Sally and the limpet

I found the best book ever - it features limpets (what i study). How could i resist buying it for my niece!!!

My absence

Sorry I havn't been round much this week! I have been busy writing up my honours thesis which is due on the 20th of April so am pretty worn out from so much typing, stress and lack of sleep. WIll try and post more tomorrow :)

Why is the world conspiring against me and my field work

Greetings everyone. So Sunday I had field work all planned to do. Get to my field site at 12 and hopefully leave by 6.30. I wake up and there is a tsunami warning to keep away from all coastal areas. I think "screw that" - I am going. I NEED to do this experiment (this is my second attempt at this particular experiment as the rain last time caused me to lose 75 percent of the labels I had glued to the rocks!!!). So after calming my mum and the friends i had roped in to help me and telling them that "No, the tsunami will not affect us" we headed off.

All seemed to be going well - though cloudier than I would have liked. No tsunami at all. The height of the water seemed the same as usual.

But then...thunder and lighting...literally. After the last area had been painted with paint stripper it started to rain!!!! I nearly cried with frustration. I needed the paint stripper to dry and go away before I could finish the last part of my experiment and with the rain there was no chance of that. So i tried as best I could to remove the remaining paint stripper but I fear (alas) that my experiment will be confounded (as in not work properly).


http://www.eontarionow.com/images/Rain.jpg

Second time in a fortnight!!!

On a good note - I have now written 34 pages (just of text) of my thesis. The limit for my honours thesis is 75 pages (not including figures, tables, graphs, references). So yay!!! Nearly half way there!!!!

My last few days

Thought I would update everyone with what I have been up to.

Thursday

I spent most of the day doing field work with my limpets :) A friend of mine came with me so that was great. She even managed to asleep on hard, bumpy rocks. I managed to make my watch tan even worse. It has faded a bit now but the photo below should give you the gist of it!



Afternoon was spent drinking tea, having a chinse massage (much needed - crouching over limpets sure makes you back sore) and perusing book stores :)

Friday

Most of friday was me getting frustrated with the post office. When I got home on Thursday evening I had one of those notes to go pick up a parcel at the post office. So I dutifully went up 9 friday morning. But somehow the had lost my parcel!!! So frustrating! I waited there for an hour whilst they searched for it. At ten they told me the guy who might know where it is comes in at 12 so they will call me at one. So home i go...1? no call. So at 2 I call and yes they have found it. It was still in the truck or something!!! :(

I had a farewell thing at uni at 4. Eating and drinking in a lab - such a disregard for OH & S. By 6.30 everyone had left though apart from me, a phd student and my supervisor. By 7 even my supervisor had left. Talk about a lame party :( But Me and the phd student endeed up staying to 9.30 finishing off some of the alcohol and chatting and ranting about biology - so not a completely wasted evening!

By the time I was walking home from the bus stop it was raining so heavily I got soaked completely in 30 seconds. After crossing the road I couldn't get back on to the footpath as the water was so deep. Even in the middle of the road it was up to my ankles!!!

Saturday

Yesterday I opened my valentines/4 year aniversery present from my boyfriend - wasn't sure when would get a chance to talk today. He gave me a pandora charm bracelet :) :) So sweet of him. The charms he gave me were a snake, a turtle and an owl. Suitable for a biologist I reckon.




So anyone been doing anything nice this weekend ???

Sorry for my absence

Sorry for my absence from posting these past couple of days. Been really busy with uni work and family stuff :) My honours supervisor read some of the stuff I had typed up and said he was impressed so yay!!! I always get so nervous when people read my writting - well not my rambling writting but things that count.

My day is again going to be filled with trying to write about limpets. Joy :P

Has anyone got anything planned for the pseudo long weekend? I am hopefully going to go watch some cricket, go to symphony in the domain with some friends and have a family do on the tuesday. And of course listen to triple j's hottest 100 :)

I will write a proper post later today i hope

Did you know...

...that you can slice your finger open with palette knives?? Well..you can. I have several cuts on my fingers from using a knife to try and remove limpets from rocks. Limpets hold themselves very tightly to rocks. Not like sea snails who fall off at the slightest touch. Anyway, palette knives are just like really blunt bread and butter knives I think ,..so i was suprised to cut myself using one.

Has anyone else discovered anyone previous unknown dangerous objects in their house?

