tex revision.tex > diff.texincase i need to remember later. I've never done it before. omg it's taking ages. Is it being serious. I hope it works good. This is actually quite tense... i did it wrong. It actually took one second and was great. Is it ok to tell someone you can do something for the foreseeable future. But you don't tell them that the foreseeable future is only of the order two months...

There are sometimes when i open my browser and i'm just like wow. How many tabs do i have open. What was i doing before??I learnt about how some Nepali people get visas and how others do good business today. Nepali people in Japan, or Europe, or wherever, open a restaurant. Then they need some staff, so they hire people from Nepal. What they do is, the people in Nepal want a visa for Japan, so forge some reference letters and proof that they have worked in, for example, a three star hotel, and this is in collusion with the restaurant owner already in Japan. Then they pay $12,000 to the restaurant owner, but not actually him, to some specified family member still here in Nepal, and then the restaurant owner in Japan writes an invitation letter to them and gives them a job in their restaurant for 1-2 years. So that person gets a visa to go to Japan, and gets a job for 1-2 years, then moves on to another restaurant. And the original restaurant owner again has a vacancy, so again someone in Nepal pays them/their family $12,000 to be invited to work in their restaurant so they get a visa. And the person who wants a visa can easily borrow this money from their family members, because they know they will be paid back because the person will have a job in a foreign country and so earn lots of money. It's true also, that if some Nepali person went to live in London, they would stay with some relative they probably have in London, and also eat food at home, daal bhaat so very cheap. So their living expenses would be super low. Whereas if i were to work in London, it would be very high living expenses because i'd rent an apartment, and buy food that wasn't just rice and lentils. $12,000 is the going rate for Japan restaurant visas. And for Europe it's a bit more, $15,000-$20,000. And the price of a brick is 18-22 rupees. People know the cost of everything here. I hate having chocolate, because then you eat it and it's gone and you can't eat more. I used to think fasting was about self-control, but i've realised it's not, it's actually about sacrifice. Wahoo, UNESCO emailed me back. I feel so special. Haha i just checked this running race, on 2nd April, to see if it was in a convenient place etc. so that i could do it. It's 1600km long. With 55,000m of climb. I don't think it's a day thing.... Me and UNESCO, just having a conversation.

So they want a police report for the lost seismometer? What am i meant to tell the police? By the way, a seismometer may or may not have been lost, somewhere in Nepal, or maybe India, about one and a half years ago. That's all.

I never really realized before the full potential of - the ringroad. For traveling. But it's so simple. It goes round the city, because yes it's a ringroad. And you can get to Swayambu, to Pashpati, to wherever, by going round the ring road. Previously i was only imaging going to Ratna Park, in the centre, and then going out from there. But this is complicated cos it's hard to get buses from Ratna Park, and i'm never quite sure where they go or when i get there or what is happening. But the ringroad. It's so simple! Buses go one way, or the other way. And that's it! Just stick your hand out and flag one down, then you know exactly where it's going, and then can just get off when you like. It's quite a mind revolution to me. Apart from it can be very dusty waiting on the ringroad. And atm at Kalanki there is a big wait because of the Chinese building a tunnel there (though that should be great when it's finished), and also the ring road can be super crowded and slow, mainly the eastern side i think. They is currently road expansion on the ringroad. This will also make it better. But also when they get rid of vehicles over 20 years old. And they could make all the new vehicles that replace them electric. That would really be so amazing. It would be easier for the buses and things to do that. For the lorries, they travel out of the valley where electric charging stations would be harder to set up and manage. And some of them are so the worst. But it's not just them. Many private jeep vehicles, including NSET ones, throw out black black smoke, mainly when they just start. I can't beleive how the engine or exhaust system can even get so bad. The petrol is going to be improved too, which should help. That is kind of an easy thing to do. Just get less polluting petrol. And once they finish road widening (which is kind of never...) and the Melamchi water project. I can't believe this project was allowed to leave the roads in such a state afterwards. After they dug up part of the road to lay pipes, the roads being previously tarmaced, they didn't retarmac it or anything, so now in some roads there's like a metre, in the middle of one side, which is kind of an unpaved little ditch full of rubble. What's that about! Makes it much harder for two lanes of traffic to go along at the same time, so slows everything down, and also the dust blows up from here too. So yes, at the weekend i got a bus around the ringroad to Swayambu, to do a fell race of 11km, and i was second female and first in my age class 18-40, which should kind of be the faster class, but some little Nepali girl came first. I'm not sure how long she took, the results aren't up yet even though they said they would be. I took 1hr19m19s. It was more hilly that i was expecting. Even the downhill has a lot of uphill in it. Straight off the bat was super steep up for hundreds of metres. Then down, them more steep up, then medium up. Then at the top, going down a different direction, including mini ups, then the most steep up so far, and then down down, then more up up, then down, then flat and the end. I wasn't too far behind Sudeep. I could see him most of the way. We went past gombas and things, seto and rato gompas, and a temple too. It was super nice. Tiring too. I won two prices - for some reason they did both age class and overall. For first in age class i got 100% off some spa treatment, and for second overall i got 30% off some spa treatment. I might try

and go with my mum when she's here. But maybe with my roommate. I'm thinking atm what to do. What to do longer term. Medium long term. Medium term. Or maybe actually long short term. Hum. So Surya and NSET here want me to stay a bit longer. I think their deadline for the project i'm helping with is June, and I'm actually leaving in a month. Well my parents are coming then for holidays, so 2 weeks holiday with them. I would be able to come back for a day two weeks after i left if we needed a meeting or anything. Then i'm going trekking in Langtang for 9 days (hopefully). Then i have 3 more full days i think, if we get back on time. And i could go to the office to have more meetings and things then too. But then i'm going to EGU conference, and then Japan for a 2.5-week holiday with Sarah. I have no plans in life after that though. And i'm just thinking whether to come back directly to Ktm after Japan, or just to go home. I need to decide at some point so i can book flights... and i'm not sure to fly to Japan from Vienna, or elsewhere. Probably i will stick with Vienna. But yes, to fly back to London or Ktm. One problem is my tourist visa for Nepal is only for 150 days. And i'll have used up 120 or something already. And i kind of want some spare in case i need to go to a conference in Nepal or something, and tag on a week of holidays with the conference maybe. So i don't really want to decrease my days to less than 30. I could though try and get a work visa, or business visa, i'm sure this could happen. Then i could stay FOREVER!! I could charge $10 an hour for english lessons. Teach 9-5 each day, so 8 hours. Or i could teach more. Or charge more. But that makes, and i'm not gonna work Sundays, 40 hours per week. So $400 per week. And then $1600 plus a bit per month. Which isn't bad. I'd actually charge more for lessons. Would i get people signed up though? .... I hope so. And it would be cash so i wouldn't pay tax, so i guess that's illegal. Is it? Probably. I could make myself a company and pay tax. $15 per lesson would make $2400 a month plus a bit. That's a super good salary for Nepal. And actually maybe more than what i'm making now. Or if i did lessons with 30 people per class, price could be $40 for 10 classes, so 30*40 = 120 dollars, haha that's wrong, 1200 dollars, for 10 hours so $120 per hour. Really? That's a lot more. Then i'd be a millionaire. I could do work it out something like that. But anyway, i don't really want to be an english teacher, not at all, so i won't do that. It could be a life backup though! What was i thinking. Yes, i met the son of the head of DFID at the running! So speak to everyone, cos you never know, they could be the son of the head of DFID. I am meeting the disaster risk person at DFID next wednesday. What else happened?What else happened? I think a new paragraph is better. I haven't been writing this diary much recently. Because obviously things are repeating more and more in my life, but also interesting things still do happen, and i vaguely think 'oh i should write that in my diary', but then i don't really want to. Or i'm not motivated to anymore. Or i just don't feel the need to. Probably i learnt lots of interesting things, but i haven't written them here. Because it doesn't seem important anymore. I like it here. And yes, that's that really. I'm applying for jobs. Is that interesting though? It's Shiva Ratri this Friday, which is where everyone goes to Pashupati and smokes weed. Shiva prasad... There were actually lots of Sadhus come from India already in Pashupati last Saturday, where we went to see aarati, which is in the evening when some priests light candles and things and there's music and they worship shiva. It was super nice and fun. But yeah, there were many Indian sadhus there already,

