Heat Wave

It has been strangely hot here. The entire last week has been nice weather. Finally it was Saturday and I didn't have to work. It was 27 degrees! We drove out to a beach, the coral beach, which instead of sand has a type of coral called maerl all washed up. Lots of little shells too and for once I refrained from picking them up. Instead I lay on the beach all day. I am so impressed with myself - I didn't get burnt for once. I was very smart and wore plenty of sunscreen and kept reapplying it. We even managed to go for a swim. The water was icy cold! It was the type of cold where you step in and immediately have to stop out because the cold gets right into the bones of your ankles. Then you get back in and wait until it feels ok, then inch in bit by bit. Only there was lots of seaweed so we didn't want to go deep. Instead we had go back to the shallows and sit down, slowly, bit by bit, then edge back into the slightly deeper water. Eventually the water was up to my ribcage and after that it was ok to sort of swim a bit. In a shallow, paddling sort of way. There was a small boy that was threatening to splash us. He must have only been about 3 but the water was very cold so it was a pretty heavy threat. I stayed in the water as long as I could and then the sun did not seem so hot. In fact it took quite a long time to warm up again. Finally I was warm again and then it was time to go home because it turned out we had been at the beach for hours. Everybody else was burnt and will be so uncomfortable tomorrow but I am good! On the way home we stopped for ice-cream - here it is not common to get scooped ice-cream, instead the soft-serve ice-creams are really common. They call them a 99 - once upon a time I guess they cost 99 cents. They pile so much softserve into the cone and stick a flake into it. It is so much that even I struggle to eat it. I really wish it would stay so warm for the entire summer. I will be so sad if it gets cold again.

How was Portugal?

So, sorry about the delay, but Portugal was really tiring! The conference would go from 9 am until after 6, entire days of just sitting there, listening to people talk and discussing work stuff with various other researchers, not to mention having to contend with my supervisor shooting ideas at me so quickly that I can barely comprehend them. I had my talk on the first morning of the conference, so the two nights previous to that I had not gotten anywhere near enough sleep. I mostly knew my talk but when we arrived at the venue the conference room was huge! Enough for about 500 people surely! There were less than a hundred of us, which I think was sort of worse than if it had been full. The screen was really gigantic, it was all on a much larger scale than anything I'd done before. I talked and talked but even while speaking I could not keep track of whether I was saying the right things or not. I got to the end and had no idea if I had really said what I was supposed to say. I had to answer a couple of questions and then it was over and I could relax. Here is me at the podium (photo is way too zoomed in!):

It was definitely the scariest talk that I have done - the room was so big and the audience were all experts in my field and could actually judge my work. However, over the next three days people kept coming up to me and telling me that I gave a good talk so it must have been OK! I was very glad that it was over. After that the conference was mostly talks that were about adhesion but not so much the biological side of things and I found most of them very hard to follow. Unfortunately the one talk I really wanted to hear, by the only other person that really looks at barnacle adhesive, was not so great. He is Japanese and his accent was really strong, plus his English was not that good and the talk itself was not well structured so it was hard to follow. On the up-side, he is really interested in my structural biology because his lab is entirely molecular based, and he gave me a barnacle brooch - it is an acorn barnacle but that's OK because my barnacles are ugly anyway. So here is me (centre right of crowd, white shirt) talking to the foremost researcher in my field (the Japanese guy,  you can even see a white barnacle brooch on his jacket):

Sadly the conference took up most of my time in Portugal. They fed us really well, and listening to talks all day is really tiring so I ate way too much. For the first two evenings I had dinner in the city with various other researchers and students. The weather was gorgeous, it's a shame we had so much of it being stuck indoors all day.

