AAAAND... WE'RE BACK!

I ended up not going away last week because I was missing a mildly essential set of configuration files (yes, I live in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, and I can't go because I need something for all the piles of techno-geek equipment that I have to use down there). So I decided that I couldn't let the time be wasted and I settled down to get some major work done. And I did!

Ok, well I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I stayed in the lab until late every night (except Friday when I had to get to a birthday party at 7 so I left at 6) and read a lot, and played with stats programmes, and finished going through 2 super-awesome stats books (although Luke's supervisor said I haven't learned much becasue I'm not using sequential models yet... I told him that stats is a lot more subjective than people realise and I'll figure out sequential models if and when I need to use them). The bonus of all the reading is that although I may not have progressed too far in terms of deliverables I can feel my thinking getting sharper and when I read the scary scary papers I can mostly understand them. I even took a landmark paper and pointed out all the flaws last week! w00t!

And that is why I never let anyone else read my work. Which is a problem.

The weekend was good, I went to Chris's birthday party at Joey's house on Friday. It was fun, but I felt kind of bad - although it was Chris's birthday (and Chris and I really don't get along well), all the people there were Jo's friends, and although we had a great time, I don't think we spoke more than 2 words to him the whole time. Lara was there which was great as I haven't seen her in a while. She's been writing tests, which means that she usually vanishes from the face of the earth for a week or two and studies like a maniac. Her last test is today so I'm hoping to spend some time with her before I head off on fieldwork again. I was supposed to joing Luke and Duncan later, but as the only left home quite late I decided to head home instead and get soem sleep before work the next morning. I felt liek a little old lady trying to get home before bedtime, but I managed to get a lot of reading done at work, and I didn't make any huge mistakes, which is easy to do when I'm tired!

Sunday was FREEZING! We got hit by a nasty cold front and I was very grateful to all the heaters in quarantine where I found two dead frogs :( and spent some time hand-feeding a gecko who has decided to be friendly! I try and ignore all the times that he has bitten me in the past. FRom there I ended up fighting with a spreadsheet for one of the curators and then I helped Elaine feed her piglets (SO cute! And they were hungry so they snuffled like crazy and then drank really fast!) and then we went for lunch with Luke, Brett (one of the vets), Caleb (a volunteer) and Louise who has a dodgy sense of humour and always makes us laugh! Althea joined us for all of about 5 minutes and then ran off, so after lunch Luke and I went to see her and Luke got to meet the baby monkey who has grown a lot and she's getting more hair on her head so she looks less like a cross between a gremil and Gollum.

Other than that everything was pretty uneventful, I must get back to work now as my supervisor should be back in teh coutnry today and I need to show him some *sigh* deliverables.