waiting for Shiva ratri. Ratri means night. Apparently lots of people just sit around campfires and stay there the whole night. And everyone is smoking weed but the police can't really do anything because there are too many people. And it's legal for the sadhus. But i am doing the Kathmandu Pinkathon, which is a run for girls, choice of 5km, 10km, 21km, and maybe 3km. I entered, but haven't had to decide which one to do yet - i assume one decides on the day. It's at 7am at the stadium in downtown. A parcel arrived! Yesterday, no the day before, for me. It's cables from SEISUK in england, but i was sure they'd take ages to show up, actually they were very quick. I still have to give talks, sort out receipts, collect the Syangboche seismometer, finish my work here which will be doing the report and also teaching people how to use openquake but they are always too busy. Oh yes, meeting on monday about that. I will do some stuff beforehand. Zoom in on cities. Zoom in the hazard assessment on cities to look at detail. But detail is from VS30. So check out the resolution of that etc. And then talk about how we can get better VS30.....Ok i'm going to apply to the world bank now. No wait i'm not. I'll do that later. I'm doing my PSHA thing now i forgot.

Haha UNSECO just asked me if i was giving my talk free of cost! As if i would charge to give them a talk!! To give anyone a talk about my work! I wonder how much they would have paid me if i'd said i did charge money. Or if they'd just say no. How much would i charge anyone to give a talk about The world is really becoming a terrible place. So many things that i thought we were past. The world is just getting worse. So not everywhere, in Nepal it's crawling toward betterhood, and other developing countries too. Basically i just mean the US and Europe. And obviously some other places have wars and things, but I HATE BREXIT is completely sucks. And politicians too, how rubbish are they. My resolve to never live in England again is increasing by the day.

The google aerial images on google maps for kathmandu are mega out of date. I was trying to look at where the half marathon got to along the road before turning round. But on google maps it was all fields! I was like where are the skyscrapers? Not super skyscrapers, but taller buildings. But there were just fields! So this half-marathon was part of the Kathmandu Pinkathon, which i found out two days after the event was to raise awareness for breast caner. Though i guess i could have guessed that... however obsiouvly it wasn't well advertised what it was meant to be advertising. Anyway, not that many girls, it was girls only, did the half-marathon, and at the beginning the route was described in Nepali, but it was only mentioning town names anyway, and then the guy says 'for those who don't speak nepali, turn left out the stadium, then follow everyone else'. But as i said, there weren't many people. For the first bit i ran with a crazy christian american girl, who was doing the 10km, but then she turned round at her place to turn round, and i had to continue. Though i was considering changing just then to the 10km because it was the worst course i've ever done. It was infinitely polluted. I think i shortened my life by about two years. And it was in the middle of traffic too! We were just running along the road with all kinds of vehicles going by. And just after then 10km turnround, i could see nobody on my course, because they were all too far ahead or behind, and the guy

was just like 'run straight', and straight was just through buses and cars and bikes and people, so running weaving in and out of all of these and also all the pollution they were giving off, and people looking at me weird! There were no markers, just race officials standing at bigger junctions pointing the way, which was actually always just straight. And they were kind of stopping the traffic so it was ok to run across the junctions! But ergh i am fed up of this pollution now. So we wore chip timers, and also i timed using my watch. Then. So there are two types/styles of stiffness in legs from running. One is that when you finish you think you should continue walking about a bit and stretching so that your legs don't stiffen up. And the next is that your legs are already feeling stiff before you finish the race, so then when you finish there is nothing you can do. Because walking is like running but slower, so if running makes legs stiff then walking won't unmake them stiff. And stretching doesn't help either. It is all over, there is nothing you can do. Apart from wait a few days. This second type of stiffness was what i got form the half-marathon. My legs are still a bit stiff. And, unfortunately, my knee problem (ITBS), started hurting after about 1hr25. Which makes me nervous of running a longer distance.... Maybe i should have stretched more during the week before. I'm not sure. Ergh the pollution was terrible though. So i stopped my watch at the end and took just less than 1hr36, which i was very surprised about because this is too fast for me to run 21km. As i was running, there were km markers on the route and i checked my watch often. The first km i took about 4mins 30, so a fine pace, too fast to continue with. Then i continued checking, and my mins per km seemed to be fine, slightly fast, and at the half way point turnaround i think i was just a bit over 45 minutes. So already i thought i would slow down a lot for the second half. Then after 5km before the finish, the km signs ran out. But there were turnaround signs for the 5 and 3 km, so i knew roughly how long we had left. Then i ran into the stadium, and around, and yes took just less than 1hr36, which is too fast. So i assumed the distance measurements were a bit wrong, and it was actually 1km shorter or something. Then i got a text(!) telling me what my time was, 1hr 42, because we'd worn chips on our bibs. And that made much more sense, 1hr42 is just what i'd have thought in time that i'd have taken. But i was unsure about the discrepancy with my watch. So i asked someone else if the chip timing was correct and they said yes. So then i started wondering about my watch, but i was too tired to think that hard about it. And we were doing zumba. But later i was thinking more about my watch being wrong at timing. Because i definitely started it at the start, and it was still running when i then stopped it at the end. And in between i was checking it every km or so and it was always running - like i didn't accidentally stop it for 6 minutes then start it again without realizing. So i was thinking of doing a test to see if the watch timing was correct. Buti hadn't done it yet, when yesterday i checked the results online. And now the chip timing was almost 1hr 36! Same as my watch! So this again makes more sense, because it would be super odd for my watch to time slowly. But it also doesn't make sense because that is too fast for 21km. Ok wait i have a new plan. So the girl who won the Pinkathon also won the Kantipur half-marathon the weekend before. And she was 1 minute quicker in the Pinkathon. So the Pinkathon can't have been that much shorter than it should have been, and probably was the correct length, so that just means that i am fast wahoo! I was 6th, out of only 17