The restaurants serve more fish than anything else and have no idea that cod is an endangered species. The fish is generally fried whole and they serve it to you just like that, with the head and tail and everything. I have never had fish like that before - in fact I think I at more fish in Portugal than I every have before. Some of it was good but it was all very salty - the Portuguese seem to like excessive amounts of salt even more than I do. The hotel was really nice and breakfast each morning was included - they had these little custard tarts which are a Portuguese speciality and they were so amazing! Each morning I had to go back for seconds and thirds, it is lucky such yummy little tarts are not available here! On the Thursday evening was the conference dinner, at which they first plied us with alcohol and tiny little snacks, then plied us with more alcohol as we waited for our dinner. There was a fish course (cod, of course), for which I used the wrong knife - I know that you are supposed to go from the outside in but it was such a big plateful, it seemed to large for the small knife and fork. However, then came a meat course, which I think was suckling pig because they have a lot of that over there, and my big knife and fork were gone so I was left with just the small ones. I was not the only one to make that mistake at least! They kept on topping up our drinks so I have no idea how much I had. Finally there was dessert, which was a buffet, there was so much good stuff and as usual my eyes were bigger than my stomach so I ended up feeling terribly stuffed full. There was lemon meringue pie and pavlova (not as good as a kiwi one) and chocolate tart and chocolate mousse. The best part though was the bowls full of fresh strawberries. They brought out the entertainment then, a traditional Portugues music group, singing Fada songs, which is now recognised as being a part of the cultural heritage of Portugal. It is basically songs full of emotion in which the singers stand with their eyes closed and put as much emotion into every single word as possible. There is guitar in the background and it ends in a big crescendo. It is really strange to see people up there singing with their eyes closed and lots of exaggerated facial expressions.

So, anyway, the conference finally ended on Friday and for the afternoon I joined a tour organised by the travel agency that organised the conference. There were not many of us on it but that was actually quite nice. Unfortunately the conference had run late, so our tour was running late, so some things were cut a little short. It was still really good though and I wish I could have stayed in Portugal for longer. We managed to pack a lot into a single afternoon and I took enough photos to make up for not having had any time earlier. First the bus took us through Lisbon, a suburb of which is called Belem, which is named after Bethlehem, and has a big old monastery, which you can see in the photo below. It also has a famous pastry shop where the traditional little custard tarts are made, the original recipe of which is a well guarded secret. And for good reason too, otherwise we would all be that much fatter.

There is a tower along the river that was to guard against invasion (by the Spanish I think but I'm not sure). We did not have time to get out to see it but the side facing the river is shaped a bit like a ship, so that approaching enemy vessels would see what looked to be a giant ship waiting to chase them off.

The day was very overcast, so the ocean was a greenish-grey colour and just faded into the horizon. The photos don't do it justice because I took them through the bus window. There were a lot of little forts along the coast, you can see one in this photo below, and there were also a lot of fishing boats, which I guess would explain the huge bias for fresh fish on the menu.

We drove and drove and drove - I was getting very hungry. We went though a small town that makes the best ice cream in Portugal (and the world, apparently). They told us all about it but we did not stop to have some! There was a tree with crochet-art wrapped around it, featuring geckos, which are an adhesive-capable animal so I had to take a photo of it.

Finally we left the coast and started driving inland, into the mountais. We passed fields of trees that are subject to such strong wind that the trees are growing along the ground - they were clearly pine trees but they looked like low bushes, only you could see a trunk at one end. I tried to take photos but they really didn't show them in such an impressive way as I saw them so you will have to take my word for it. We finally made it to another small town and stopped for lunch. Again, before we even began eating the alcohol was flowing and they always top up your wine glass without even asking first. Lunch was something that I have never had before - squid! It is roasted on great big metal skewers, which are then hung on chains above your table and you can just slide it off with your knife and fork.

They served it with fries, which were actually really delicious fries, and a spinach puree that was quite awful. The squid itself was very interesting - it was slightly fishy and very chewy. I don't think I liked it very much, it was edible but I would never choose to order it, no matter how traditional it may be.

When lunch was finished it was already late afternoon and we had not yet reached our destination. If only the conference had ended early! We next stopped at a place called Capo da Roca - the most western point of Europe. Despite the overcast day it was still a really beautiful place, largely on account of the impressive rock formations at the base of the cliffs.

 

The greenery that was all around was not grass but some type of succulant. The flowers were unusual and really pretty so as usual I stopped to take photos of them. We could not stop for too long but really, there was not that much to see other than some impressive cliffs.

