The Man with No Time

A few weeks back I talked about my apprehension over the next stage of my career, and my indecision as to whether I wanted to stay in scientific research. I also said that I was intending to spend some time over Christmas thinking about what I wanted to do, and then start applying after Christmas. Well, you know what they say about well-laid plans….. (Credit: onefootovertheline.com)

I spent quite some time back in the Spring posting about the NHL playoffs , following them through each round and commenting on the games that I managed to see, and the teams that progressed. After the end of the NHL season the summer in America traditionally belongs to baseball, with some basketball thrown in for good measure. I have no interest in either of those sports, but fortunately for me ‘America’s hat’, better known as Canada, starts its football season in June so that they’re finished before the worst of the winter weather hits.

This weekend I found myself back in Wales. The occasion this time it was the wedding of two old friends, Jenny and Jon, from my Warwick lifesaving days.  My previous visit, mere weeks ago, was for the associated stag do , and I was really looking forward to the wedding. The table decorations were very pretty. (Credit: David Brown)

The second competition weekend of the BULSCA calendar has been and gone. This time around it was the turn of Bristol to host University lifesavers from around the UK, as they held their second league competition. Their inaugural effort for the 2011/12 season had been a great success (with some reservations regarding the social muttered from some of the older members), and we were all interested to see whether they’d be able to repeat it. Hamish, the club mascot, psychs himself up for the competition. (Credit: David Brown)

The final year of my PhD is now well underway, and I'm currently making good progress with my thesis writing. At the moment I have three chapters that are almost fully drafted, out of the six that I intend to end up with. Of the remaining three two are the introduction and conclusion chapters, so I'm looking in good shape at the moment. I'm deliberately pacing myself with the thesis; at the moment I'm working on the science content of the fourth main chapter, which requires running lots of code for long periods of time, so I've got a lot of time on my hands. (Credit: PhD comics)

This weekend was the first BULSCA lifesaving competition of the year. Taking place in Southampton, as has been traditional in the last few years, the Freshers' competition is designed to ease new University lifesavers into the experience of BULSCA competitions. The St Andrews sent only a single team of Seacows, none of whom were truly Freshers! I've been doing this for some time now, and Teddy has been competing for three years. The two girls on the team, Robyn and Hanna, joined the club last year, have been to a couple of competitions as bodies, and have each competed once before. We did have a Fresher with us though; Amandine came along to see what it was all about, and to act as a body.