Well summer is definitely over, its cold, the nights are dark (and possibly full of terrors) and there is already talk of Christmas! I'm not even going to apologise any more for the gaps between my blog posts, I think both myself and my readers will just need to realise that there will not be a fixed schedule for my posts and they will appear when I have the time and willingness to write them. I have been quite busy since the last post. I was away for a week with my parents, we went down to Enniskillen in County Fermanagh for a few days which was nice, the highlight probably being the boat trip we took which stopped off at Devenish Island. We then went down to Dublin, my first visit other than very brief one to see Fall Out Boy live for many years. I was a bit taken aback at just how busy it was. We did a lot of walking about, did some shopping, had a walk through the university and saw Bill Bailey at the same venue I saw Fall Out Boy. For those who don't know Bill Bailey is a British comedian who does stand up comedy along with various musical things. He is extremely talented and we were all in stitches by the end of the show.
We also took a short weekend break down to the north coast a while back which was nice, I've uplaoded pictures to my flickr account:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/136005436@N02/albums
In terms of my PhD I had a frustrating couple of months sorting out my data, doing analysis and then writing up my work on hazel. The paper on that has now been sent off for review before hopefully being published. I have now moved on to my next species and have been working away in the lab. As much as it is nice being back in the lab it is also rather tiring and the two busiest days are Thursdays and Fridays when doing DNA extractions. Unfortunately at the moment I'm forced to do DNA extractions most days since the machine I need for the other stuff is broken. I'm now in my final year (of being funded) which seems rather crazy. After having the lab to myself the majority of the time since my supervisor left along with the other person who worked in the lab (along with the other PhD students finishing) I'm now sharing the lab with a number of new people. This was to be expected as the lab wasn't being used to its full potential, that said the increased noise/activity is difficult to get used to.
I thought I had mentioned before but I can't find anything after a quick look. I have started to volunteer as a dog walker at an animal sanctuary. I had actually done it many years ago for the volunteering section of my bronze Duke of Edinburgh award but stopped a while after. I realised that I was spending my weekends mostly loafing about so decided I should start volunteering again and maybe meet some new people in the process. Given that it has been many years since the last time and the whole health and safety thing going into overdrive I had to take part in both a general induction as well as a one to one induction. That took a while since they were only put on a few times a year but eventually attended both of them. I've been up quite a few times since and it has been mostly enjoyable. Only frustrating thing is when you go to walk a dog only to find that someone else has taken it out without filling in the sheet properly.
That's what's happening with me at the moment, thanks for reading.