However, before we could leave we all had to have our photos take at the pillar signifying the most western point of Europe. So here I am and this means that you cannot complain that I never put up pictures of myself on here.

Finally we continued to our destination, a small town called Sintra. Sintra is a place full of interesting architecture and castles. I think it is where the nobility used to live, plus the Spanish nobility had a holiday home there. The man that would have been King if Portugal had not become a republic lives there still. There is a castle right on top of the mountain that has views of the sea and the plain on the other side, however we did not have time to go up there. I'm not sure how interesting it would have been, however. There is also a convent that looked very nice to visit but if I want to see everything I guess I will just have to go back there one day.

The first stop for me and my room-mate (did I mention that I got paired with a random student at the hotel? Luckily we managed to get along really well!) was the shops! There were not many of them, but both of us had to buy a couple of souvinirs before leaving Portugal. Unfortunately I ran out of money and so did the ATM so my spending was limited! I did buy a cute little handbag (actually I'm still not sure if it's really cute or really ugly but I like it anyway), I brought a silver necklace strung on a cord made of cork (they grow cork trees in Sintra - I never even knew that cork was a specific type of wood!) and we brought shots of cherry liquer in chocolate cups! It is a Portuguese thing and they were only 1 euro. You sip the liquer, then when the cup is still half full you pop the whole thing in your mouth and just bite down on it. It is very strong but the shop-keeper was right - the flavours really do complement each other.

After the shops we made our way to the only palace that was within walking distance, but luckily it was the one that I most wanted to see (I actually had no idea what we would see before getting on the tour bus, but they gave us some brochures and maps to look at before we arrived). It was called the Quinta da Regaleira and includes a small palace, a chapel, a tower and a large area of gardens. The architecture is very gothic and the gardens half wild.

The chapel was Roman Catholic with pictures of saints and carvings of cherubs. I did not go inside; I've seen plenty of churches after all my travels and there was a big puddle in front of the entrance. Besides, we were on the search for the bathrooms and they definitely were not in the chapel so we continued on rather quickly.

Luckily, we found bathrooms easily enough and then could continue our explorations. The tower was next - it was an octagonal tower and you could climb up it. The first spiral staircase was enough enough but they got narrower and narrower until they were all but vertical - the last one was more like a ladder and it was precarious going in my jandals (I very nearly wrote flip-flops there because over here they don't understand the word jandal, I have had to change my vocabulary!).

At the top, after catching my breath, I could take a look around at the panoramic view - you could see across the park and down onto the chapel and castle in one direction, the town centre and the ocean in another and behind us was a mountain.

And look, here is another picture of me! Am I not terribly vain and narcissistic today? Now you really can't say that I never show photos of myself. Here you can also see the cool pillars of the wee tower room that we were in. Then, after the photos were done, we had to make our way down the steep staircases, which was even more precarious than going up!

The next step was a small, artifical lake (personally, I would call it a pond myself). It is called the lake of the waterfall but the waterfall is not turned on until the summer I guess, so it was just a lake. The day was incredibly bright and the area very rocky, so my photos are a little over-exposed. This is also one of those instances where a photo does not do the scene justice - the entire park was like an illustration in a story.

Instead of crossing the bridge we walked over stepping stones because I wanted to find an entrance to the tunnels that cross beneath the park. The tunnel that I found was very dark and it took a lot to convincing my new friend to join me. Luckily my key-ring has a small torch on it and eventually she believed me that it was a very short piece of tunnel so she came along.

After a short walk through a pitch black section of tunnel (it was so dark that even my pathetic key-ring torch was useful) we came upon daylight and could look out at the lake. I think that in the summer time the waterfall would be falling down past this opening.

The rest of the tunnels had lights along the floor, though there were side tunnels that were in complete darkness. I would have like the time to explore further. The map and brochure had showed a structure that they called the Initiation well, so we followed the tunnels to find it.

