Seasonal reminder: If you're applying to PhD programs and are interested in the work someone is doing, it's fine to email them with specific questions. But that's not how you *apply* to grad school. There's an application process, and you need to follow it.

Every year, individual STEM professors get spammed by a tidal wave of unsolicited email with boilerplate text, transcripts, letters of recommendation, etc, overwhelmingly from abroad. No one gets in to a program that way. Just apply.

Nine hours driving home on the Hume, thinking, listening. Youngest came down to Melbourne on the night train to hang out with friends and ride shotgun home with me, and we learned a lot about each other through road trip music choices.

Came home to find my cactus flowering. Still astonishing, still and always. It belonged to my friend, and flowered on the night he died in November 2020, so every year it brings him back in such a good way.

Edited to add @plants and #bloomscrolling.

Petal Pairs.

#photography #flowers #bloomscrolling

Amidst a sea of bad news, here's something cheerful: Poland's far-right ruling party tried every conceivable trick to hold onto power, but with a massive turnout voters rejected the effort

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/poland-parliamentary-election-autocracy-tusk/675656/