The Writings of a Research Student

Busy Busy Busy

2009-12-05T14:57:05Z

:) This is not going to be a particularly long or coherent post but I feel you all deserve a bit of an update.

Well I expect everyone who knows me knows that I'm mad enough to be studying a PGCE while trying to write up a PhD. It's all going pretty well. My PGCE lecturers seem to think I'm on the verge of some sort of nervous break but I'm trying not to let that bother me. My thesis currently stands at 26,157 words. I got over a thousand words done on Friday so I am quite pleased with myself there. Rather more pressing is the 5,000 word PGCE assignment that is due on Friday. It's currently a little over a fifth done and I am suffering from a severe motivation lack on doing any more to it, oh well, better get over that asap. The trouble is I'm not sure I understand the assignment, and even if I do I'm not sure I can write in the appropriet manner to fulfill it. *sigh*

I'm getting just under two weeks back home with my parents over Christmas. Assuming I survive until then... I get to play only kid again as my sister is spending most of that time with her fiance. I'm just looking forward to the break. I'm going to need it.

Still Here

2009-10-28T10:49:19Z

Just a very quick note to say I haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth. I am however very busy studying a PGCE while writing up a PhD will do that to you. I actually have something resembling a life now that I have a regular shedule. I'm going up to Bristol this weekend for a Halloween night out so that should be fun especially as the costume is now sorted. I hope to have my thesis submitted by Christmas, about 9,000 words to go...

Shouldn't I be more stressed?

2009-08-11T09:33:56Z

It's now less than six weeks until my PGCE preliminary placements start and I'm no longer in the lab full time. Therefore all of my experiments have to be done by then. So far they aren't. I want to have a completed first draft to give my supervisor by then so far it's at 11,050 word and 60 pages (in page terms that's the longest thing I've ever written) and I guess that's a quarter to a third of the whole. Yet despite this I'm really not that stressed, my turkish delight consumption has gone up but I'm still not that stressed. I expected it to be worse than this.

Maybe I'm just swimming in an Egyptian river...

My real concern is that some of the data I still have to do involves repeating data I took about a year ago, now that was before the nasty incident with the trough and the MPPhys students and I really worried that it also will not work if it doesn't I really will have problems. *sigh*

We are star stuff

2009-07-17T09:00:56Z

The bus driver had radio two on as he was bringing us up top uni today and they were in the middle of Terry Wogan's 'thought for the day' bit (I do not get up early if I can help it). Anyway, the woman, I did not catch who she was, had apparently attended some sort of talk at which it was revealed that every carbon atom in our bodies was once in a star. This apparently nearly made her mind look like my icon and caused her to do a lot of thinking.

I just wonder what would have happened if she had been told that every carbon atom was once in a star, as was every other atom (with the exception of some hydrogen and helium, both of which might have been hanging about since the Big Bang) and every atom heavier than iron was once in a supernova...

PS: Do you think it's a sign of the British summer that a cyclist passed me this morning kitted out in a waterproof poncho, a wool hat (No helmet naughty naughty) and sunglasses?

PPS: After many phone calls and one school that never did get back to me I have sorted out my preliminary placements.

Getting on with stuff

2009-06-23T13:10:28Z

I'm still here and still buried under lots of stuff, now though it's PhD and PGCE stuff. I'm trying to organise a preliminary experience week at two schools one secondary and one primary. The primary school is all sorted out but so far none of the secondaries are getting back to me. There aren't that many in Exeter so I haven't got a lot of option.

Aside from all the work life is good my attic is just about fit for habitation and certainly fit for me to move my DnD book collection on to its new shelf. A few more bits need to be done so I won't be gaming up there just yet but it's well on the way. Going to position and fill a bookshelf tonight so that'll be nice. I always feel better when surrounded by books... Might get some of my desk stuff sorted out too, depends what time I escape the lab.

This week (Wed-Fri) is comm skills so while I keep an eye on the first years I should be able to do some major catching up on my journal reading. I have a pile of papers that I need to read thoroughly on the windowsill in front of my desk and it's over an inch thick. Also comm skills means I get to make bottle rockets on Friday, I mean of course that I get to help the first years make bottle rockets....

