Yesterday was my meeting with my supervisor. For the first time since I've started writing this thesis, I didn't feel like I'd gone through the "Grr! You suck!" grinder and didn't feel like crying. In truth, it went pretty well. Sure, the only thing he had to say was thing's I ought to fix or add too (there's
always something more to add), but at least he was thoroughly impressed with my list of identified lions for Ambogga's pride and understood that a) this took aaaages and b) was necessary for one third of my results.
I did, as in every meeting, have to tell him that two lionesses are no longer in the same pride. I know he's busy, but come
on, we've discussed this
every meeting
and it was in my emails and field report when I was in Kenya. For the love of cuddly things! why is he always surprised when I tell him they're in two groups?!?
He also told me something which needs a bit of who's-who for y'all to understand without me doing horribly convoluted run-on sentences. *re-reads* Like that one. Anyway, so this project has a couple of counterparts in Kenya, both in the Kenya Wildlife Services. One's going to be the PhD student who's going to tangle with all this research we're doing to make some sense out of it. Supervisor and Future-PhD, along with others, were involved in re-collaring the lions this summer. They also collared a new lioness (which I hope to gods I can identify, 'cause that'd be awesome).
Future-PhD's decided to name the lioness "Willemijn" which is a) Supervisor's daughter's name (the same daughter I went to Kenya to do research with), b) demonstrably unpronounceable by all Kenyans we ever met (Willy-muh-jeen, or Willy-muh-jin were the closest tries, when it's Will-uh-mine), c) in bad taste (as in, giving a lion a Dutch name, nevermind that it's a researcher's). Supervisor was displeased with the choice name due to reason c, but understands Future-PhD's logic in the political sense by using reason a. I'm peeved over all three reasons, frankly, but mainly c. Although I must admit I felt a pang of disappointment and confusion because, as even my Supervisor says (not that I raised this issue at all), between the two of us, I deserve to have a lion named after me more than Willy (what with being the lion researcher and all). I'm not saying I'd like a lion named after me (
gods no), just that, if you take out the "daughter of" part, (twisted) logic says it ought to have been my name there.
Anyway, the rest of the work that day went well. Except, of course, for the last part at 5:20 pm where I did a final save of a lion's ID sheet, ready to end for the day, and the computer threw up errors all over the place. Some error boxes and an unsolicited re-start later, I could not find a single mother-lovin' trace of my ID sheet. This ID sheet represented the main body of work for the entire
day, so you'll understand why my hand was glued to my mouth and I made high-pitched whimpering sounds.
Eventually, an hour later, I found a temporary file that had most of my work on it. But seriously! this computer's going to kill me (and delete my entire work). I wasn't even saving to the computer anyway, but to my USB. Argh.
This whole mess meant my nerves were screaming bloody murder and I only had half an hour between getting home and going swimming. Whilst biking to the pool, I moved from "strict right" to "slightly in the middle" to avoid a pothole, heard a motorbike beep behind me, moved back to the right and saw the motorbike pass me. The woman sitting behind the driver turned around and yelled at me (ah, how I loved at times not really understanding Dutch). She seemed quite infuriated and was probably yelling insults galore. All I know is that she gestured at my headphones, as if to say, "What the fuck, you dumb fuck with your headphones, you deaf?!?" It really upset me because I'm a good biker (signaling, keeping to my side and waiting at pedestrian crossings in a country where bikers feel they have the right of way on the
sidewalk as much as anywhere else, for example) and had done nothing wrong or dangerous (unless, of course, they were being utter morons and trying to pass a bike at ridiculous speeds). Fuck, the number of times I've almost crashed because the person I was trying to pass just decided to do a little s-shaped wobble! Right, so that was upsetting, particularly because I was already upset. So the day ended nicely.
Oh, wait, it ended with a talk with mom. That went generally well except where we disagreed over what "urgently" meant. She said I had to start sending out CVs urgently and I disagreed, because I don't know when I might finish this thesis and have yet to research where I could send the CVs to. So for me, it's not urgent in the "drop everything right the fuck now and do this shit!" sense of the word. And for my mom, "It's not urgent" translated to "I'm never going to even try to get a job, lalala."
Today I've worked 6.5 hours straight and had lunch at 5:30 pm. My neck's killing me. I had one (1) oreo cookie as consolation. I have, however, basically finished identifying and analysing one whole pride. \o/ Still a few holes, but I'm ready to move on to another one. I also have to write a report about my internship to the International Office lady (the one who thought I was going to be raped and murdered in Kenya, remember her?). I'd meant to do that now, but instead wrote this. What the hell, I'm tired. Also, no running or swimming today (and definately no Einstein's), so I'm going to chill.
Links of the Day:
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