Working less...feeling vaguely homicidal towards a few people...otherwise happy

[enismirdal]

Worklust frenzy seems to be receding, which reassures me that I am still me. Was useful though; I don't feel like I'm drowning now, anyway.

AIHL is progressing nicely. The page-count is actually 35 in the typescript, and I'm sure I have at least 10 pages of written to type up, and it's still nowhere near complete. The plot has decided to be plotsome, Eluréd has decided he likes the attention, and so things happen.

Dr X in Path supervison yesterday looked really quite ill - to the point where he didn't even bother interrogating us properly - and finished the supervision 10 minutes early (which, had he been non-sick, would have annoyed the hell out of me, cos he then could have called a Question Time and dealt with problems we might have had with the lecture material. But Dr X doesn't allow people to ask questions, oh no sirry-bob). Am beginning to share Girly's opinion of him...although I still like it when he calls me Sweetheart :) However, coupled with the fact that we had a week off Plants practicals, and the fact that the Path lecture finished 20 minutes early, it came to a pretty good day.

Have taken instant dislike to new Plants supervisor, possibly aided by 1. the fact that he booked our supervision in the morning at 10am. Ican manage it, but I told him I can't guarantee I'll be at my optimum for it; 2. the fact that he wrote me a really snooty e-mail last year, when I'd e-mailed him to ask about some things in his lectures that my supervisor hadn't been able to answer; 3. his comment when he booked the supervision that if I was allowed to suggest a supervision at 5 or 6pm (which most supervisors are fine with, but apparently is afterhis working hours, the horror) then he can suggest them in the mornings. Probably me being a brat, but I dislike being discriminated against just because my body clock simply happens to have made my optimal working hours 2pm to 11pm, depending on what I'm bering expected to do. Why couldn't he just have found a different day?

Have bought more bourbons, stacks of madeira cake, other stuff.

Plant Sciences field course takes us to a charming place called São Pedro Field Station, which looks truly delightful, and we only have to pay £150. Thank you Plant Sciences! *secretly hopes they might find time for a day of sightseeing in Lisbon but doesn't dare hope too much*

Am thinking of making a new LJ to chronicle the adventures of the bedmaker, who now manages to get on my nerves on a near-daily basis. She has vaccuumed the hall today and yesterday, but not my room...!?

IE doesn't like me today, so is making 50% of hyperlinks not work, especially LJ ones. Bleh.

Comments

[chess]

*insert obligitory exhortation to use a Real Web Browser here*

[elbereth-elena.livejournal.com]

Hi, I just saw you posted a message at EOAS and followed the link to your LJ. I thought I'd drop by as I feel like the only insomniac white chocolate Kit kat eating person in the college and am desperate to contact the outside world. I'm at Durham uni, and I see you're at Cambridge. I confess I wouldn't like to go to Cambridge as it's my local uni and I know it too well. Which college are you at?

RE bedder, our cleaner is quite normal but insists on yelling 'MANDY?!?!' at the top of her voice very early in the morning rather than going down one flight of stairs to talk to the cleaner on the floor below.

I really ought to stop rambling, I need to go and have a shower (safe in the knowledge that I won't disturb anyone as I have the room next to the showers anyway) and go to bed because I have a rather icky practical to write up tomorrow after a 9 am lecture with the most boring man on the planet and if I don't sleep now I will snooze through his lecture.
El

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Hallo! Yes, I guessed it was either Oxfnord, Cambridge (which would have been a bit of a scary coincidence) or Durham (mentions of rowing and tutorials, you know!). Sorry for drifting off from the tagboard; I went to check on some Yahoo groups whichwere owed posts from me, and then got all distracted and now my computer's gone straaaaaange (I have Outlook, IE and Yahoo working, but no taskbar and no desktop icons! It's bizarre!)

You're a scientist of some descrition, I take it? Excellent!

And yeah, I'm at St Catharine's :)

[elbereth-elena.livejournal.com]

It's funny how Doxbridge can be so similar, and how easy it can be to spot Doxbridge students!
Oxford din't want me (and I didn't particularly want them either) and Cambridge is too close to home (I know just where your college is, I visited there once with school, it has Catherine wheels on the gates, oops, that does sound a little freaky, sorry, I just mean, I have walked past your college on numerous occassions) so I'm in Durham with a collection of mad people on my corridor who wander around and have showers at 1 in the morning so that I am kept awake and oversleep because I turn my alarm clock off overnight and almost miss my 9am lecture. Idiots, I will have to put a trip wire across the door to the showers...

Yes I am a scientist, doing Biochemistry. I think overall that enables me to claim the title of Mad Scientist and wear it with pride!

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I can totally understand not wanting to go to your 'local' university! As nice as Manchester (my local) is, I didn't really even consider applying - too close to parents, and no chance to see new places. (And knowing you've visited my college isn't too freaky - it's reassuring to know someone other than a Cambridge student has actually heard of the place!)

Yes, Biochemists as a breed are decidedly insane :D *suspects she's becoming more of a plant geneticist/plant pathologist/molecular biologist* ;)

[elbereth-elena.livejournal.com]

So there's some overlap between our subjects/breed! The full title of my course is 'molecular biology and biochemistry' but it's too scary for general daily use as arts students tend to run away. But plant genetics does appeal. Is it as interesting as it sounds?
I confess biochemists are all mad, especially the men. I've not met a sane man since I've come here.

Oh we local fen girls know our colleges! I read that you cox, are you going out on the Cam? It's somehow wonderful to know there's someone out on 'my' river.

Excuse me while I go and drown myself in ecology (curse the compulsary biological science modules).

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Plants are just generally extremely cool, I find, owing to the fact that even a 'sterile' plant will produce a viable seed for every one-in-a-million or so pollen grains...and stuff like allopolyploidy and the amount of genetic load they can support and still grow is incredibly impressive.

I guess 'coxed', past tense, would be more accurate. I have coxed on the Cam, but I gave up because the team captain was basically not respecting the rules I'd laid down (i.e. up to 2 outings a week, no early mornings), and was taking advantage of me, so I quit because it was threatening to affect my work (I'm so close to nocturnal that early mornings make me feel really rather ill!). The Cam in Michaelmas term is chaos, with all the novice boats going in circles on the river; chaos!

I still cox back home in Manchester occasioanlly, on the Bridgewater canal; it's a bit calmer there, and the earliest I get called out is 9:30am, which I can live with.

[elbereth-elena.livejournal.com]

Argh, the Cam in winter, complete insanity! I remember hating University crews (no offence intended, just the novices) for taking up lots of river. It's a shame about the captain though.

I have to say I prefer plants to animals and I find genetics in general very interesting. I hope the whole organisms and environment module will soon move from ecology (an associated dull lecturers) to something more...enthralling.