A month and a half is rather a long hiatus, isn't it? Since my last post it's been a roller-coaster. Our boiler broke down and we spent three weeks without any heat or hot water while our landlord tried to get a cheaper deal than quoted by the property managers (I am pleased to say it ended up costing him a month's rent).
Then we had a great deal of sadness. Mokele, one of our little lizards, had not really eaten since we bought her, and she deteriorated. On 7th March we found her curled up in the viv, having died overnight. Poor little thing - she was so weak, and she couldn't open her eyes. We've buried her in our garden, in a big pot with a dragon on the side.
Sadly, Hastur seems to be heading the same way. She had been thriving, but she's getting very thin despite eating fairly well. We're waiting on test results, but it may be Cryptosporidium. It is little comfort to us to know there is nothing we could have done to prevent it.
In teaching news, it has been one long term. In the UK, schools and colleges generally get a half-term break (even many universities will have a reading week for students), but unusually we didn't this time. It felt like running a marathon! Most of my A2 Biology students have offers for university places, and they'll be going off to study medicine, biochemistry, clinical psychology, forensic science, pharmacology and indeed palaeobiology!
Over the next two weeks of Easter break, I will be mostly sleeping, catching up on the long-overdue SVP committee report I need to write, and trying not to think about the large blue folder of coursework I need to grade. Normal bitching about scientific literacy will resume soon as there were some cracking examples in the newspapers today.
Then we had a great deal of sadness. Mokele, one of our little lizards, had not really eaten since we bought her, and she deteriorated. On 7th March we found her curled up in the viv, having died overnight. Poor little thing - she was so weak, and she couldn't open her eyes. We've buried her in our garden, in a big pot with a dragon on the side.
Sadly, Hastur seems to be heading the same way. She had been thriving, but she's getting very thin despite eating fairly well. We're waiting on test results, but it may be Cryptosporidium. It is little comfort to us to know there is nothing we could have done to prevent it.
In teaching news, it has been one long term. In the UK, schools and colleges generally get a half-term break (even many universities will have a reading week for students), but unusually we didn't this time. It felt like running a marathon! Most of my A2 Biology students have offers for university places, and they'll be going off to study medicine, biochemistry, clinical psychology, forensic science, pharmacology and indeed palaeobiology!
Over the next two weeks of Easter break, I will be mostly sleeping, catching up on the long-overdue SVP committee report I need to write, and trying not to think about the large blue folder of coursework I need to grade. Normal bitching about scientific literacy will resume soon as there were some cracking examples in the newspapers today.
