more than worth it

So for the weekend, Luke, Leia and two others took the undergrads off for the weekend to go and collect things for their projects.

 

I had mixed feelings about the weekend - it was being run by a new lecturer who was a little out of his depth, it involved me driving an automatic car (I've never driven one before) with a trailer (ditto), I was utterly exhausted to start with (and crabby to boot) and it was at the farm where I did my fieldwork. On one hand, other people there is just weird, it's almost like having a gazillion guests in your home, on the other hand, it was an opportunity for not only going home again (n a sense), but also an opportunity for me to show the plces I've spoken about to some of the people I care about so much. One of the people there was in undergrad with us and had spent a week there with us waaaay back in the day so it was really fantastic to spend a weekend with him back in the group, and it was one of those special situations where someone has been gone for ages but still slots right back into place with no awkwardness at all!

 

By the time we got there I had been well and truly yelled at (sorry Leia, but I've never had a trip where the vehicles in convoy have to stay so close), we had lost the lecturer a few times, met the parents of one of the students, spent two hours (so almost half the trip) compiling a playlist for in the car (it played through the night and still had enough songs to see us home again and still not be even close to finishing). On the plus side, besides having a talkative bunch to play 20 questions and I spy on the way down, I DIDN'T have to drive an automatic, and a few students had dropped out so we didn't need trailers. By the time we got there I was bouncing around to be home again, and managed to take having someone else sleep my bed relatively well in stride.

 

And what an awesome weekend! I got to enjoy being there without having to do much work, got to show some pretty special places to some pretty special people (sorry about those hills guys, I thought the walk would be shorter), track down some lizards for photographs, get a lovely unilateral sunburn (complete with t-shirt sleeve effect), finish my marking, bond with some KIDSes and generally have a weekend in the bush, and feel at home not only in the farmhouse but in my own skin as well.

 

Photos will follow, I'm afraid I have well over 300 to sift through, so it might take a while, but they will appear soon!

 

P.S. I haven't been blogging as I've actually been getting work done, hence blog writing and reading has taken a backseat. I am still reading as much as I can during morning-tea break, but unfortunatey the reprioritising of life in general has hit blogging hard...