Last weekend was spent avoiding work in the usual fashion; shopping, trips to random places, eating, sleeping, chatting, showing up for cancelled rugby matches in the rain…. Well maybe the latter wasn’t quite so usual – it seems emails were lacking in the ability to make it to my inbox and so on Sunday morning I found arriving at an empty clubhouse a rather confusing experience.
This week I’ve faced up to deadlines and even made it as far as the library once or twice. Remembrance Day (Tuesday) was a bank holiday which I spent attempting and failing to catch up on sleep thanks to my next door neighbour’s investment in the loudest alarm clock known to man. So having been unsuccessful in sleeping I booked flights from Vancouver to San Francisco for February “spring break” to visit a friend I lived with during my first year in Edinburgh which I am really excited about!
I also picked up my Whistler season pass this week, cause for yet more excitement! The only thing I need now is a snowboard….and boots….and bindings….and for my credit card not to be maxed out. The mountains could do with some more snow too!
I think the title of this blog may be slightly confusing so I’ll explain myself. Yesterday evening I spent 2 hours in the back of a pick up truck in the dark driving round the Malcolm Knapp Research Forest with a flashlight. The aim of the evening was to practise distance sampling methods for my Mammalogy class and so as it started to get dark six students loaded up in to a car and made the 2 hour journey out to Maple Ridge and the UBC owned site. Once we’d had a crash course in data recordings having spotted a fictional deer (aka a rock) we hopped in to the pick up and set out in to the forest. Being out of the city on a clear night with a full moon was plenty of fun in itself; the idea was that this would be added to by sightings of numerous deer. Unfortunately that didn’t go entirely to plan as the deer failed to make an appearance.
Looking forward - next week sadly becomes rather more filled with work and the start of revision. My lab exams fall on Friday and then the Monday and Tuesday of the following week. Each one of them rather more daunting than the prospect of the finals which are still a little way off. Before that I have a relatively chilled weekend ahead; this evening I’m off to see The Dark Knight at the student union. Tomorrow will be a tourist day and Sunday is second-try-lucky for the rugby match of last week plus dinner out at “Hells Kitchen” (which I’ve been told has nothing to do with the legend that is Gordon Ramsay or the standard of food.) Good times all round.
So it's now up to me whether I do the final exam or not, I'll probably do it because it's a bit of a gamble if I don't, but we'll see.