This well  is not so much a well as a reverse-tower - there is no water in it and there is a spiral staircase running around the egde from the top to the bottom. We did not climb to the top so I only have the photo showing the view up. It was very wet and slippery in the bottom of the well, despite it not being a real well.

We followed yet more tunnels to get out and even though we had not seen anywhere near everything it was time to leave. I would love to go back, to see more of the gardens, the grottoes and the palace. But at least for our short visit it was spring, so there were flowers and the trees were green.  To go back to my habit of taking photos of flowers, here is a flower that I always think looks quite like a bird.

Sadly, the day was pretty much done after seeing the palace. But to look on the bright side, we were all incredibly tired and getting hungry so it was time for dinner. We drove for what seemed like an age, through what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, until we finally came to yet another small town and stopped at a restaurant. This town was far from the ocean so we felt quite safe from being served more seafood. There were pictures of pigs everywhere so it was pretty easy to guess what the main course would be. They brought it out to show it to us before the carved it up - a very young pig (though not quite a baby, really), all de-boned and roasted. Poor baby pig!

I think that might be the first time that I have really eaten a baby animal - I have had lamb of course, but the lamb that we eat is generally a year old, so it is not really a baby. Suckling pig, however, really is a baby animal, because, as the name implies, the animal has not yet been weaned. It doesn't really taste the same as ordinary pork and is far softer. It was much nicer than the squid! However, Portuguese cuisine seems to be awfully heavy on protein compared to how I would normally eat. There is some salad served and some potato, but very little in the way of vegetables! Finally, with the massive overload of protein out of the way, it was time for dessert. So here is the second amazing Portuguese dish that I have discovered, and like the little custard tarts I would like to reproduce if I can be bothered one day. It was called Doce da Casa, which means sweet of the house. So basically, it is the house speciality and should be different every day and between every restaurant. However, it seems that one particular dish has also take on the name and Doce da Casa will generally look like this. It consisted of a very light vanilla custard, topped with soft biscuit that was absolutely drenched in coffe, with some sort of very foamy, uncooked-meringue-like cream on the top. It was delicious! I had two! Luckily, my room-mate also loves food and had a second one so it wasn't just me being piggy!

Now I am back in Ireland. The trip was great and I wish I could have stayed. I was so tired that when I got back to Ireland I left my poster on the plane (I had a poster to present at the conference aswell, you see, which was placed in a big plastic tube for travelling, which I had wedged beneath my seat on the plane, where it was so out of my way that I forgot about it!). I tried to go back but couldn't, and then though maybe I'd just leave it, but my supervisor will probably want it again one day and the plastic tube was not mine so I had to find somebody to help me and wait for them to go find it. I spent the weekend recovering from my very tiring trip and now I have so much work to do. However, some of my lab work may finally be working out so I cannot slack off, though it is so cold and rainy that I would love to just stay in bed all morning with a book or a movie.

In Portugal

So over the last couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of lab work and when I have finished with that I have been finding every possible means to avoid thinking about this conference. I haven't done any background reading and I don't know my talk by heart. I only know it well enough to get on a small roll and then stumble over everything. I couldn't sleep last night, I must have been worried, then today I had to get up at 5.30. On the bus ride I tried to go over my talk but I was so tired. On the plane I tried again but my head hurt so much. I was planning on having a quiet afternoon at the hotel and doing work, but it seemed like a better idea to be social and get to know some people. So here I am, it's 9.30 at night, I'm short on sleep and have to be out at about 8am tomorrow, so I probably need to get up at 6.30. I still don't know my talk, I am tired, my head hurts, the water in the taps tastes funny and the air-conditioning cannot be turned off. I also have to share a room with a random stranger, who I have not met yet so I definintely can't have an early sleep, because it would be weird to wake up beside a person that I don't know - did I mention that the two single beds are pushed up right against each other, and you can't move them because there are built in bedside cabinets next to them? What sort of hotel-planning is that - if you ask for two single beds why would they think that you would want them right next to each other? So I need to go over this talk a couple more times, then go to sleep. By lunchtime tomorrow it will all be over and I can relax. Of course, there will still be talks to listen to, a poster to stand beside and answer questions about, and  trying to mingle without offending anyone or bad-mouthing my supervisor, but it will still be far easier than preparing for my own talk. Then I will go out and take photos of the city so that there is more on here than my endless blathering.

