My Hair

Just read my last few posts and realised I mentioned the possibility of me cutting my hair, and how unlikely it was to happen. Well suprise suprise I actually did get it cut. It's now normal long hair length (bra strap length) with a couple of layers. Thankfully due to the field trip quite a number of lecturers (i.e. those that went) know my name now - so the memorable feature isn't needed (fingers crossed). I like my new hair though so alls well - at present.

TTFN xxx

Back in the Bubble

It's fresher's week here in St Andrews, but as a third year with a project report already in the pipeline I'm not really participating in the festivities. I'd like to say I took part last year (and even possibly my own fresher's), but this isn't the case. Oh I went to all the meetings and events etc (well not the late night drunken riot stuff). Not drinking alcohol really stunts my social outings - but saves my body in every other way :D.

The aforementioned project report refers to the field trip I went on last week to Orielton, Pembroke. I loved it !! though there were a few too many barnacles for my liking (we identify and count barnacles way too often). My project (and my partner's) is basically a study and comparison of invertebrate abundance and diversity in woodland and grassland habitat. It involved laying pitfall traps (got muddy, bruised, stung and scratched in the process - loved it :D), spending hours (and I mean hours) peering into microscopes to identify all the little critters and then stats to analyse. Despite the hard work I really did enjoy it all and it's made me feel a part of the green biology ermmm 'group' - I am a green biologist!

The project report is a little daunting - as a third year how do I up my report writing skills from last year. Would help if my results/stats made sense to me. In explanation there was a pretty little trend in the first days results which were then completely opposed by the day after, and now the combined results seem to fall with the illogical trend we did not predict. My plan is to hold a meeting with my partner to discuss etc and just lay out our results so we have a level footing and understand what we actually found. Until then I'll write the methods section I think.

Trying to decide whether I should attend a seminar on Wednesday entitled "Visualizing adenovirus structure and host factor interactions by CryoEM and Crystallography." Thinking not to be honest but we'll see how my Wednesday goes - also if I can figure out which room it's in (I've never heard of the room it states).

Let's see whether a good and stable internet connection, personal freedom (except from work) and boredom/procrastination mean this blog becomes a little bit more active.

Sayonara Capabara xxx