Feb Fun - yeah right

It would be reasonable to say that my lack of blogging has had something to do with things being a tad busy of late. Very much as predicted, February is turning out to be every bit the right royal pain in the arse I thought it would be. Having said this, things are progressing on most fronts, albeit slowly. What I find funny is that most people ask Aff and I about our wedding plans, and how they are going, when in truth, the wedding is probably the least stressful task of them all (well, that is to say, it is the least stressful task at the moment). Italian visas, work contracts, finding accommodation in Italy, learning Italian, conference presentations, annual research reports, moving out of our place and storing our stuff are all things occupying our time at the moment. So yes, the blog posts have been a little few and far between of late.

I will actually try and not let this happen from now on, as I suspect these next few weeks are probably going to feel like a bit of a blur. As such, a reasonable account of this interesting time might actually be worth reading in years to come.

This last week just gone has probably been the most interesting since my last post. It started in fine style, with a Sunday arvo pub crawl with the Fuzzy Logic crew. This was organised to farewell Tim and myself, as we are both leaving Canberra. Of course, I will be back, and will certainly rejoin the Fuzzy crew on my return. There was some discussion about me being the Europe science correspondent while I'm away in Italy, which would be kind of fun to do, if the technology will allow it . It's been fun!

Perhaps my biggest news of the week was my resignation from the ANU Postgraduate Student Association (PARSA). This, unfortunately, was always going to be a little more complicated that just a simple goodbye, by virtue of the current low numbers on the council. With myself as Vice-President, and Grant as president both resigning, it was in both our interests to ensure that we at least recuited enough people to replace us. I am very happy to say that we achieved far better than this. At our final council meeting yesterday, six new PRC members were co-opted, as well as a couple of new social team members. This was the result of a pretty intensive week long recruitment drive (it was O'week this week, so there were plenty of new postgrad students around) which Grant and I were most involved with. It was great to see it pay off, and to leave PARSA on a bit of a high. A lot more students are needed for the council to truly regain it's strength, but the quality of the new recruits seemed to be pretty high, so I think the future looks good.

I have said plenty about PARSA over the last 22 months that I have been involved, so won't go into it all again here, except to say that it has been a very rewarding experience. Even so, there was no understating my immense relief after yesterday's meeting. I was going to resign, regardless of the success of this week's recruitment drive, but knowing there are more people after my resignation than before it is a much nicer way to go. The council is overwhelmingly made up of genuinely good people, who seek only to to do good things. It has been a privilege to work with such people (past and present).

So now I am free of almost all extra curricula activities (except sport, which I keep as a means of staying sane) , leaving me to focus on that one other elephant in the room .. research. My goals - nay - deadlines for the next four weeks are quite brutal, and in all honesty, I am not sure how I will go achieving them. The major one is a paper submission, which my supervisor and I have targeted. In truth, my ambition to make this deadline is not so much driven by the desire for a publication, but rather, to ensure the work I will be extending on in Italy, is in fact, in a state to be extended upon. Basically, how much I get done in the next four weeks will have everything to do with what I end up working on in Italy, so I do feel a reasonable amount of pressure to produce. With everything else happening at the moment, this feels like a very big mountain to climb indeed. Of course, the thing the drives people to climb big mountains is the rewarding view at the summit. I cannot think of a better motivator than this to get what needs doing, done.