No title ...

So this week has been pretty sucky. I am largely hating work at the moment - it is terribly full-on and I get the feeling that it's going to stay that way until I finish. I'm just not cut out for putting such long hours into a job that I don't like. I have so much lab work to do and I really don't like lab work, it just stresses me out and then because I am stressed out I fuck things up. I have to go to Portugal in just over a week and my talk is half ready, but there is this one piece of work that I was hoping to have finished for both my paper and my talk and now it is not finished because I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, and I don't know how to use the microscope properly, and maybe I don't even have the right microscope available. The technicians at the hospital are willing to help me which is great, but they aren't free until after the conference. So first of all I have to deal with my supervisor's condescension and patronisation over me not being able to have this simple piece of work finished on time, and then the questions that people might ask at the conference because I don't understand this stuff properly. I could give them an answer that is completely wrong, which would be terrible. But at the same time, what do I care anyway, it's not like I'm going to stay in this line of research for the rest of my career. Though it would be terribly vindictive to get it all wrong on purpose just to screw over my supervisor. Who is still behaving badly. I ran into her and her family today (unfortunately, what a way to ruin Saturday) and after the necessary 'hi-how-are-you's she actually said to me: 'off to the lab? off to the lab?' in a chirpy voice while nodding her head, as if it's OK for her to expect me to work constantly. It's one thing for a student to choose to work the weekend, but they can't actually tell us to do so, that's against some sort of university rules. I really wanted to tell her no, I'm actually doing groceries and relaxing because I do actually need to eat and live, but instead I was nice. And then I was so put out that I did no work all day. Instead I made ciabatta bread (which is awesome by the way, I shouldn't make it because I eat too much of it). I watched The Secret Garden too. Old kids movies are great. Sadly I will have to work tomorrow though. I really don't want to. I just can't hack working the weekends. I brought a lotto ticket today though, maybe I won and can run away to a tropical island.

In other news, there really is no news. Everything here is the same as always. I like that I now have a pet to talk to but this last week he has not come out at all. Turns out it was because he was shedding. So now I have a snake skin and I don't know what to do with it. Then I invited a friend to feed him and we watched the snake eat a mouse. He has not come out of his cage in ages and I am too nervous to pick him up out of it - the tank is his own space so I don't want to put my hands in there, I would rather wait for him to crawl out and then pick him up. Tomorrow is a feeding day so I will have something to break up the lab work. Some of the other PhD students have Master's students at the moment to do lab work for them - I don't have that but at the same time, first you have to teach them how to do all the work so it's probably more trouble than it's worth. Though with somebody else helping me out I might not lose my keys so often, because there would be someone else with me to notice where I put them down. Luckily there is always someone at work to let me into whatever doors I need. It would me much worse if I lost my house keys.

The weather here the last couple of weeks has been really atrocious - freezing cold winds and plenty of rain. It always seems to rain whenever I go outside and it stops when I go in. It is OK when there is rugby practice but as soon as a match begins it starts to really lash down. We won our last game despite the rain, but I think it would be a nice experience to play in good weather. We have team t-shirts now and sadly they are not purple - they were supposed to be but instead they are royal blue with a red stripe. My fluorescent pink socks really don't match so I should get some bright red ones instead. I would like them to have some blue on them to match the colour scheme, like blue polka dots or stars, but you don't seem to be able to get socks that match my imagination so I guess I will just have to make do. It's quite sad though, because I really do seem to like to make a spectacle of myself. You need a cheerful point to the game because a lot of them take it so serious and get sort of aggressive - they really just need to chill out and have some fun.

