I must apologise for the long hiatus in blog posts, I have been under a lot of stress from phd work and an illness in the family. It is now September and soon Imperial College will be filling up with students again. As a phd student working at a host institution I am not so aware of semesters and holidays and have been working right through the summer. Phd students do not get official holiday but we are recommended to take the statutory amount, which is 4 weeks per year. Depending on your supervisors you might have to arrange this with them, but I generally take it when I want. Unfortunately I am not very good at this! I have had no holiday this year and really must plan to take some, block it out in my diary and put my out-of-office on!
So here is what I have been up to over the summer ‘holidays’:
* Dipterists Forum field trip to Canterbury – the Society of the Study of Flies, of which I am the Treasurer, organises a summer field meeting each year where a group entomologists get together to visit sites and collect flies to add records to recording schemes. This year we stayed at Canterbury Christ Church University and visited various locations in the area.
* I finally finished my late stage review – just the viva to do now (gulp!)
* Bug Club Camp – the Amateur Entomologist’s Society, of which I am the Membership Secretary, organises a camp for young entomologists every couple of years. This year it was at Dr Beynon’s Bug Farm in Pembrokeshire and I went along to help out.
* Conference number one – the two NERC DTPs got together to showcase their students’ work at King’s College London, I presented a poster.
* Conference number two – my first Royal Entomological Society annual meeting (Ento16) – I presented a poster and two talks(!)
So I am now suffering from conference fatigue although I will try and blog them both when I have recovered.
Hope you had proper summer break!
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