people that finished (i was bib number 31 and collected my bib near the end, so i guess at least 31 people actually started, or signed up to do this one). And i took 1hr35m43s. My split to 16km was 4min 27 per km, then on average it was 4min 33 so i slowed down quite a bit! 4min30*21 is 84 plus 10.5, 94min30. The winner was 78 minutes. That is quite fast. If i'd have kept up that pace it would be about a minute faster. So the last half-marathon i did was the LA Rock&Roll, where i took just under 100 minutes. Maybe i did actually 98mins30 or something. But i thought i was fitter at that time. The hill was similar, as in both didn't have very much. And there was way less pollution in LA!!Anyway, now i'm a bit ill with cold and headache and things so i'm not going to work, but need to do some work from home. Some different GMPEs. I will compare three of each, then a mixture. In the upcoming local elections, the maximum amount a candidate can spend is $7000! haha. I really want chocolate. But i don't want to go out! If i go out though, i can also get soup. Plus the shop is about 2 minutes away. And i have to get dressed anyways cos it's Lhosar new year (again?) today and our landlord family invited us to dinner upstairs. Plus actually, i think carol left and a new girl is here, and for some reason i think she is from switzerland. I think i heard this in a conversation she may have been having with the landlord, but actually i'm fairly sure she was speaking french, i mean not french, english with a french accent. But i wasn't concentrating too much at the time. Anyway, maybe she will be there for new year dinner this evening. Friday just past was Shiva Ratri, which is where loads of Sadhu babas come from India to Pashnupati, bringing weed cos it's legal for them, and they sell it to the Nepali youth, and the police can't do anything because there's too many people and the jail cells are already full early in the morning. It was very interesting at Pashnupati, seeing all the babas, and was very relaxing and pleasant to just sit there and watch what was going on. Google maps could not find Pancake Day. They have a French Connection here! It's my birthday. Erg. Basically no British friends said happy birthday to me on facebook. And not that many american ones. And then mainly Nepali ones. Times change. And time zones too. Indian, Nepali, Nepali, Indian, Nepali, Nepali, Nepali, British (living in Australia), Nepali, Indian, British (but living in Gulf), Nepali, Nepali, Nepali, Czech, British, Nepali, Lithuanian, Chilean, Nepali, British, Nepali, Nepali, Nepali, Chilean, British, Indian, Nepali, British-Danish, Nepali, Canadian, Ukrainian (living in California), British, French (living in Texas), Australian (living in US maybe), British, British, British, American, British, Malaysian (living in US). And then non facebook wishes from my family plus french, swiss, italian, Nepali, Nepali, Nepali, Filipino. 'Tapeljung aims at becoming self-reliant in potato'. I love the headlines here sometimes. It's 9am on saturday and i'm back in my pyjamas. Back, because after i just did, and won, a 5km race for international women's day. It's good to be back at 9 already. It's like the day hasn't started, but i feel very energetic, well also tired. This times my legs were the first type of stiffness, that starts after running has finished. Which is the better type cos you can stretch and walk that type out. But this time it wasn't my

thighs but lower calfs that are a bit stiff. And it wasn't quite 5km. I am going to measure it now. Else my time would be very fast! Also last weekend wasn't 21km. It was shorter somehow. I took 19 minutes, which included a few hundred meters at the beginning of slow because there were lots of little girls in the way. Also the student elections here, for the student union. I really don't get it. It is very political, and violent too, and so all the TU campuses, or most of them, have been padlocked during this past week. Yes, i don't understand either. Haha ok it was 4.4km! That is even on the official route of the website if you click on it. Not 5k.... so actually i was kind slow. That's actually 4min18 per km. But maybe a few seconds better than than cos of the delay at the beginning. I got tea in a shop, and i thought it was teabags. I checked the package to see how many in, and it said 50. But then i got back home to have my tea, and it wasn't tea bags it was loose leaf tea!! What a disaster. I checked the packet and the 50 was 50 cups, and it's true it did actually say loose leaf in small writing, but enough to make about 50 cups. This is such a disaster. I had my second cup of this tea just now, and it tasted not good and was cold. Not that cold, but i guess i added the tea to the saucepan, because i don't have a little cage thing, i just have a mini sieve, and so i also forgot to leave the lid on the pan so it got cold all quickly. And now the pan full of leaves. But if i add the tea directly to the cup, i think have to strain out the leaves by pouring into another cup or something. How annoying is this. Plus i hate those people who think they are superior because they 'prefer' loose leaf tea. I mean it's fine if you do. But it's also fine if you genuinely prefer the taste of tea that comes from a tea bag. Also with coffee, if you prefer instant coffee, does that mean you are culturally and intellectually inferior? No. I hate people who think that. Grrrrr. I am gonna make more tea now and try to keep it warm. I'm not sure how this is going to go, i'm reusing the tealeaves and they are just heating in the water at the same time like for chiya here. For this big cricket match that is going to be played in Lahore Pakistan soon, they have already set up small emergency hospitals just nearby incase there is a terrorist attack. That is not a lot of confidence that there won't be an attack. Most foreign players pulled out. The last two international cricket matches, which actually mainly stopped after the Sri Lankan team came and were bombed in 2009, but then another, Zimbabwe team came and there was another attack too in 2015 that was. So i don't think i'd be going to play in a big cricket match there.

I thought before that fasting was about self-control and then realised it was about sacrifice. But now i've realised, it's actually about love.

I watched La La Land. It was ok. It wasn't that good. So it's kind of a musical, but the songs are boring, and the main actors aren't that good at singing or dancing...so...yes. The highlight was the first scene which featured a really nice, maybe the best, intersection in LA. Or i mean the best flyover. Apart from in the movie half the cars were going the wrong way. And specifically in this section, my car was there! not my actual car, but the same type, a VW Cabriolet, with the top down, looking cool. And in blue. Blue ones look good. Actually all ones in any color look good. Apart from that there were nice views of LA and things, but not really a story line and it was dull.

Actually i made a third cup of tea and it is quite good. Mainly because it is warm. And doesn't taste too much, but tastes a good amount. It's actually very convenient to just add the leaves when the water is cold and boil it with them, cos then you don't have to wait to let it brew - it's already brewed. That is fairly genious thb. But my wrong spelling of genuis isn't... wait i spelt it wrong again. Genius. Oh ok yes thanks word, that's what i meant. Haha i now think that $8 per night is a lot for a hotel room... I'm like but three nights there, and that's $24 dollars. I don't want to pay that much! But then for two people it's only $12 each. And that seems kind of ok....The first earthquake was up and down, but the second one was conicla, like going round and round. The royal massacre happened because China wanted to defeat the Maoists, because India was supporting them to destabilize Nepal, so China wanted to supply weapons to Nepal. Or actually, Nepal wanted to manufacture its own weapons, rather than buying them from India. But China would finance it. And so Nepal King, who was the most keen on Nepal making its own weapons, wanted to set up a new bank account that was specially for the army, so China could give money to this bank account with nobody knowing how much was given. Or something like that. Anyway, the document about this was left on the King's desk, and some traitor-type took it, or maybe just photocopied it, or told other people about it. And India was super angry, so they, along with the CIA, instigated the murder of the king and family. But also Gyanendra didn't like the King, because he wanted to be king, so he facilitated. Or the massacre was because the Prince was angry at this mother for not allowing him to marry the girl he wanted. And his mother, and the girl's mother, were doing strong pujas against each other. And at the same time, the Kumari was ill so the king wasn't protected. I really like Mandala Books. I already said that ages ago, but i'm saying it again. I went in just now on the way to DMG and panicked and got two books about history of the world. I didn't know what i wanted to get when i went in, i was just browsing. But it's the best shop ever. I wish that were my library or something. It is just the right size and has all the books. Without being too big. But it has good books on everything, like a great mix but also ones relevant to Nepal and this part of the world and things. Now i have lots to read - one of those books was way thick, and I'm already reading a book about history of Japan too already. And celebrating silence. The wifi is not working. Did i do the password wrong?? I just tried to get a police report about the missing seismometer, but it's hard knowing nothing about it. Anyway, i have to email the people who know more about the transport company between Biratnagar and here. And i'll question DMG as to exactly when they realized one of the seismometers was missing... now i am thinking i should just read in the café because the internet does not s wow what is that lady drinking, i want that. I ordered peach ice tea, but she has something like is green and there's lots of it and it's in a big jar with a straw. But nobody else is reading, everyone is just on their phones... actually i could read these articles about geology and stuff. I guess let me see, I hate emails i get from coursera or edx. Because they are always lists of 'courses that i may be interested in', and so obviously i am, but there are so many courses.