I'm having my annual birthday/cocktail party this weekend (YAY!! but also large amounts of tidying needed) and am also meeting up with one of my uni friends who I haven't seen in a while. I went back to Guildford last weekend to go to
countertony / el_staplador

's wedding (and as a side bonus, see my parents) it was a wonderful wedding and I hope they are having too much fun on honeymoon to be reading livejournal.

At the beginning of July I'm off to Cambridge for a week to do a load of experiments and then I shall come back here and do a load more (different) experiements. It would be very good if I am all experimented out by the end of July. - We shall see.

Things that have made me smile today

2009-06-01T10:53:50Z

- Opening my bedroom curtains to see clear blue skies and sunshine

- Watching the swans on the river, there's a pair on nested on the footpath by the red cow bridges who have two fluffy cygnets who are taking swimming lessons.

- Noting that someone has tied two bunches of bananas together with a piece of string and hung them over one of the horse's ears on the Redvers Buller statue, so much more imaginative than a traffic cone.

- Handing in my notice to Sainsburys.

Busy!!!

2009-05-05T10:59:39Z

This is just a short update to inform everyone that I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth. I am, however, working an average of 10 hours a day in the lab (hazard of being a final year student with a lot of data to retake) and will be doing so for the forseeable future. The future is still a big grey haze, as I don't know if I can get enough done to take up the PGCE place on time or if I'll have to defer.

Since I last posted I have got my aikido brown belt and am now considering taking a coaching course (sometime after phd) and been to a conference at Warwick Uni which was very interesting. It seems like I'm going to have to go back to Cambridge to redo the data I did there as well. Family visited at Easter work got done on house, new computer got bought (can you say splurge...), pengiuns got seen (sisters birthday treat) and I got sunburnt. Most of my extra ciricular stuff has fallen by the wayside of late, phd comes first, it IS going to get done. so from now on there will be a thesis update: 37 pages at present (mostly preamble and lit review)

jedda @ 2009-03-17T13:01:00

2009-03-17T13:02:07Z

Let's see... where to begin...

My interview went so so I thought one of the interviewers was a bit odd and really wasn't sure how it'd turn out. Still they gave me the place :) They actually informed me on Thursday so no keeping me hanging around. Now the problem becomes finishing the PhD in time to take up my PGCE place (I have no intention of trying to write a thesis and study for a PGCE - that's insanity even by my standards) so that puts my submission deadline at the second week of September at the latest. At the moment I have a feeling that I won't make that. If I don't then it'll mean deferring my PGCE entry for a year and finding some way to keep food on the table when my PhD funding runs out. Bearing in mind I all ready have a part-time job and can probably get a reasonable amount of demonstration work from the Uni (pays better than anything else) I'm not scared of this option. Also if I can get a Teaching Assistant job it'll help a lot with the future PGCE. I'll defer if I have to but it will mean me having been at uni for 11 years by the end...

My research isn't going to well at the moment but I am trying to remain upbeat. All the while the thought of treking to Warwick with a completely blank poster looms large in my mind. I'll be going to the conference anyway but I'd really like to have something to show for my work to this point.

Well... that's more than enough moaning so on to more fun stuff. I am writing at the moment, mostly working on my still untitled novella (I think) about Alyscia Du Val mercenary/bounty hunter of supernatural beasties. I am also doing bits here and there on my fantasy novel 'Portends from the Stars' orginally entitled Pathways but that turned out to be the series title (this was the story I lost a lot of when my bag was stolen last year). I am also writing a DnD campaign, at first I thought this was another fantasy world adding the the clutter all ready in my head but due to the lack of a main character I soon concluded that it had to be a campaign world. I ran an adventure for my family at Christamas which was brilliant fun and I hope to continued the adventure next time I'm back in Surrey for any length of time. I had great-axe weilding human barbarian (my dad), an archer forest warden (druid) with a very effective guard dog (my mum), and a fairy sorceress with a penguin familiar (my sister). Lots of the bad guys spent lots of time asleep as I could not make saves against the fairy's spells and the world's most embarrassing way for a goblin to die - it was killed by the penguin :) who criticalled and then did a victory dance.

My attic - I am really looking forward to having this as usable space and am very grateful that my dad is able to install stairs. It won't be completed then but the week after Easter should end with me having usable attic space. :)

Catch Up once again

2009-03-09T14:07:58Z

It's been more than a month since I posted here and a crazy month it has been. Now despite the title of this journal being 'writings of a research student' I rarely go into much detail about my research here. That isn't going to change; thus a brief summary follows.

