Hectic

A hectic day today. Important meetings in the morning, but very fruitful ones. In between meetings, I insisted with my boss that we take critical decisions today, regarding our climate chamber experiment, which yesterday we discovered was infested with thrips. I think, no, I know I pissed him off today, but so be it. The safeguarding of the minimal data we could still collect from our experiment, and the safety of other experiments running in neighboring chambers, are more important to me than my social status. The two doctoral candidates working on the experiment acted swiftly, and carefully. I wish for them that there’s still something to learn from this experiment. (I for one learned a lot about the dos and don’ts of our model system, which will be valuable for the future)

In between arranging the emergency harvest, I was teaching our bird course in the afternoon. In this practical part, we mostly gave the students the chance to look at our stuffed bird collection – ducks and geese today – up close. I was a bit nervous, for we had to channel a potential 180 students through our exposition room. It turned out that all students that showed up, had their vaccination reports at the ready, making for a smooth, and hopefully safe experience for everyone.

From teaching, I pretty much jumped in our campervan, to start our flash visit to the Netherlands. Our friends’ wedding this Saturday. We parked for the night in Diez, which leaves us another two hours to the border tomorrow. It was a smooth ride, with little traffic, and two happy little monsters. It could be much worse. Let’s hope we can continue this smoothness tomorrow. Tomorrow, we’ll visit grandma 1, and the day after, we will see grandma 2, before going to the wedding party. Sunday, I will have to visit a reptile fair to pick up some goodies, and on Monday, we’ll drive back to Bavaria. It’s, uhm, action packed, but I guess it’s worth it.

Now I need sleep. Let’s hope that it doesn’t get too cold this night.