Today is Tuesday the 15th of December. But in New Zealand it is the 16th already. Isn't that crazy? Anyway I am telling you the day firstly because I just can't get over that it is Tuesday, it definately feels like a Monday to me. And secondly so you can understand just how hectic things are.
So last Wednesday we all bussed up to Belfast and spent two hectic days listening to people talk about their research, and got back late on Friday night. Saturday should have been spent sleeping, because before the Belfast trip I had a hectic week with Mum and before that even was very busy looking up tours and making plans, and after everything I was very run-down and got a cold. But instead of sleeping I went shopping and brought boots (because you have to have two pairs you know, one for walking in and one with heels for looking nice in). And it was very cold outside. Then Sunday I came into work because after Belfast my supervisor was so full of ideas I felt that I needed to get a headstart, plus the barnacles need to be fed.
So what did I do on Monday? I don't know, but it went by so fast that it is as if it just didn't happen. I did a lot of reading, to be prepared for a supervisor meeting. And when it happened it was not at all what I expected - now that the workshop is over she has gone back to wanting results right now, on her desk before she even thinks of it. Plus she has been given more ideas that she wants us to follow through on despite the fact that most of them are huge undertakings and some of them could be PhD theses all by themselves.
Then the big task before going to Vienna is to get cement out of these stupid barnacles. But this is actually what we have been trying to do all along and it is just not happening. She want images of it and we keep taking photos and she doesn't want any of them. She wants us to get uncured glue - which would mean collecting the cement while it is still a liquid, as soon as it comes out of the barnacle. Once again, a task we have been working on for weeks. Yes we are going to Vienna in less than four weeks, but that doesn't mean that things are just going to suddenly start working.
So speaking of Vienna it is all happening very fast. In less than four weeks I will be arriving in a new city, a very large city, where they speak a language that I barely know, and where things are too far away to walk to, you have to take trains. And right now we are busy booking flights and sorting out the accommodation, which was suppossed to be all sorted out for us and sure we don't have to pay for any of it but I guess my supervisor just figures that all the donkey-work should be left to us, that is what we are here for after all.
And then tomorrow is Wednesday and there is the department Christmas party on, so I will probably not even have the full day for work because I will have to go home to get changed and I live far away so these things have to be taken into consideration. Also it may last until the early hours of the morning. Which is not a big deal, but today we found out that on Thursday the navy people are going out on a boat to bring in some sort of data buoy, which we hope will have barnacles on it. And this is happening in Donegal, about a 4 hour drive away. And the boat will be going out at 8am. So we may just be leaving Galway at 4am, Thursday morning. And the Christmas party will probably continue on into Thursday morning? Perhaps we will be going straight from one to the other!
Then on Sunday I am off for Abu Dhabi for Christmas! After I return it will be a week and a half before Vienna. Before Vienna we hope to have cement to look at, both in Vienna with the big fancy microscopes, and to send to Germany for protein stuff, and we have to have everything organised for the student that is coming to take care of the barnacles, and we have this slight problem of the embryos not surviving which is also pretty bad. If the embryo's don't survive there will be no larvae, and no larvae mean no baby-barnacles. Which right now I don't much care about but my supervisor definately does (she doesn't quite know that the larvae situation has gone from bad to worse).
And did you know that I will have to write a letter to immigration every time I move address here in Galway? So I will have to do that since I am moving to Austria for four months.
So this week life seems very hectic, there is a lot to organise and not much time to do it in (or so it seems).
But on the up side, it isn't raining! It is very strange. It hasn't rained in days! Just been frosty. Really really frosty, it is so cold. But not wet, so yay. I guess the talk of constant rain is a bit of an exaggeration. People seem prone to that here.
Anyway I think it is really time to go home now. It is dark, though that doesn't mean much it gets dark at 4pm.
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