+ve: have had abstract accepted for conference in April, I have an interview for my PGCE on Wednesday, my kit is working, I think *crosses fingers* that I now know what was up with my previous data, plans for attic conversion continue, I'm writing quite frequently at the moment.

-ve: haven't been to aikido in a week (this has to change if I want to grade in April, which i do), I have to take loads of data before the conference or else my poster is going to be blank, I may have to take most of my data again to remedy what was wrong with it.

Also it appears I have missed a trick, was reading in The Sun (don't ask, it gets left in the canteen at work. No, I do not know why but the problems pages are hilarious...) that a woman whop works on the checkouts in a hypermarket in France has written a book called 'Confessions of a Checkout Girl' and apparently it's selling pretty well. I may have to start sharing some of my stories. Still, I'd rather write fiction.

25 Things

2009-02-05T12:20:33Z

I haven't posted on here in a while because things have been crazy in the lab but rather than go on about that I shall cross post a meme from my facebook. I have now lost track of how many times I've been tagged for this. I assume that most of my friends who are remotely interested have all ready done it. So 25 random things about me.

1. My middle name is Rosemary which unknown in the Exeter university admissions department is one word.

2. I only ever met one of my grandparents.

3. On my right index and middle fingers I can bend the top joint without bending the second joint.

4. I have owned two cars but never passed my driving test

5. Whilst I'm on the subject, I once failed a driving test due to hydroplaning. I am still rather irked by this.

6. I am rather scared on small children

7. Despite reading a lot and my love of writing stories I am a terrible speller.

8. The only film I've seen more than twice at the cinema is 'LotR - Return of the King'

9. I've wanted to be a scientist since I was 6 or 7

10. I can recite the alphabet backwards

11. I honestly never though I had a hope of getting on University Challenge

12. I am a compulsive fiddler particularly when I have a piece of paper to play with.

13. I asked for transformers for my sixth birthday

14. When the gameboy first came out I wanted one because I really enjoyed Tetris.

15. I have never owned a copy of Tetris

16. Part of me feels I was born 10-20 years too late given my favourite music and TV shows

17. I am not a great cook but I really enjoy reading recipe books

18. Actually I read quite a lot of things that aren't usually read all the way through.

19. This like all the other notes has been written while I am bored in the lab.

20. I was in a fight at secondary school, a bit one sided as I ended up ripping a lot of his hair out but he stopped picking on me after that

21. The only other times I've been in a fight I was sticking up for my sister.

22. My earliest memory is from when I was 2

23. Despite currently working in biophysics I know very little biophysics/biology

24. I've had a passport of my own since I was 3 months old

25. I turned a profit playing blackjack one holiday.

jedda @ 2008-12-19T12:51:00

2008-12-19T12:55:19Z

It's the last day I'm going to be in the lab in 2008 today, going back home on Sunday to spend Christmas with my parents. Now as it's the last day you'd think I would be making all efforts to get a bit more data especially as I need a load more data to fill in the gaps identified by all my data analysis. However, as you can see/read, I'm typing on livejournal rather than getting data. My kit seems to be broken at the moment. *sigh* not getting anything sensible out of it at all; although I am still trying. Looks like it's going to have to be sent off to be repaired. I'm blaming the MPhys students, they seem to have done quite a bit of damage to things.

Anyway, on to rather more positive topics... The school visit went well although it has made me wonder how cushy my school experience was. Now I went to a non-selective comprehensive, admittedly in a good area of Surrey. I did not have a good time at school but the students generally behaved well in class and got on with what they were supposed to. And I had quite a bit of homework, I'd guess an hour a night in year 7 rising to 2-3 hours a night by the time I was in sixth form. Anyway, this school there was much more chaos in the classes than I was expecting, no one older than 14 seemed to want to be there (which I consider really sad). They were teaching the 21st Century Science curriculum which I had always felt wasn't a good thing to introduce; now I really believe it wasn't these students seemed a long way behind where I would have thought they should be. Also there was very little/ no homework set. The one class I saw with homework (year 11s with a practise paper) only 3 out of the class had done it. I don't know that this was truly a problem with the course though.
In short I found the amount of apathy exhibited by the students to be a little frightening and disturbing. I cannot understand people who prize ignorance and stupidity. I still want to be a teacher but this has taught me some home truths. People have told me that secondary school kids have changed in the last 5-10 years, now I know what that means. I may however decide to gravitate towards maths rather than physics (most schools do not let you teach both) as I feel that subject has been messed around with less. Part of why I want to become a teacher is that I feel maths and science and a basic understanding of each is a necessity for anyone to have an informed opinion of pretty much anything. However, we seem to be developing a lot of people who for some reason that I can't fathom think it is 'cool' to be stupid. They're dragging a lot of other students with them who deserve better than that.