And then it's very easy to sign up, just click a button, but harder to actually follow the course. And most of the courses aren't actually very good. But still. I'm just looking at a list, and there are so many i want to do. But at the same time, it's actually just better to read a text book or normal book about these things. Though not always, some of the courses are good, but it's so hard to know before you start. And obviously coursera/edx know what i'm interested in, they know just how to get me. Many people don't like all the intrusive stuff about the internet knows exactly what you want, but that's kind of a good thing really - the internet knows exactly what i want! So i don't have to search through loads of things i'm not interested in. But again, that leads to bubbles. You only get exposed to things you're interested in already. Sometimes you have to read/learn about random things that you don't think you're interested in, but you will be as soon as you think or learn a bit about it. Apart from sports. Reading about sports would be dull. Though actually.... that even is not actually true. I was going to attempt to get a bus back from DMG to here, which is home, but just outside DMG there was a taxi man who saw me and was like 'are you walking, how far are you going', and i was thinking to myself, i could get this taxi if it's not too expensive, because i have to walk a way in high pollution levels to where the micro is, and even then i might fail or take some time to get the correct micro. So i say to the taxi man 'I'm going to Ekantakuna, but i was thinking of getting a bus'. And he goes to me, 'the bus you want goes from just over there, the big green ones', and walks a little way to point out the exact bus stop place to me. How great is that! Definitely in India the taxi man would have told me that the bus didn't exist, it was too hard to get a bus, there were no buses today, no buses go to Ekantakuna, the bus will be full blah blah blah. Not in Nepal though. My meeting at DMG was semi successful. I need to write things down now before i forget. Whilst watching tv i will do this, to check out the news.

Breakfast sandwich and a chai latte. I'm such a failure - i forgot to bring my loyalty card to this cafe. But in other news, there is this guy here who just came in, who i think was here before, and who i also am suspecting that he is some form of scientist, or actually just like a geographer. Yes i remember now, i think he's a geographer. It's a banda today, but nobody in Ktm cares about those anymore. But in the Tarai it's a real thing, so the bus to Lumbini is leaving not this morning, but at 2pm, so as to reach Tarai when the strike's over. This café is actually kinda expensive. It smells really nice though and is quite cozy. Today i'm having one of those days where everything seems a bit strange. Like a parallel world, everything's just a bit different. Like if some decision in the past had been made differently, and now everything's the same but not. I guess it's a bit like the triffids book, when i woke up this morning, on a friday, but it felt like a sunday. But that's actually because i woke up 1.5 hours earlier than normal. But then also because it is/was semi a banda today, so fewer buses and traffic early in the morning. When i walked back from the cafe though, there was just as many vehicles as normal. But when i walked to my nepali lesson this morning at 6:40, there were almost no vehicles, but lots more people than normal walking. And it was cloudy, and then it was raining. And coming out of the cafe is always weird because inside

it's basically just white people, and i was reading a german short story, and then there were two german men their too talking to each other, and then you come outside and it's nepal again. But grey and overcast, and kind of still. And i'm going to Lumbini this afternoon, it was going to be this morning but strike. And then my time in Nepal is soon over, and i have a presentation on tuesday, and then maybe going to Namche Bazar next week too, and my parents arriving. And everything seems to be rushing towards the end. And so today, at least so far today, I've felt just a bit strange, like living in a dream, and i can't get back to normal. It's also because of this german short story i just mentioned - kinderseele, by Herman Hesse, which means like child soul. So i'm reading it in german, and have to look up many words. It's only 20 pages long though, and the hard words are reused so it gets easier as i go through. But it's a really great book. Like about how children sometimes think. The child in the book is also having a strange day. It's a bit about how children can exaggerate and imagine the world, and as an adult you have no idea what kind of battles are going on in their minds, or what huge misconceptions they have, or just in general as a person sometimes you have no idea at all what other people are thinking or anything at all. How can you ever know someone else? Well i guess talking to them helps.... But partly cos of this book i'm feeling weird. Sometimes i get that, not too often, and only with certain books, but i get the feelings of the characters and kind of unconsciously start acting like them. Like when i read Wuthering Heights i felt i morphed a little into Kathy and was a little crazy and mean. I guess it's a bit like words/phrases or hand gestures that you pick up from hanging out with other people lots. Like i think i do way more hand gestures now. And head shaking. And sometimes odd turns of phrase.

I just gave a lecture at UNESCO. I should have made it less hard for people who don't do science. Yes, i should have made it super easy understandable. I thought i had made it ok, like i'd made it easier than my geo conference talk and things, and done more explaining, but it still should have been a few levels below. Actually i think some people understood, but some people really didn't. The audience was quite mixed. Anyway, i'm glad that's over now. And my meeting at NSET has been rescheduled for tomorrow, after a long time of not rescheduling, so that's good. Then Surya is away till after I leave. Grrr. Actually it might be possible to meet again. So yesterday the house didn't have internet, or because there wasn't electricity. So i went to a cafe to get internet and electricity, but they had internet but the electricity from the sockets wasn't working. Later i went to a different cafe and managed to charge there though, but actually there i realised that my adaptor had broken. So i need to get another one, i need to remember that. I was worried this morning, because i still had to finish my presentation, and potentially go and buy a new adaptor, but then i discovered that the fridge had an adaptor that fit, so i just unplugged the fridge for a while, but that's not a permanent solution. And now i need to answer some emails, because of lack of internet and stress about UNESCO talk previously. This cafe i'm in now is actually such a rip off. I can get a chai latte for more than the price of two lunches at NSET. They are SO nice though, and i remembered my loyalty card today so soon i'm gonna get a free drink wahoo!! And then what else. I need to rethink what i need to do. I am going to Syangbocche at

some point i think, but i haven't heard back from B&M about that yet, so i'm assuming it's not gonna be tomorrow. Good because of my meeting then. Thursday would be really good though. So then back Sunday probably. Then yes i need to plan for my parents, and maybe actually book stuff, but i'm just so torn between them staying in Ekantakuna and in Thamel/Basantapur area. And am i gonna stay with them if they stay in Thamel, or am i gonna go home to sleep? I'm like the donkey. So i haven't done anything so far. And maybe things will book up! Wait maybe i'll book a place now.... or later. What can be done tomorrow rather than today and all.

