I am a biologist

and my supervisor insists on pushing me down the bio-informatics route. I appreciate it is useful and necessary in today's scientific world to be able to process and deal with huge data sets, but once that processing and filtering is done I want to be able to get on with doing what I do best. What I like doing best. And that is wet lab stuff. Experiments where you actually do some pipetting, mix stuff, load gels, measure outcome at the bench not at the computer.
And I am being very nice and saying I am happy for other people to look at my data and poke at it and do stuff with it. I just want to be left in peace to do my labwork. If I had refused to share, I'd be able to understand why he'd expect me to, and insist that I do, the bio-informatics as well as benchwork, since he deems it necessary. But I'm happy to hand it on wrapped up nicely and with a bow, so please, please let me get back to the bench!
Pretty please....

Friends

Friendship is a marvellous situation in life. And those real friends, who will always be your friends regardless of how rarely you meet up and speak, are wonderful people indeed. Thank God for them. Yesterday I spent a good 4 hours chatting to such a good friend. An old friend from almost 10 years back. It is scary when I think of it this way: there are people I met as an adult and I've known them for almost 10 years. My, my, my, I am growing old.

And I am lucky enough to be able to say that I have more than one such friend. We have all gone our own ways and are living our lives far away from each other, but we are still good friends. We meet every so often and then it is like we never moved apart. It is great.

Yesterday was one such occasion. I had not spoken to this particular friend since November and that was a 5 min chat cos we were both busy. And yesterday it was like no time at all had passed. And in July I'll meet up with another one of these old friends. We're meeting at a conference. And I can bet anything that I'll be spending every spare moment of my time with her rather than with friends from the lab here. I am looking forward to that meeting too.

The sun

Today it is fabulous here. Lovely, lovely weather. We've had a perfect blue sky and sun for the whole day. It is past 6pm now and it is still as light and warm as it would be at midday. Really beautiful. I spent a lovely 3 hours sitting in the gardens chatting with a couple of good friends. The daffodils are practically all dead now but the gardens are still fabulous. They must have been amazing a couple of weeks ago. I think I probably got a bit of a tan too. Something unheard of these past 3 years.
It has been a very sociable day I must say. And it still feels like there is most of the day to go. It is the light I think. Summer here is always the same - long never ending days.

The BBQs and picnics on the green have started again. In a way I am sad that I no longer live in a house perched on top of the activity. That in itself was fun because it felt like being in a party most of the time and also there was that added feeling of everyone envying you your location. However, it was also very noisy, particularly in summer when most students are out partying but I need to get to sleep because I have to get up and go to the lab the next morning. This new place will probably be much more peaceful.

Ramblings...

I am a bit at a loss what to call this entry. So I will start writing and hope for illumination. This week has flown by. It was a short week I admit because I only came back from home Monday night. Though now I come to think about it, it also feels like a long, long time since getting back from home. This I think is the normal, everyday, dual speed of time experienced by students all over. Time flies past too quickly and deadlines loom closer and closer, but at the same time the last holiday and the next one seem eons away. In my case this is partly true. I have to wait till November till I'll have time to go home again. And by then I need to have most of my research finished otherwise I am in trouble big time. But in the meantime I am off to Italy for a workshop, Windermere for a short holiday with friends because I have never in the 3.5 years I have been living here been to the lake district, then to Switzerland for a conference where I have to give an oral presentation (OMG). My parents will come to visit me right after the ordeal and finally I go to Italy, first to meet my sister in Pisa, and then with my brother to Rome. With all this running about I am really wondering where I will find the time to do all this work I have to do. I really need to start working through weekends! If I cannot face the lab at weekends, because there is never anybody there, and right now I am battling the little demon of loneliness, then I need to start bringing some writing work to do at home. I have 1 or 2 chapters which I could start work on and having them done will take away a lot of pressure from later months!

Back after Easter

Well, well, well. It is now after Easter and I am now back in Cambridge after a lot of travelling to and fro. And there is a lot of travelling to do in the near future too. I do not know when I will finally settle down to work properly.
Going home again so soon after the last time was really lovely. It was only for 4 days but it seemed like a lot longer. It is true that I kept busy all the time going from one thing to another. It really does make the time seem longer when you keep going from one thing to another. We started immediately after I landed and went straight to the seminary for an hour's adoration. It was a lovely hour and the time really flew by. Then on Friday morning I spent time with the family and mum did some Easter cooking. Then in the early afternoon we went to church and following that we went to see 2 Good Friday processions. My sister stepped into a hole on the way there and twisted her ankle. Poor sis. Luckily it was not too bad and she wast walking and driving just fine. The processions were fabulous. Both of them. They were also quite different. Then after the second one finished and my bro was free (cos he was participating) we went to have some food. It was great being all together. We even managed to fit in a film all together in the 4 days I was at home!
Yes all in all it was fabulous. Monday of course I did not feel like getting on that plane and coming back here. It is always like that when it is time to get back here. It will always be like this so there is no helping it.
Getting to Cambridge from Luton was quite a feat and an adventure. I, of course, missed the last bus. Hoping to get it was a dream as the plane lands at 11.30 and the bus leaves at 11.25! Because it was Bank Holiday Monday they changed the train time tables, of course! So there was a replacement bus set up to take people from Hitchin to Royston and then there was a train from there to Cambridge. And it all worked seamlessly. It was good. I am thinking that next time I fly Luton I will do this again. There is a £25 taxi fee to get me to Hitchin but it could be worse. It could be £80 taxi to Cambridge.