A year ago, I started this blog with cautious optimism about how often I'd post, and I don't feel too disappointed, but I do regret not doing a summary last weekend. Now I have real work to do again!
Since the last post, I have:
- Finished the Siberian grave helminth project
- Moved out of London
- Signed up to stage manage two plays
- Handed in my dissertation on the project
- Given a presentation on the project
- Sat a viva on the project (like an interview about why you deserve to pass)
- Confirmed enrolment for a PhD at Warwick University, right next to my hometown
- Joined a new Brownie group
- Had the Warwick induction
- Made a to-do list that fills a page of A4 (font 10)
- Made six cakes, 24 mince pies and 30 fig rolls that were not on the to-do list
Apart from official results and graduating in May, my MSc is over! I'm now officially educated in taxonomy and biodiversity. Oddly, what I feel I've gained most from the year isn't actually much more knowledge about taxonomy or biodiversity than I had before. Instead, I took a risk and did a project on DNA, which involved some molecular biology, which I previously avoided like the plague. But it was great fun. And I took the even bigger decision to do sign up for something similar in a PhD, which will take at least three years of my life.
I read a book on learning that argued that whether you're interested in something just depends on whether you have enough background knowledge for it to be accessible. Now I've had a go at DNA things, and can actually read the papers without looking up every other word, I am finding it interesting. Warwick has been great so far, and I'm really excited to apprentice myself to some more real scientists and do something useful.
I said goodbye to my wonderful NHM supervisor with carrot cake and am still emailing Smith as she embarks on the complicated world of American postgraduate study. My birding photographer friend is hanging on at the museum, hopefully for the long term. My heart breathes a sigh of relief to be back home. My pancreas takes a worried look at the baking equipment.
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