Hum. Friday night and i'm stuck in the office waiting for Tess to finish a meeting. I hope it doesn't go on too long. Because i arranged to meet a friend, and i think they set off walking already, and we're meant to meet in 25 minutes. But maybe i won't even have left here by then! And i need to get home, drop off stuff etc. and then walk to meet them. I am going to be almost 30 minutes late i guess. I feel bad. I have text them but they didn't reply. And it's raining too. And i don't want to wear a waterproof... but i haven't got an umbrella either. It's St Patrick's day. My friend is going to have to wait ages in the rain! Sad times. And there is not much time in the evenings, because the office finishes at 5:30, rather than 5. And then 10pm is already super later in Nepali time. And now it's almost 6pm. So by the time we get to downtown it will be after 7. And then in not long, it will be late and things will close. That's not entirely true, lots of places stay open till 12 or 2 or maybe later. And i'm just sitting here getting more and more stressed about being more and more late. Staring out the window at the rain. And it's barely even rain, only drizzle. And the office is dark cos i didn't turn on the light and it's gloomy outside. And it's empty cos everyone else has gone home. And it's getting later and later. I feel so helpless. But everything will be fine. My friend won't be too angry. And we will still get there. Even if not sure where there is... probably Thamel. And we can have food yay cos i'm hungry. It's ten past six now. My friend might almost be there. But i will be 40 minutes still. It's getting darker and darker and more and more depressing. What a terrible way to spend a friday night. Haha just after that Tess came and said she'd finished her meeting and she was sorry i'd had to stay so late and all my tension and bad feelings and everything suddenly dissipated and i forgave everything and i met my friend fine and then everything was fine like normal, like it must always be. And it was St Patrick's day, and we went to an Irish bar in downtown, and there were many foreigners and some irish but mainly americans there, and there was a great nepali band playing covers and an ok irish guy and band singing irish songs, which was nice too. And a mini amount of dancing. And rum and tatopani.

Yeah so Lumbini was super nice. It was very warm and relaxing. We had to leave a day earlier than expected though because of bandha. It was so nice there so. I might go back with my parents depending on the situation regarding travel and political rallies and the such like. It was such a holiday atmosphere place too!! I want to go back already. And sit on the highstreet and drink some tea and mango lassi. Banana lassi. Or maybe it's such a holiday place that i would have coca cola.

Today is my last week in the office. My parents arrive on Friday, and now it's Sunday evening. So four days, with one morning at DFID giving a lecture, which i must write and make easier to understand than my UNESCO presentation. And i never did go to Syangbochhe in the end! One day i will go to Namche Bazar... definitely one day. So i have a few things to organise for my parents. And then meetings with Dev hopefully, and then Sujan will be back from GEM so we can talk about openquake and things. But i'm not sure the GEM people are great. They might have turned Sujan's mind against me. By that i mean they might have given him ideas, and i might now have to fight for my own ideas. That will be fine though. I hope GEM gave good teaching and things, or whatever, and hopefully Sujan will tell me what he learnt. Hopefully he will know more about outputs. And i will show him what i've done and things. And also, oh i forgot about that, i am meant to be giving a presentation at NSET itself too, to general people i think. I guess i'll give a standard Gorkha and PSHA talk. PSHA is quite hard to explain though to people who are not geologists. I will reclarify who will be at my presentation. What else. I need to print some stuff. I think i had a dream about this one time.... and i also think i wrote this down here, ages ago, like months ago. Not specifically about printing what i need to print now, but printing in general. I will have to think actually about everything i need to print... hum. And then i can do my EGU presentation later when i get to Europe. Erg that word Europe now conjures up sadness and disappointment and an erg feeling. Not because of Brexit, and Europe being so good, but with Europe being bad. I mean, i still want to be in it. But Nepal and things is so much better. Well, maybe just from my point of view what i'm feeling just these few moments, so i can change my mind. And it's not objectively bad. But i want to stay in Asia. Europe is so cold and unfriendly and sad. And grey. No that's mean, and that isn't true either. There are lots of good things there. But i like it here!! Europe is fine too. It's your friends and things that make places good or bad. So it's only up to yourself to make anywhere in the world good or bad in your own opinion. Anywhere in the world could be the best place.

It's weird seeing a non-Mercator map. I'm looking at Peters projection, not really sure what it is, but it makes everything the size it actually is, rather than distorting the countries nearer the equator to make them look smaller. So on this map Africa looks super-elongated. And my gut reaction is 'but that's not what Africa is like in reality'. Like as if this projection is not the real one, but a distortion. But actually the other one is. But actually they all are because it's hard to put spherical things onto a rectangular flat plane.

Whoa so i got told just now, at almost 10am this morning, of Monday, that i have to give my NSET presentation today! This afternoon! At 4pm. I guess i'll have to do that then! Probably i will do similar to UNESCO, and then these people will be able to understand. Hum. Ok. Then that's good, that will be out of the way. And then my DFID presentation also, and applying for ADB job can be tomorrow. And i'm not always doing some openquake in the background. That's always running to do some parameter testing. Hum yes i have to think about this presentation now.

Erg i really don't want to do this presentation. I've done some district and VDC things, that was quite good. I've added them at the end. I'm not totally sure still what to talk about - whether to just talk about the work i've done here, or to summarize some of the Gorkha chat like what i presented at the geology conference here. I think 2 or 3 people here at NSET were at that conference, so they would get a repeat. And how much should i talk about GMPEs and things like that, and site surveys? No that last one i should miss out. Ok I'm going to do more now. Erg. I hate presentations. And i have another one on Wednesday. That's it though. Wahoo. I love using my thesis slides. From my thesis talk, because they are always really good. Like they are well-designed and have a good layout and everything and it's all pretty much perfect because i made they were previously. And i like my thesis slides because it reminds me that i never have to do a presentation as scary as that again! Compared to that one, this one is nothing.

Sometimes now i use predictive text to write my messages. I mean when it suggests the next words. It's a lot easier to just click on the word, and then you've done the whole word already. Often i can make sentences that i actually mean to say when doing that, though sometimes i say slightly different things to what i would have said without it. Plus it's quite fun, i click on the word, and then see what words are gonna come next, and hope they're good ones, else i'll have to potentially type.

I made a classic error, which everyone has made, by putting both my towels in the wash at the same time. So now i have no towel.

Tea tea tea.

Did wikipedia change? Or is it just not loading properly. I don't like it. But i guess in time i'll get used to it and think it's fine like everything that changes. But really, is wikipedia actually like this now? Ok good no, it didn't actually change. I'm not sure what that was about. I was just reading about Nowruz, Iranian new year. I'm surprised it's not a holiday here too, because we have so many new years, like all the new years. It is actually a big new year soon, we are in the last month. So mid-April is one of the main new years here. I will (hopefully) be trekking in Langtang then. Norwuz is now because it's the 21st of March, the spring equinox. Ha i just realised that yesterday i saw or read something about it being the first day of spring, and i was thinking 'oh i didn't realise 21st Feb was spring, i thought it was march but maybe not'. Now i realised that it's actually March. I super thought it was February still though. Even though my birthday was early March and i've had that. I blame the Nepali calendar, because it only just stopped being Falgun, which sounds like February, and is now Chait. Which kinda sounds like March??

Wow. If a Nepali women with a child divorces, by law she has to look after that child till they are 5 years old, and then give the child to her former husband!! Hum and there is a confusing bit in this article - a girl can marry only at 20, or at 18 if her parents or the girl herself wants to do so. Think about that.

Grr grr grr the internet is so bad nowadays at NSET. Why? I gave a talk at DFID this morning. I think some parts of it were still to science-heavy. But two audience members asked me to give similar presentations at their respective institutions - they were both engineers. And now I have a meeting on Monday morning with someone who missed it. Not Monday, Friday. Friday i mean yes. When my parents arrive - they come in the afternoon, and in the morning i have a few things to do like get trekking permits and extend my visa. So tomorrow that means i should remember to print stuff... What else so i need to do before i leave Nepal? I can continue with my report after I leave, cos that's just doing computer stuff and writing. The seismometer should be ok when Mukunda goes to get it. Maybe I will send him, and Bharat too, the shipping info now. Ok done. There is the police report, but I'm not sure I will be able to get one. I will go there again tomorrow, since they are very friendly and it's just by the trekking permit place. Ok I'm going to look up opening times now. Well the internet times are often wrong. They will be open 10-12 definitely, and that's when i'll turn up anyways. Then parents arriving 2:30, so i should be at airport at 3:30. Internet too slow to do anything though. My NSET badge string broke today. My second last day. So good timing. I hope i can keep my badge though... I kept thinking i was seeing a bird. But actually it was my hair.

