Monday, August 06, 2007

Back in Guelph

Two days ago, Saturday, I flew back to Onterrible from Churchill. Nothing too exciting to report, just a couple of fussy, noisy children on the planes and a delay leaving Churchill that did nothing but shorten my lay-over in Winnipeg.

So, now I'm back, with my less-restricted bandwidth and a larger, more comfortable bed. Some of the pictures I took during my four weeks "up North" were on film, not digital, so I'll wait to post the big photosets until I get those developed, probably to CD-ROM. My plan is to do that this week.

Apparently, the lab moved TWICE while I was away, once to the new building then again immediately after that to a different lab on a different floor - the labs are all mixed groups, with multiple PIs*, and my advisor wanted our lab co-inhabitants to be people studying things more like what we work on, i.e. evolutionary biology rather than ecology. Whatever, I didn't have to carry anything heavy for either event, so I'm not concerned. Tomorrow I'll discover what's what, and get back to work.

In other news, I've been shockingly lazy and antisocial since I got back to Guelph - I have yet to set foot outside since my arrival Saturday evening. I haven't been completely useless, though, as I assembled the bookshelves and organized my books that my parents had been looking after for me since last August - they drove in from Calgary and are spending some time vacationing at the cottage. I think part of my general reclusiveness and low-activity comes from the drastic reduction in my caffeine intake. In Churchill, where free coffee was always plentiful but sleep was not, I was drinking up to six cups per day, compared to a normal weekly intake prior to my trip of about four to five cups per week. In the last two days, I've had one cup of coffee. Other factors include a low-level viral infection (Rhinovirus, I think) and the wonderful opportunity to catch up on my sleep deficit. The latest I was able to sleep in Churchill was 9:00 am, after a late night up until 2:00; yesterday I woke up at 2:00 PM. That was glorious.

Anyway, I couldn't justify NOT writing something here, so this is just a little "still alive" note full of promises about upcoming things (photos) I'll fulfill as other commitments (school/work, family, decaffeination) allow.

* Principle Investigators, a fancy term for "professor"

6 comments:

Carlo said...

Now that you're back from the ass end of the world, you should not be thinking about the lab. Rather, you should be planning on how many zombies/aliens you are going to kill in order to complete your return to society.

But seriously, welcome back! I've been completely anti-social too, except that mine's lasted like a whole month. Imagine that!

Anonymous said...

Welcome back! I can't wait to see your photos from the spiffy new camera.

King Aardvark said...

"Now that you're back from the ass end of the world"

Ummm, Carlo, he just got back to Ontario, so that means he's back to the ass end of the world.

Carlo said...

"Ummm, Carlo, he just got back to Ontario, so that means he's back to the ass end of the world."

Agreed. But I've noticed that Onterriblans are pretty touchy about the subject of their home province, and don't like it when I call it things like... umm Onterrible.

Since I'm unaware of anyone from Churchill, I figured it was a safe 'dis'.

TheBrummell said...

I met several locals in Churchill, people who had been born there. They were not forthcoming with great heaps of praise for their hometown. So Churchill can be safely insulted; however, "ass end" doesn't really apply since Churchill is the closest permanent settlement to the geographic center of Canada; it's not at the ass end of anything.

King Aardvark said...

Ontario's got that little dangly bit that sticks out into the great lakes near Michigan, so it's possible that Windsor is the ass end of the country.