I guess that wasn't much more positive, was it? I am looking forward to going home for Christmas. I'm gonna run a DnD game for my family, I hope they like it. I've also had another DnD campaign world pop into my head (it's pretty noisy in there most of the time) and I think it may well survive turning into an actual game setting. Been kinda fiddling with it, might be ready to inflict on some players about the time one of the games I'm currently playing in finishes. :)
I've also decided I want to convert my attic into useable space. At the moment I'm thinking study/martial arts practise space in one half (the ceiling's high enough) and library/reading room/gaming room/crafting space in the other half. I'm pretty excited about it. It's obviously going to take me a while to get everything done but it is good to have plans. :)

Back (I think)

2008-12-01T15:37:46Z

Today is the submission deadline for the journal special edition I was hoping to submit my paper to. It isn't going to happen. I will be getting this paper published but I don't know when at the moment. I had a chat with my supervisor on Friday and he said that the results and discussion section of my paper really need a lot of work (hardly surprising as I have lots of new results - as an result of all the analysis I have been doing lately - that I haven't really had a chance to discuss with anyone yet.). I also have draft of my paper that my second supervisor has gone over so I have a few dozen alterations to make. This is my first paper so it is taking forever. I have to get the experiments done first.

My experiments have really slowed down of late. Mostly because of all the data analysis I have been doing (something I have been finding it hard to stay motivated for) and also because we now have a couple of MPhys students who are using the same set up as me on Mondays and Fridays. *sigh* Stil I am getting on and feel like I am getting somewhere useful and interesting on this project.

Other news: I'm visiting a school for a couple of days at the start of next week, so my plans for the future are coming along quite well. :) I am still planning on starting on a PGCE next year.

I have no idea where November has gone, it sorta disappeared in a haze of paper writing and data analysis.... I am heading home to spend Christmas week with my family and most of my undergrad friends are heading home before me. I am thus stressing a little a about christmas shopping but that is far more fun that stressing about writing a paper.

Surfacing Slowly

2008-10-29T10:16:28Z

Still doing the data analysis (three weeks now) *sigh*, I am getting there though. As many of you are aware I am hoping to become a secondary school teacher (yes, I know I am insane) and I am hoping (thesis permitting) to start PGCE next academic year. I am currently trying to organise an observation day, however I didn't realise it was half-term so I'll have to wait until next week for a response on that.

On an unrelated note does anyone find it rather worrying that two of my second year problems class group thought that Sodium Chloride was a good example of a covalently bonded material?

I'm still here

2008-10-17T10:58:11Z

I know I've sadly neglected my journal of late. Life has been hectic. Very good but hectic.I am currently swimming through approximately two tonnes of data analysis and I am not sure when I'll surface. Longer and more detailed post coming when I do.

Busy and Writing

2008-08-14T12:25:17Z

I'm at work and have a lot to do so naturally my subconscious has been doing its own thing. What follows is what I came up with this morning. Comments and encouragement much appreciated.

Everyone makes mistakes, the trick is to come back from those mistake and keep on going even when those mistakes keep coming back to bite you. Incidentally your late teenage years are a very good, or bad, time to make the sort of mistakes that can haunt you for a long time after;. All the angst and hormones, it marks your psyche anyway, a few mistakes on top can be nasty. I should know; the year between my 16th and 17th birthdays was filled with a lot of mistakes: murder, death, chaos and bloodshed. More than a decade later I'm still paying the piper. I probably will be for the rest of my life.

Busy busy busy

2008-08-06T10:07:52Z

As you may have gathered from my facebook statuses I have been rather busy of late. In fact I am still busy and shouldn't really be sparing the time to write this but I felt that I had neglected my blog for too long anyway. :) My good week did work out. I have some really good images of lipid films being effected by elastin (the protein my phd is based around). I was really busy last week as I was trying to produce a talk for a group meeting and finish editing a paper and take more data.