Anyway, that's all for now and I sadly have no photos for you this week because nothing exciting happens and if it does I don't often have my camera, but next week I'll be in Portugal so I'll surely see new things to take pictures of and have proper news instead of nothing news. Or maybe not. I don't even want to go, it will just be taking me away from work for a week, and I will have to be around my supervisor far more than I usually would, and speak to people that are working in the same area as me, at which point I will have to pretend that I am actually enthusiastic about my research and believe it is going somewhere. I mean, what if I were to actually tell people that I think it's a waste of time for a lab with no expertise like my lab (which is really just me) to be attempting such novel work and competing against real experienced scientists - imagine the repurcussions! Perhaps I would be fired. That would make life a lot easier though, if you are fired you don't even have to go to the trouble to make the decision to leave, you just are told to. I'm sure my family wouldn't mind me bludging off of them! However, that is unlikely to happen because my supervisor has already had one student leave so she really needs to get my through my PhD or she will end up looking pretty incompetent. Which she is in some senses, but they don't bother to teach people how to supervise or lecture or manage, they just expect scientists to be able to do so. Which is crazy, there are a lot of scientists out there who should not be allowed anywhere near a teaching and management position, but there is no such thing as a university position in which you are a researcher doing your own research without having to manage students and teach undergrads, which takes up so much time that you don't actually get to do any research at all. It really is not playing to people's strengths at all, especially seeing as loads of scientists are so socially inept that they should never be allowed anywhere near a position that involves being in charge of other people. However, I am sure I said goodnight a whole paragraph ago so I will stop my griping now and get some sleep so that I can manage to haul myself out of bed in the morning and go to work (despite it being a Sunday). Goodnight world - please let me win the lotto or meet a millionaire sometime soon ...

A slow week ...

I've been having lots of weird dreams this week. First there was this one earlier in the week that I can't remember at all, except that there was a spider in it, which caused me to wake up. I had to get up and turn the light on and check through all my blankets to make sure there were no spiders. Then the next night I had this crazy dream (actually, it was one of many and I've forgotten all the other weird stuff that happened, I only remember the scary bit). Ok, like a said, a crazy dream, in which Wilbert the snake was really agitated and moving around his tank a lot. Then he stretched his mouth wide open and I noticed that his mouth was an awful lot bigger than it used to be - like it was suddenly as large as my fist. Then I noticed that the rest of him was suddenly huge too (in fact, he didn't really look like Wilbert anymore at all), and the tank was partially open. So suddenly I was trying to close the tank and weigh down the lid so that this giant thrashing snake couldn't get out, when next thing you know the lid was pretty much on properly but the snake was half out of the tank. So I stepped away from him and he immediately came towards me, and for some reason picked up my scarf in his mouth along the way. So I wrapped it around his head so that he couldn't see and would stop moving, but that didn't work. Then he was somehow in my arms and I was trying to hold his head away from me but he managed to bite me on the hand, and his teeth were not all all like snake teeth but more like shark teeth, with lots of rows. Then I woke up and my hand was all tingly. I had to turn the light on for awhile again. I was worried that the run of bad dreams would continue but it seems to have stopped. Or at least I cannot remember them. Last night I also got up and turned the light on, at about 2 am, but I have no idea why, I think maybe I got up in my sleep and then woke up when the light came on. How weird is that? Clearly work is getting to me and I'm well on my way to a nervous breakdown. Hopefully when it comes I will also win the lotto and then I can just scarper off to some tropical island or buy a big boat and sail the oceans looking for whales. But for now I guess I should get back to work, that was all I had to say really, that and I'm really glad that it's Friday!

I have just realised that it is only three weeks until I go to Portugal for a conference. It is probably the only real conference that I will go to during my PhD and it's all about biological adhesion. All of the big names in this area of research will be there and I am supposed to be giving a talk about my research. In three weeks.

It's Monday today but it doesn't feel like it because I worked in the lab all weekend. It was awful. It was sort of necessary though, seeing as I did nothing for the entire long Easter weekend. There is still so much to do though. As well as making a presentation and writing a talk I have to keep doing research in the hope that I will have more results by then. And I will have to do a lot of reading to make sure that I can answer any questions that are asked. I also have to repeat an experiment in order to get my paper about all of my microscopy work published. That's not so bad though - I heard back from the journal really quickly and one of the reviewers thought that it was absolutely perfect and needed no changes! The other one had a few comments but the only real change is that I have to repeat something, this time using a control. Which he is very right about, I should have done that in the first place. And then I will probably get my paper accepted and will soon be a published author!

