Laurel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
laurel_crown) wrote2014-05-06 04:06 pm
laurel_crown) wrote2014-05-06 04:06 pm
is it May already??
I realised that I haven't posted anything here for a while, probably thanks to my wonderful plan of doing TWO research projects this semester (one course-length, one little extension thingo) as well as three courses, and that took up most of my brain until a few weeks ago. But I've been reminded recently that exams (and, therefore, HOLIDAYS) are not that far away, and since it feels like winter here already, I thought it was time for an update.
So, uni - massively busy, of course, but my big research project involves THROWING CHEESE AT MAGPIES. You have NO IDEA how much fun it is to tramp around campus with a speaker on a tripod, grated mozzarella, and a mysteriously shaped green mesh apparatus and know you are doing COMPLETELY LEGITIMATE scientific research. While everyone else thinks you're a complete loony, including other biologists. Behavioural ecology, people, it's a wonderful field (except when said magpies fly off and will not return, even when you're offering LOTS of cheese. That bit was frustrating.)
And despite the magpies having their own ideas about how the experiment should go (and noisy miners stealing the cheese) we got significant results! YAY! And the beetle taxonomic paper I was helping write in January came back from the reviewers, who said it was 'acceptable with minor revisions'. Which my supervisor said was awesome for the first submission of a first paper! So I'm going to be published soon :D
As for the creative side of things, I finally managed to watch Rise of the Guardians, which now owns my brain whenever uni-related matters are set aside. Or rather, my usual sorta-AU-with-original-characters loosely based on the movie currently owns my brain, but hey. It gives me an excuse to research Baba Yaga and other random European folklore beings that appeared in my childhood literature. Said story is, of course, now growing at an alarming rate while the uni assignments wait to pounce. The powerful female characters are also multiplying rapidly, which probably isn't a bad thing.
AND finally I'm trying to bring some of my uni friends along to Supanova, since they've never been, but the tickets won't go on sale!! The 6th of May is 'early May', dammit, take my money already! I am VERY excited about John Barrowman being there :D Though I'm not sure what to cosplay as this year, since yet again I will have exams right around Supanova so I won't have much spare time for costume consideration!
So, uni - massively busy, of course, but my big research project involves THROWING CHEESE AT MAGPIES. You have NO IDEA how much fun it is to tramp around campus with a speaker on a tripod, grated mozzarella, and a mysteriously shaped green mesh apparatus and know you are doing COMPLETELY LEGITIMATE scientific research. While everyone else thinks you're a complete loony, including other biologists. Behavioural ecology, people, it's a wonderful field (except when said magpies fly off and will not return, even when you're offering LOTS of cheese. That bit was frustrating.)
And despite the magpies having their own ideas about how the experiment should go (and noisy miners stealing the cheese) we got significant results! YAY! And the beetle taxonomic paper I was helping write in January came back from the reviewers, who said it was 'acceptable with minor revisions'. Which my supervisor said was awesome for the first submission of a first paper! So I'm going to be published soon :D
As for the creative side of things, I finally managed to watch Rise of the Guardians, which now owns my brain whenever uni-related matters are set aside. Or rather, my usual sorta-AU-with-original-characters loosely based on the movie currently owns my brain, but hey. It gives me an excuse to research Baba Yaga and other random European folklore beings that appeared in my childhood literature. Said story is, of course, now growing at an alarming rate while the uni assignments wait to pounce. The powerful female characters are also multiplying rapidly, which probably isn't a bad thing.
AND finally I'm trying to bring some of my uni friends along to Supanova, since they've never been, but the tickets won't go on sale!! The 6th of May is 'early May', dammit, take my money already! I am VERY excited about John Barrowman being there :D Though I'm not sure what to cosplay as this year, since yet again I will have exams right around Supanova so I won't have much spare time for costume consideration!
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