As it worked out I pulled some fairly late nights and got the talk done. It was pretty good, made me produce some illustrations that will be useful for my thesis and think about a lot of the motivations behind the project. The paper was pretty nearly done when one of my supervisors suggested that I should do another experiment, now I did most of the data gathering for this paper last year and he has seen it before .... never mind. So that set of experiments is what I am working on now. Basically we looked at alkaline conditions because there is some literature that says that interesting things happen there. I did not do any experiments under acidic conditions. Now though I am doing them on acid....

So the paper is on hold as a result of this but in case I didn't have enough to do we got some new furniture for the office. We have been waiting a while for the this stuff. Health and Safety had a few things to say about this office and as on open days everyone walks past the door to see the teaching labs it's kinda on show. 11 postgrads plus a summer student are sharing this office at the moment. We spent two days hauling furniture around: 12 desks, cupboards, battered chairs and lots of other stuff out; 14 desks (which needed assembly), 14 desk units (some assembly), 4 bookcases (lots of assembly) in. Not to mention all the dusting sweeping and rewiring that went along with all of this. Needless to say not much experimental got done on Thursday or Friday last week. All of this was complicated by 5 of the occupants of the office being away and one having a bad back. It was a crazy couple of days.

Still I am busy but i have a nice new desk and a nice new chair and everything is pretty much tidy. We'll see how long that lasts :)

Things are going well

2008-07-15T11:16:21Z

Last week I had a major issue when I found out that I had been making a methodological mistake in my experiments. This mean that the data I had acquired didn't have sufficient resolution for me to do anything with it. Now though my mistake has been fixed and I have data. If things go well then by the end of today I should be back where I thought I was at the end of last week. *BOUNCE BOUNCE* :)

10 things meme

2008-06-30T15:54:09Z

Okay have gaked this meme from:
steviesun ( 1 on her list) and
el_staplador (none on her list). So here is my list of 10 things that I have done that I don't think anyone else reading this has done.

1. Climbed around one of the engines of a 747

2. Been a cockpit passenger in a tristar under tow at Heathrow

3. Owned two cars before having my driving license.

4. Had the battery pulled out of a stopwatch I was using by an 8T magnet

5. Had a broken finger squashed in a car electric window

6. Eaten crocodile meat.

7. Eaten a five course breakfast

8. Had drinks with Jeremy Paxman

9. Been bitten/pecked by a penguin

10. Heard 'We are the champions' played by a steel band on a caribbean beach

Falling Apart and putting myself back together

2008-06-10T09:15:34Z

It's been rather weird of late, in the last month I have suffered from a string of joint pains. Most recently it's been my left knee. The really annoying thing is that none of the injury/pains have had any obvious trauma as a cause (my knee went when I stepped on to a bus) so I don't really know what happened to any of them. I've been away from aikido as a result as I didn't want to risk further injuries. I seem tio be all back in one piece now so that is something. Actually my aikido attendence this year has been pretty bad for one reason and another.

I am looking forward to the rest of June, there are a lot of parties / celebrations coming up and I hope to make them all (may need to take July off to recover though :)). I am planning on having a birthday party this year so that is something to look forward to. Thinking of taking time off my parents are in Exeter on Thursday so I having that day off, hopefully this will give us a chance to finally sort out the pulling in my bathroom, there's nothing wrong with it in the sense that it works, it's just very awkward and untidy.

The Exeter Bombing and stuff

2008-05-23T14:46:30Z

I was in the lab when I heard, the initial news reports made it sound more like an exploding lightbulb than a bomb. The former being far more believable than the latter. We giggled a bit wondering why anyone would want to bomb Exeter. Still I don't consider this terrorism and so far I feel rather sorry for the bomber (who was the only one who actually got hurt). I still can't figure out why someone would want to bomb Exeter , particularly someone from Plymouth which is a larger city and probably has more interesting targets.....