As well as work I now have my pet snake to look after. He has not eaten in nearly two weeks - he attacks his food but does not eat it. His old owner says that is normal, he is just a picky eater. So I will try again this week. I have been trying to let him out every day so that he will be even tamer. He is happy enough to slither around my arms but he really likes to explore, which is how he managed to get stuck inside my office chair over the weekend. I freaked out, I had no idea what to do! I turned it upside down (he was in the gap between the seat cushion and the plastic bit that covers all the up-down mechanisms) and I thought I would have to call someone to bring me a screwdriver to take it to pieces. Then I decided to try and scare him out first and started drumming on the plastic. He came out eventually. I picked him up and held him some more but next thing you know I saw him open his mouth and move sort of quickly. Perhaps he was just yawning, I don't know, but I didn't wait to find out - I freaked (again) and flung him back into his tank because I really did think that he was going to try bite me. Not that it would have done much, but still, I didn't want to get bitten. He is definitely getting tamer, because now when I pick him up he immediately begins to move around instead of staying still in my hands. Yesterday he lifted his head and came straight towards my neck and face and I could not see what he was doing. Perhaps he just wanted to sniff around a bit but I was taking no chances and put him straight back. He spends a lot of time in his cage just looking out of the glass at me. I'm not sure if he can see me, but it really seems as if he can see a little at least.

The weather was nice over the weekend so I went for a walk to take a picture of the swan on its nest (not much of a walk, it's pretty close, just not quite my usual way home from campus). There is always a nest somewhere close to campus, I think that it is the same swan, and she raises her babies on the canal that runs past my building. Sometimes we feed them our scraps at lunchtime but she always steals the food from the babies and tries to attack our feet. I think the babies might be called signets, but I'm not sure. I hear that the eggs are huge but she is always sitting on them when I go past.

Now the weather is absolutely freezing again and I have rugby practice tonight. We had our first game last week and we won! I'm not sure if we were very good or if they were just not so well practised, but I hope that we can keep winning. It's 4 pm so I only have to keep working for another hour and a half. I have some lab work to do but the other lab that I would have to be working in is freezing cold! So I will sit here at my computer and try to prepare for this conference. I hope that it is warm in Lisbon, that will at least make up for having to work so hard until then.

Meet Wilbert

Wilbert is my new pet. He's a snake. Not quite the same as a dog or a cat, but still, at least I have something to talk to at work now. And to watch when I'm procrastinating. He's an albino California King Snake and he's about 2 years old. His owner has left our department and poor old Wilbert needed a home. He's still very small (he will get much bigger and live for 10 years or so), which is good because that means his teeth are small. He is not venemous at all, in the wild he would catch food by biting it and wrapping himself around it until it died. In captivity, however, he has to settle for mice that are brought frozen and then thawed out and warmed up.

See, here is Wilbert with a mouse inside of him. After he has eaten he stays very still for a day or so, but then he will come out and move around his tank again. I have given him some big rocks and branches and a pipe to hide in so he seems pretty happy in his tank these days. He used to just hide in the woodchips all the time, which was quite boring. Now he crawls around.

So other than adopting a snake, I have been doing very little. I have been working, which makes me tired, and I have been playing sports, which makes me tired and hungry, so then I come home and make yummy food. And bake too much. Today there were cupcakes because it was a friend's birthday and I had too many. Now it is Easter so there is another excuse to bake and eat chocolate. Here in Galway there will be a food festival this weekend so I will have to check that out and maybe it will be interesting. I will need something to do on the weekend as the hiking club that I was going out with on a Sunday has finished for the semester. Last Sunday was the last hike and the weather was beautiful - I even got sunburnt. Luckily it faded quickly. We climbed a mountain called Maumtrasna, which was beside a couple of lakes. So lets end with some pictures and I will go do some work (or not).