My New Years Eve

Happy New Year Everyone - hope it is great - not too boring but not too difficult also.

My nye was packed - and not entirely in a good way. I started off by going to the post office ...but my local one was closed. Which i think is stupid since it wasn't even a public holiday!! So i had to hop back on the bus to a new supurb where the line in the post office was huge. Sigh. Then I had to go to my field site in La Parouse - cue a long bus ride and walk. And to top it off none of my limpets were where they were supposed to be.

Finally I got to do something new years eve-y. Meet up with friends for a picnic evening watching the fireworks. For me though - I don't really enjoy waiting hours (7 in total this year) in a cramped area, on a rug covered in damp patches of spilt vodca just to watch fireworks. But I did enjoy spending time with friends. And eating. Ate 3/4 of a packet of cornchips with salsa :) And drinking experimental punch. Had strawberry and cream tisane mixed with kiwi vodka and other things. Interesting. Finally got home at 3. Long trip home on the train - but at least we had a seat the entire way.

How was everyone's nye?

The evil sun

Yesterday (Sunday) I was again out in the field (the rocky shore) studying my limpets. Now yesterday was very hot and sunny - so I dutifully suncreened up and did the whole reapply thing every couple of hours.

So i get home and around 8.30 I strip to have a bath...and what...what is that on my back???? My entire is back is bright red!!! Somehow the sneaky sun had sunburned my through my t-shirt!!!! Ok Ok...i was wearing a white t-shirt...but stilll...I never though the sun was into piercing through your clothes to get to your skin. I even have a bra strip of whiteness!!!! So when I go for a swim next time in my halter neck bikini...i will have this weird tan mark! (not that I care too much...)

Another lesson learnt...

Things I learnt this week...

a) Birthdays are made good by having people to spend it with...This is the first year I have not been excited by my birthday's imminent approach (tomorrow/Sunday). Nothing planned. Probably just go to hang at home reading/movie watching or go to a NSW vs TAS cricket match by myself and take a book for back up. Part of the reason for this non-excitement is the lack of people to celebrate it. Most of my friends are all either studying for exams or out doing field work stuff. And my boyfriend is on a boat/in Antartica. Sigh.

b) Do not wear one of your favourite t-shirts when doing field work. Yesterday I was out supergluing tiny labels to my limpets. I was wearing this really cool t-shirt whilst doing it. And low and behold I got my special magnetic protractor glued to my t-shirt. You think I would have learnt by now

c) Make sure you bag is zipped properly up when there is food in it. Also a lesson I learnt yesterday whilst out in the field. I had this tasty pizza thing in my bag packed for lunch. I left my bag in a nice dry spot after getting all my gear out of it. I was in a rush so didnt really focus on making sure was all nicely zipped. I turn round and later and see my things sprawled everywhere and the topping of my pizza thing stolen by a silly bird. No lunch for me. Meant no food for from 10 till 5.30 when I got home.

Blame the supervisor - Progress report on honours

from www.seashellsofnsw.org.au

Sigh. My first experiment was going great. I had collected my data - taken 600 measurements of limpets over 2 days and 3 "sites" - and it all looked pretty good - mostly. The data suggested that limpets DO face a particular direction - downwards.

So i go and talk to my honours supervisor and he says "maybe go out for a third day". So I dutifully go back and out and take another 300 measurements and then analyse my data. Ba baaaaa (that is the quiz incorrect noise). My data now has basically no nice pattern in it any longer! Which means I have to rethink my next experiment which I had already designed and was ready to go!

I am obvisously not 100% happy. But a struggle will only make me stronger/better * fingers crossed*

Why limpets and penguins?

Limpets are what I am studying. What are they? They are kind of like flattened snails which live down on the rocks at the beach. Most people think they don't move but they do...just very slowly. I personally think they are pretty cool. When something attacks them they clamp down and to cool down they mushroom up - lifting their shell off the ground. As this is my honours year I predict I am going to get pretty obssessed with them. Even start having crazy dreams!

Penguins? Well apart from the fact that they are pretty cute - especially baby emperer penguins - my boyfriend is shortly to depart for Antartica for a year - so they represent him. Just need to convince him to start his own blog. So expect to see lots of pictures of them :)

So this is going to be the year of Limpets and Penguins for me.