I am not dead

Just a personal note on why even regular updates have been nonexistent: I’m pretty busy with several projects and sudden workloads.

• I’m going full-steam ahead with my palaeontology exhibition, and besides the negotiating and trying to find sponsors and places to hold it in, I’m designing and writing all the exhibits (making infographics is far out of my league) and setting up advertisements for a crowdfunding campaign soon (because finding sponsors on this island is impossible). And making a website too, although I just remembered this now while writing…
• I’m juggling the writing of five quite different papers and the analysing of the involved data is requiring writing new scripts and programs, which also takes some time.
• I’ve spread out into e-lecturing. Some colleagues are asking me to guest lecture for their classes, either a full class or just journal club meetings, or just interviews with the students about my research. I prioritise these because I love lecturing but don’t get any chances to do so in this wretched land of apathy. They’re fun affairs but easily suck up 3-4 hours at least with technical set-ups, preparation, and the actual lecturing time. (If any reader is interested, I will never refuse an offer to do a talk in meatspace or cyberspace, so do get in touch. My knowledge base can be gleaned from the post history, the about page, or the talks page.)
• And my work with schools has ramped up to the point that I have at least one meet every week. And there are field days with them on the horizon, so that means I will have to cobble together some field guides because none exist for this island.

So yeah. These are the main reasons why I’ve been pretty silent. Sorry, but it’s the trade-off involved in being an unemployed scientist: CV needs to be boosted, and so there is no free time to slack off.

Here’s a fly getting ready to shoot lasers from its front legs.

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