Still it gives me something to ponder on on a slightly frustrating Friday afternoon. It's actually been a pretty good week but the impossibleness of catching one of my supervisors is wearing a little thin. He's not in again until next Thurday now. *sigh* Still *grins* It's almost the start of a long weekend and I intend to rest and enjoy myself.

jedda @ 2008-05-12T13:17:00

2008-05-12T12:34:20Z

As it's circulating at the moment and I have a review paper to read that I can't seem to bring myself to start reading. I'm tempted to take it outside and sit in the sunshine to read however as I'm trying to keep prodding my trough that isn't really practical. *sigh* Here goes :)

Normal meme rules apply, if you're on my friends list consider yourself tagged :). Either reply in the comments or on your own Lj. The friend I gaked this from is tispity.

1) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
A. No

2) What was your dream growing up?
A. I wanted to be a scientist, I think I'm well on the way.

3) What talent do you wish you had?
A. I would like to have enough musical ability to hold a tune

4) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
A. In this weather, a glass of old-fashioned lemonade with ice would be nice

5) Favourite vegetable?
A. carrots or sugar snap peas

6) What was the last book you read?
A. Last one I finished was Dresden files 5 - Death Masks, I am currently reading On Basilisk Station the first Honor Harrington book, hope to finish it this evening.

7) What zodiac sign are you?
A. Which zodiac? western = Cancer, Chinese = Dog

8) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
A. Nope

9) Worst Habit?
A. Procrastination

10) If you saw me walking down the street, would you offer me a ride?
A. Um, I don't have a driver's liecense

11) What is your favorite sport?
A. Swimming

12) Do you have a Negative or Optimistic attitude?
A. Generally optimistic

13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
A. Finally have the time to catch up on the the last several years

14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
A. My first phD supervisor

15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
A. I believe I am my own worst enemy, make of that what you will.

16) Do you have any pets?
A. No

17) What if i showed up at your house unexpectedly?
A. I'd probably panic, my house is a mess at the minute. Not to mention I probably wouldn't actually be home.

18) What was your first impression of me?
A. As far as I recall it was something along the lines of 'an intense gothy looking girl, she seems interesting'

19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
A. unnerving dependant on makeup

20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
A. I'd like my hair to behave a bit more often

21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
A. Depends on the crime :)

22) What color eyes do you have?
A. dark brown

23) Ever been arrested?
A. No

24) Bottle or can soda?
A. either

25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
A. Save most of of it, may go on £1000 worth opf a spending spree.

27) What's your favourite place to hang at?
A. I hang mostly at Clydesdale :)

28) Do you believe in ghosts?
A. No

29) Favourite thing to do in your spare time?
A. Read

30) Do you swear a lot?
A. Not really

31) Biggest pet peeve?
A. ummm, people with no imagination

32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
A.

33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
A. yes

35) Do you believe in God?
A. no

The Dresden Files

2008-04-28T14:36:22Z

Oh dear, I'm rather in over my head on this one. I don't remember when I first became interested in watching the The Dresden Files (for those of you who don't know about it the series concerns a wizard, the only one in the phone book, who works as an investigator) but due to having piles of DVDs and no time to watch them I have restrained myself. Last week I found out that the TV series is actually based on a book series and that was the end of my restraint. I cashed in my change collection on Saturday and bought the first book. I read it last night (Sunday) and really enjoyed it. I have now ordered the next three... Fortunately for me there's only 10 or so books in the series but the one I have so far read is very good and the rest seem to continue in a similar line.

*manages to resist giving spoilers*

Moving On

2008-04-25T15:42:55Z

My supervisor was away for the last two weeks of the Easter holidays and I had this wonderful plan to get a lot of work done so I had something good to show him when he returned. However, in experimental science plans rarely work out as you thought they were going to and this one was no exception. I was home ill for a few days (really nasty sore throat) and lost another day due to sorting out a computer. This week hasn't been the most productive either. *sigh* I sorta feel as if I am skating on the edge of apathy towards my work, I want to do it but sometimes there is so much to do that it is difficult to know where to start. Then the procrastination sets in and I start to feel that as I'm not getting anywhere it's not worth doing anything.... and so the cycle goes on.
I am aware I do this and I am keeping a close eye on how I'm feeling and acting, I'm planning on taking a week away from work to have some relaxing fun (probably of the watching DVDs, reading and writing variety) and in the meantime I'm reading silly books and trying to ensure I don't get too stressed. I have no idea when this week off will take place but I will be ensuring it doesn't coincide with half term.