I played video games last night! Specifically one video game.... i can't remember it's name. It was a fighting one. I initially wanted to play mario cart, i'm not sure if that was there, it probably was, but my friend wanted to play fighting. It was one of the famous ones, like I'd heard of it before, but now i can't remember. And it was so high definition! Video games have changed since i last played. Some people were playing a football one when i arrived, and i thought it was real tv initially. When i look back on red alert and things, and actually nowadays when i watch films or like youtube on my laptop, i'm impressed when 360p is there because normally i have to turn it down. So this video game was the most HD thing i've seen in ages. Years even. I guess i haven't watched a real TV in a long time... well apart from a few times at my home house. I was fairly good at fighting. Well, good in relation to my friend. Neither of us were actually good at all. Mainly i just pressed random buttons. Worked well though. And actually it was quite fun.... I got pretty into it... haha.

Biscuit jatra. The best and funnest name for a festival. So all horn blowing got banned in Kathmandu since the new year. Which was a few days ago, in t\he middle of april. I was wondering today why it was so quiet... For some reason i really feel like listening to foo fighters. I just met Bivek and Miller for the last time. I mean, hopefully not the last time ever! But maybe! Sad times. I'm almost leaving Nepal. And i haven't kept this diary updated for a while. I am gonna sleep soon, but maybe gonna fill in some stuff tomorrow. Actually i'm listening to the handpan. Said in an American accent. The hand pan. I never really heard of the handpan before. But some guy had one, and it sounded so magical. Like so magical. Like a movie. Specifically like Avatar the movie. Not sure why though. He was so good at playing. He was on Langtang trek. But actually Gosaikund side and had a bit of altitude sickness. Maybe i will get to that bit. I don't think my roommate is here. She might

be in Philippines, that is my guess. Because she's from there and needs to go there to renew her passport. Plus there were a few signs when i arrived back from trekking that she hasn't been here for at least a few days. Firstly, well initially i was assuming these were coincidences, but it actually makes sense that she isn't here. So the wifi box was turned off. Sometimes it's like that anyways, but i guess she did that. Secondly, there were very moldy vegetables in the fridge that i bought a few weeks ago, but probably went off a few days ago, and they hadn't been thrown out, so therefore she wasn't here to throw them out. Also. Yes, also there wasn’t open milk, only a carton of unopened milk and unopened cereal, like as if she was being very nice and leaving stuff for me when i returned. Hum. Moudly doesn’t have a u.... suddenly i just though of a dream, and forgot it again. I lost my phone sad times. In real life. I'm so undecided whether or not to make tea.... my friend is apparently going to go into silence for a few days..... i think he will get bored and only last max 3 days. So many things. I have not found myself, because that isn't a thing. But i think i've got a very small bit nearer the truth. I've learnt some stuff, and unlearnt exactly some of the same stuff, but by the process of that i have learnt things. If that makes sense. I am going to look up the i poem by rudyard kipling again. What else was i going to do? So many things. Will have to wait for tomorrow. I do and i don't want to leave. I don't want to leave. The pollution and dust is pretty bad though. I'm not sure what i think. I'm not sure what i've thunk for years. Thinked. Thank. It's hard to know. It's hard to explain. What is life? I think i've become a bit more patient. And hopefully a bit more generous and kind. Maybe. I've definitely learnt a lot more about religion - Hinduism and Buddhism but also Christianity by contrast. And about spirituality. And about life. What is what is what is what. If you're sad then you can do great things, but if you're content you might not do such great things. So should you be sad and do great stuff for the world, or be happy and not do anything great. But if the purpose of life is to increase world happiness, then maybe being happy yourself is enough - that's your contribution. And by being happy, make other people happy, without having done anything explicit like solved global warming, but been depressed yourself. Though probably solving global warming would be worth one depressed person. But would it for that person? I'm not sure if happiness is what people want, though they say it is. Well yes and no. But people want more than that - they want to have done something important, or semi important, or just something at all. Why do we even exist? Who knows. There are some questions that are too hard to answer - they don't have answers, or it's too confusing and complex to talk about, or at least to enunciate with the good words. Many words haven't been invented yet. I'm still thinking about whether to make tea or not. Riding on a bike is fun. I mean back of a motor bike. Also, the non beeping rule that is now. Wow. Some things change so fast. It was the longest time i was without the internet. So without any news of the world. But nothing happened. Nothing meaning only standard stuff. I don't want to leave Nepal. I will be so weird to not be here. It was so nice this evening - perfect temperature, traffic gone away, still exotic feeling. Friends. Beer. Meat. I am gonna be vegetarian though when i leave. But i mean Kathmandu is such a family. Such a

small city. A city with a village feel. Where everyone is friends. Everyone is just getting by. Everyone is kind of chill. Life is just going on. I'll write about that book maybe tomorrow. I'm still writing now only because i can't be bothered to go to bed. It's so easy just to sit here and write. I need to look at Japan stuff. And answer more emails. Ow maybe i will have breakfast at a cafe. wow i'm so tired i almost fell asleep whilst typing with my eyes closed. Ok bed time 4sho.

I'm quite distracted. Looking up sea crocodiles. Why!? Well because i read a book called there are crocodiles in the sea, after my mum read it, about a Hazare Afghan boy who escaped to Italy, and they had chat in the book about whether crocodiles live in the sea, and at the end he said he found out that crocodiles did live in the sea. And then my mum was like 'but so do really crocodiles live in the sea?' - which was quite funny. I was like 'yes'. But i'm just checking now... I have so many tabs open i hate it. They are not ones i can close easily. A lot are papers to read. I could be organised a bit and save for later, but i'm not so organised for that. It's stressing me out though. And i'm struggling to deal with everything after not having internet for a week and not having computer for 3 weeks! Imagine. Life used to be simple. I have things to do, but lots are not too big things, but need to be done, but there are lots of them, and some things require a bit more time, and i'm not sure exactly what to do. I might go to Himalayan Java. I saw people yesterday, another person today, then my roommate is away! Actually in the Philippines like i suspected, so i can't say bye to her sad times, quite sad really, and then i defs need to meet one more person. Then i have that presentation tomorrow erg. And then what about NSET? Should, yes no i will email them about it. As long as they are free on Wednesday... i'm not sure though. This rover song is so popular. I used to hate it. ButReviews came back for one of my papers - one review was very nice, and the other was really mean!! The nice guy started, actually it could be a girl, but i always assume it's a guy because it's science. Not really though, i think at PhD level there are similar levels of girls and guys in geology, but then girls quit academics after PhD more than guys. Like me. I have seen some ok postdoc positions though. So this reviewer starts 'it was a pleasure to read this manuscript' - how nice is that! But then Mr Meanie, and i know who it is cos he wrote his name goes 'i would have stopped reading this manuscript already unless i had to cos i'm a reviewer'. That was paraphrasing. It's only 9am already. Getting up early is great. I'm going to try and do this more. I need to plan for Japan. I'm such a complainer though. Complainer to myself. I'm looking forward to being at home home and having time to do .... things and stuff. Then i need to find a job! I got rejected from world bank, as i expected because the position i applied for was at least one level too advanced for me. So i need to plan from wednesday 10th, where we go to Hirosaki, but we have had time in hirosaki the day before, and then we got to Tokyo. SoWed 10th Tokyo night. 11th, 12th also Tokyo. Maybe 13th also Tokyo. Then sun 14th mt fuji. Pravin gave me his malla, not sure of spelling, but a buddist rosary, so i can say om mane padme hum 108 times. This will be useful for Japan. I will seem like a pro buddhist. Apart from i'm not sure they say om mane padme hum there... infact they don't, but.

