Well it's been over a month since my last post and the time seems to have flown by. At the end of November I attended a conference in Sligo along with a group of other PhD and researchers from my university. It was technically only one full day but felt much longer. We drove down in a minibus on the Thursday, a long drive made longer by the dark and the cold and the fact I managed to drop my ipod below one of the seats and wasn't able to retrieve it until we arrived due to the cramped nature of the bus. I have to say the hotel was very nice, my room was massive considering I was the only person in it! I had a large bedroom with a double bed and a single bed, a living room, a small kitchen and a good sized bathroom. We had dinner in the hotel and then walked over to the campus where the conference was being held for a talk by one of my supervisors and then a "welcome reception". Friday was very full on, early start, talks started at 9am and went onto 5pm with workshops in the afternoon (with breaks for tea/coffee and lunch). Then there was an AGM of the organisation's whose conference it was. Then there was the poster presentation, I had made a poster for the conference so people walked around and looked at the different posters and spoke to the people who made them. Unfortunately I didn't win the best poster prize but it was good to show off my research and to discuss it with different people. After that I had to make a mad dash back to my hotel room to leave my notebook and other things back before rushing to catch up with the people walking into Sligo for the conference dinner. I wonder if these things are actually ever good? I've been to two now and the food wasn't great apart from the dessert. It's not the best environment for someone with a hearing aid and someone who's speech people struggle to understand, trying to talk to people across a large table in a very noisy room. I ended up walking back to the hotel in the freezing cold while most of the others went to some bar (I found out the next day they couldn't get into that bar, went to another bar, had one drink and then got lost on the way back!) Saturday morning was a bit of a struggle, was running late due to having to check-out and then had to roam around the campus looking for a way in since the doors we used before were locked due to it being Saturday. There were some more talks, a prize-giving and then a quick lunch before we had the long drive back to Belfast. Thankfully it was a lot more pleasant especially since I kept hold of my ipod!
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| The lovely Sligo Clarion hotel |
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| My luxurious bedroom |
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| Me and my poster |
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| The lovely dessert |
Back to my PhD itself I have been continuing to work away and I'm close to finishing the work on my third species and will hopefully have it completed soon after Christmas. I did receive the welcome news that my second paper has been published, again I must say I do not expect anyone to purchase it but I've included the link to it below just so you guys can see it:
Broad-scale genetic homogeneity in natural populations of common hazel (Corylus avellana) in Ireland
It is hard to believe that Christmas is in two weeks, I have to say I don't really feel very Christmasey yet despite putting up our Christmas tree today, the mild weather doesn't help either. I am looking forward to it, that said I think there is a problem that it is always over hyped. Christmas day itself always flies by and the realisation that it is over for another year is always depressing. That said I am looking forward to time off, presents and of course lots of delicious food.
Hope you all have a great Christmas/X-mas/holiday, hopefully I'll write more posts either this side of Christmas or more likely after.
-James