I am getting some things done but the experiments aren't going as quickly as I would want, which is perfectly normal for experimental work even if it is very frustrating.

Something else that is rather frustrating is the apparent inability of my first year problems class group to apply basic common sense to their answers. This weeks almost made me give up the will to live. I had one student inform me that cos x = -2.2 (cos x has to be in the range -1 to 1 inclusive) and another inform me that a temperature of a gas would be 10^21 K (I'm not actually aware of anything that gets that hot the core of a hot star is about 10^7 K) given that the answer to this question was 0.015 K they were quite a long way out....

My sister's birthday has come and gone, with typical family organisation they all descended on the south-west so my sister could visit Living Coasts again. I found this exercise a bit frustrating as I got four days notice of the fact that my one day at home in the week had been taken up with something and I was ill at the time as well... Anyway the day actually went really well. I quite like the Living Coasts we went their last summer. My sister on the other hand really loves Living Coasts as they have free roaming penguins and she really likes penguins. They was also the chance to buy her her a lot of penguin paraphernalia in the gift shop.

Last weekend was my aikido grading. It went pretty well although (as always) there were things I think I could have done better) I passed and am now a 2nd Kyu :) happy me. Everyone passed their grading so the club is quite a riot of colour now we had all the colours of belt represented at class on Tuesday.

My strawberries aren't in flower yet although I am hoping they will be soon. :) I have also start playing DnD again. It's interesting, although this is actually the forth DnD game I have played in it is the first using a standard v3.5 version of the rules and campaign, which has mean that I've made a couple of bad decisions so far. Fortunately everyone else is helping me out. I'm playing a elven archer character although this game does have quite a high death rate so we'll see how long he lasts.

The month of March.

2008-03-26T17:38:11Z

Once again this month has pretty much disappeared without me marking it in my journal. Still I have been a very good sort of busy. Researchwise I have now completed another set of data (ie chapter in my thesis). I am now attempting to do some microscopy which could be fun. I've never really had much practise using a microscope. I am still working on the changes to my draft paper but that isn't a priority at the moment. I have set myself a deadline of early March next year for my thesis submission. I think this is reasonable and so far my supervisor hasn't disagreed with me.

Social wise MicroCon was great although rather poorly attended this year (Bristol/Glasgow Gang - you were missed) however it was fun all the same. The aikido club finally got our act together and went out for an evening which was a laugh. I am now heading towards worry mode about my encroaching grading. Sensei seems to think I'll pass and I don't doubt him, it's just that I want to do better than pass...

My stories are coming along quite nicely although as is frequently the case I haven't had as much time to write as I would like. Actually something hierath said in her talk got me thinking (always dangerous). In a fantasy story with a teenage protagonist pretty much the first thing that happens is that the protagonist's parents get killed. I have a plan for a story with a teenage protagonist whose parents at the start of the story are dead / MIA presumed dead. The presumed dead parent isn't dead and will be reunited with the protagonist over the course of the story which I think is going to cause an interesting change in the relationships around the main character. Apologies if you think I am being a bit vague I do have more plans than that but they aren't sorted into a coherent form yet.

Lastly: Easter. My family descended for the weekend an experience that I found both tiring and stressful. I like my family I really do but they can be quite wearing in large doses in confined spaces. Plus I didn't get my weekend aikido fix which can make me cranky. Anyway I did have a good weekend and I hope they would all say the same. I now have nice new bathroom floor. Laminate which is a vast improvement on the carpet tiles that were there. I like my house I just wish I had more time to spend in it and doing things to it.

Fruit

2008-02-29T14:52:41Z

My parents visited me last weekend and as well as sorting out a leak in my bathroom more annoying than serious, I finally got a strawberry pot. Strawberries have been my favourite fruit for as long as I can remember but really good strawberries as so hard to get not to mention expensive for a somewhat impoverished research student like myself so I have not been able to get them as often as I would like. In my dream garden (which would probably require someone else to take care of since I have no green fingers) there would be a huge strawberry cascade. However in my actual and rather more realistic garden (which i can just about look after given directions by my mum) there is now a very nice green pot with 8 strawberry plants in it. They didn't all die from the stress of planting so that is good. They are three different types that are early mid and late season fruiting so I am looking forward to seeing what happens. I just have to remember to water them regularly...