And monday 15th go to Kyoto, tuesday kyoto, wednesday to Osaka. So i don't need to know exactly what we're doing, just enough to book places. Especially Kyoto which my parents said was very busy. Sarah booked a place that was 73 pounds per night!!!! omg. That's more than 1000 rupees. She's crazy. This will be an expensive trip.... and i have to buy a phone! Which pales in comparison. Samsung A something. Or any Samsung that isn't too big. I should remember to bring money and my passport and passport photos incase that's needed to buy a sim. Buy a sim for 3 days! I actually could manage without, but the phone might be locked. This is such boring stuff i'm writing now. I'm actually thinking about other things. Like, shall i go to Himalayan Java now. And, i should have had less breakfast so i would be hungry for yummy breakfast in cafe. And i'm also thinking, i'm enjoying listening to this random not great generic chart music. Cos i haven't listening to music in about 4 weeks. or 3 weeks. Apart from the 8 hours of Nepali/Hindi songs on the bus yesterday. And on other bus journeys. It was fine at the beginning, but after 4 hours, of the same/similar stuff, it began to get a bit samey and i was longing for western songs. Or should i make another cup of tea just now. But then i won't be neither hungry or thirsty so can't just sit in cafe. Though actually i could, often they don't notice people coming in. Last time i sat there for about 30 minutes before i decided i wanted something. Ahhh things to do things to do. I will take my headphones. I'm still stressing about all these open tabs. I'm gonna try and close some now. Haha groupon seems to know i lost my phone. I'm sure it doesn't really, not so sure though, but it's offering discounts on Samsung phones. Can the internet read my typing?!? I'm fairly sure i haven't typed anything about phones into the google. But it's like google can detect cancer in people before they know themselves, so probably it can work out i lost my phone by indirect things i ask google, like i'm asking it about sea crocodiles, and reading the french election, so maybe from that it does an algorithm and knows about my phone. 20. ok now only 9. tabs open. That is more ok... but these last ones will require ages and concentration and a big block of time and thought and effort. Still more to do. Ok i can go to HJ now. Wow the auto quality of youtube right now is 720p. Go the internet! I'm now at Himalayan Java. I sat outside cos it's a nice day and things. But it's quite bright, and so not the best to go through photos. Plus i'm kind of hidden in a corner so i'm not sure the menu people will come back and find me. Beeping stopped!! In Kathmandu Valley. It stopped over the new year, which was just a few days ago. So now there is actually no beeping!! Crazy times. And there haven't been way more crashes or anything i don't think. It changes the whole vibe of driving though, from a bit crazy, to more serene. Well not serene. But since you can't beep, you can't be so random in your driving and have to obey the rules more. I am not sure how people are actually coping because it must be quite a shock not to be allowed to beep. It must be a reflex reaction for a lot of people though, so hard to suppress. And makes you feel quite vulnerable and panicky, like in New Zealand we hired a car and they drive on the left, but the indicator lever is on the other side!! It's so confusing. You get to a junction, try to indicate, but actually haven't indicated but turned on the windscreen wipers. And then the wipers are going on and on and stressing you, and you haven't indicated, so what to do!

Omg this guy is smoking and it's blowing right in my face.

Such a failure. I thought i was going in Himalayan Java, but actually it was a different, but similar, but worse cafe. It is a bit dark and smoky in here. And not even cheaper. Plus the tea was very sugary. And also i just had another cup of tea after my RAP3 presentation, Rural Access Program, they basically build roads and infrastructure, funded by DFID, and that was my favourite presentation so far. They asked good questions, and were mainly engineers, and we had a chat at the end and they seemed very good and 'switched-on' - that's a bit patronizing to say, i mean that they seemed to actually care and want to do good stuff. I was not looking forward to that presentation, but actually i am very glad i did it. It's nice when people are so genuinely interested too. And when they understand a bit!! Now i'm just doing some corrections to a different paper, about maximum magnitudes, and then meeting a friend to give money. My last full day tomorrow!! Argh. I'm super sad. But not really cos i haven't thought much about it yet and it also hasn't happened yet. I was thinking just now that Nepal taught me a lot through roads, like crossing the road, and this can be a metaphor for all things in life. So when i arrived, i was scared and not good of crossing the road, and even when seeing a road in the distance, I'd already by panicking and worried about how i would cross that road, and so stressing about it. Then i'd get to the road and not be good at crossing, but actually i'd make it across and everything would be fine so why was i stressing already about something in the future that actually turned out to be fine anyways? Now when i see a road in the future/distance, i don't stress at all about crossing it. Partly cos there's no point in stressing already, and also because i know i'll be able to cross the road when i get there, so what's the point panicking already. And now i'm much more of a pro at crossing the road. I know that even the road is two-way, it's not important to worry about the traffic on the opposite side of the road before you actually reach that side/half way in the road. Just deal with the immediate problem/side of the road first, and then when you've dealt with that, you can work on the next side of the road and the solution will become very apparent. If you try and solve the whole road crossing at once, it seems impossible and you will never be able to get across. Ok that was my road metaphor. But also not metaphor. I got a new phone. Cos i lost my old one, i can't remember if i said. My new phone is worse than my last one, but that's fine i think. Apart from i guess the camera isn't as good, though not taken photos yet, and then there is less storage space, so potentially that will be a problem. But i think i can get a thing you know what i mean, for the phone too, a memory card i mean. In the phone shop/actually a whole mall with only phone shops. Incredible really. But i was torn between my stated desire - my phone doesn't need to do much really, just have good battery, and my secret desire, which was - i want exactly the same phone as my old one. Which was quite a good one. I only got quite a good one because it was the smallest one in the shop where i got it. This time, similarly i also wanted a smaller phone. But all the better ones are too large. But it was hard to reconcile my two desires, especially because i didn't know exactly the model of my last phone, and it was quite fancy, so i knew i didn't actually need it to be that good. Especially if i lose if again! Cross fingers not. Oliver was there, and not enjoying this phone choosing experience, and

he was laughing because apparently in one shop this phone was 'way too big', but in the next shop the exact same phone was 'just the right size'. And that was the phone i got. And now i have a SIM, which i think is registered to Prabin's brother's name.... but i will only have it for like two days. How much are SIMS in other countries? I think this one was 150 rupees, and that includes 50 rupees of credit. It SIMS are only $1 in austria i guess i will get one there too. But actually, i need pay as you go, and perhaps that is more expensive in austria.... more than $5 per few weeks, which is not too much data because i don't use that much. Anyway i've been advanced and already downloaded an offline map of Vienna. It might be useful though to have a European SIM so that after Brexit i can use it in europe and it won't be too expensive unlike perhaps British SIMS will be in europe after that... Also one pound used to be 160 rupees!! Or something like that, pre-Brexit, and now it's only 125! I'm so much poorer cos of that stupid thing. 125/160, 12/16 = 3/4 = 75% poorer. Haha no that was totally wrong, i mean my money is now worth 75% of what it would have been. That is quite a big difference. I could have got so many more momos with that. But, actually, now i'm almost leaving, i can say that momos aren’t really that nice. Shhh! i didn't say that. I think that's blasphemy here. They are fine. But i can't say that they are super tasty or anything. They are mainly just fine. We also, Oliver, Prabin and me cos we were hanging out yesterday, had a discussion about what fine means, because i said my drink was 'fine', which to me means something like 'meets expectations, or satisfactory', but Oliver told some people who has cooked dinner that their food was 'fine', and that didn't go down well, but he meant fine as in 'Tesco finest', like if you see a guy and are like 'ooh he's fine', or that's a very fine horse. Also we started a company yesterday, though we're still unclear exactly what kind of company to register it as - like a non-profit, or a charity, or private limited. Our company is called 'Hamro Productions'. Hamro is our in Nepali. I guess i will make a website for this. After asking my bro again about domain names and the such like. Ok I'm gonna continue with corrections. I never went to Kapan monastery, or pullahari monastery which is just nearby. Kapan is only open on Saturdays, so too late now. Something for next time i guess. Oh so Hamro Productions is going to be like Raoul the marathon man from Lumbini, did i even write about that i can't remember. So we are going to film me (and the others) doing marathons around the world, and also going social work nearby the marathon, raising awareness of tourism in that part of the world, the importance of running to local and global people. And also i've thought, though i didn't tell the others yet, I'd also give presentations about geology and seismic hazard in those countries. Our first one is going to be 3rd December Angor Wat International Half Marathon. Prabin thinks this is too far in the future because he's always impatient. There's also a marathon there in August, but i think that's too soon. There are also other marathon opportunities. Wow there was actually some news. The UK is having a general election on 8th June. I guess the turnout will be high.... maybe. I will be in the UK i guess, so will vote myself. But maybe i have it set up for my mum, or actually George, to vote for me.

From Figure \ref{fig:method}, which is applied to the San Andreas Fault, extrapolating directly the instrumental data, and assuming GR with a b-value of around 1, intersects the line representing the moment budget closure around M$_{w}$9. The reviewers comment was 'this sentence has some grammar issues...'. Not sure why i pasted it here, but this page was open. I am gonna make it make more sense now. From Figure \ref{fig:method}, which is applied to the San Andreas Fault, we can see that a line directly extrapolating the instrumental data, having assumed GR with a b-value of around 1, would intersect the line representing the moment budget closure around M$_{w}$9.Sometimes i just remember i'm a dr and am like 'wahoo!'. One thing good that came from Brexit is the hilarious portmanteaus (or portmanteaux?) that everyone now uses. Like Brextremists. And so many others. And also not just in a Brexit context. But in all contexts. A bit like how here in the newspapers they use the very informal 'Prez', instead of 'President'.... Grammatical debates on the internet are so hilarious.

I'm leaving Nepal tomorrow!! So sad :( . But still i hope there's not a chicken on the runway or anything. Actually just now a called the family dog Bess! (that is the name of my home house dog in england). I just watched beauty and the beast. It was super funny at one point where Hermione through a snowball at the beast, so this film was in 3D, and then the beast made a massive snowball, and threw it back, but then it was coming out of the screen and by instinct i ducked, and so did everyone else in the cinema and then we all laughed about it!! It was so funny i was crying. I'm still scared i will forget things. Do i need to do anything before i leave? Oh well too late now.... I don't want to leave!!! I might apply to iMCworldwide and then potentially come back.... Redhill, hum.... I don't want to live in the uk... we'll see how it goes. I want to stay here!! But can i stay here forever?!?! Maybe... um well... I should go to bed now... I haven't packed, i just got stuff out. I hope it all fits... i think it would have, but today i bought lots of stuff... super cool stuff. Like i will be so cool at EGU and all. Just still hoping it fits..... we'll see tomorrow. If i stay here though i want a piano. Which could prove challenging. And also i just saw a picture of a painting, so just right now i'm thinking i would want some art stuff to do art. Though that's the first time i've had that thought in 6 months... What else. I'm not sure. Projector. Speakers for laptop. So this coming local election will be the first local election in 20 years. Previously the local people have just been picked by the government. And it involves so many people, because there are about ... i can't remember... 3000 local places, each with between 5 and 9 people to be elected, and there 5-10 people standing for each seat, so that's 3000*7*7 =~ 3000*50 = 150,000 people wanting to be elected...

******I am in Japan now, so yes i left Nepal. I can't remember where i got up to in my diary, i didn't write for ages. Oh i did actually write i was leaving Nepal tomorrow. Erg it is too difficult to see where i got up to, but what happened was my parents visited for 2 weeks and I hiked again to Poon Hill with my mum, and there was a storm with

huge hailstones and the darkest i've even seen it that wasn't at night time. My mum got some food poisoning. They didn't like the small buses because their knees didn't really fit. Apart from that I think they enjoyed it though. Apart from also the pollution - air and the trash too. In Japan it is very clean... It's actually quite like america and less high tech somehow than i'd imagined. I think though that's because we've only been in the north on Hokkaido so far, which wasn't long ago just fishing villages and the like. All the streets are grids and quite wide, which is why it seems like america. The train man is videoing people getting on the train.... So we're on a Shinkansen, i.e. bullet train, waiting for it to leave. It's our second journey on one of these super fast trains - the other one was only 12 minutes though... we went far during that time. Oh yeah, that town was so wierd, Kidonai... no Kinokai... no I'm not sure of the name, it was on the way to Matsumae a beautiful cherry tree garden with a little castle. But anyway. Life goes on. I'm not sure i'll write any more than i have done... i have lots of other things to do, plus now i don't feel like writing so much. I still have notes below on things i was gonna write about. I will just check... I never went to Kapan monastery, though i was always meaning to go. Hum, looks like i wanted to watch a film set in Vanuatu... i will check that out later. And i've also mentioned a Bhutan movie... not sure what though. Oh maybe Travellers and Magicians. One time i played piano in a restaurant. I mean not like to people listening, there was just a random piano, or rather keyboard, in a room and i played a bit, which was nice. I am looking forward to playing piano when i get home.

just want to have fun, and go travelling and things...' - 'yeah......, what's wrong with that????' said Pravin to his boss lady one time. 'what's america - nepal is way older, temples were built before america was discovered' said Pravin a different time.

I went to Dakshinkali - and walked a lot in blood. That happened with my mum too at Gorkha, it was just after mini Dasain, we had to walk through lots of blood and there was an alter covered in chicken feathers.

Someone hadn't heard of the Simpsons! Can't remember who now. And someone had read Three Men in a Boat!

In my notes I also mention to mention about the change in internet needs between last time when I was India, about 5/6 years ago, and now. Now i feel i need internet all the time. Before that was way much less necessary. Everyone has a phone now. Lots have smart phones too. I did not have a smart phone last time in India.

Wow i lot of my notes are from so near the beginning, like such a long time now. The comments i wrote seem not at all interesting, I will just delete them. Probably/hopefully i mentioned some of the things already.

Ok that was all my notes either written briefly about or deleted. Now i guess this is just the end. Writing a diary was ok. At the beginning i was more stressed out about it, and really trying to remember things that happened or even what people said so i

could write it down later. But then time passed, and Nepal didn't seem so new. Still exciting though. And my diary seemed long enough already! So we're probably travelling at 300km/h or something right now. 10 times the speed of Nepal... I'm just wondering if i should end with a good paragraph or sentence, or try and think of something philosophical or whatever to end with. But i think i will not.