Silly Rhymes

These rhymes were from the end of my PhD when I was a month away from submission. They have been sitting as a draft for a long time, but I found them today and was amused. I can't remember the context for all of them. Does it matter? I think not. I hope you enjoy them too.

My friend is away
the pictures are done,
maybe if she knew
back she would run,

but in her absence
a letter or a note,
I think I should send,
delivered by Goat!

(c) Martin Lilley 15/3/10
---

Holidays are coming...
For you and for me
For one, the Mountains
For the other, the sea

Why have a British holiday
When Greece you could go?
It really depends if you need
The sun or the snow!

(c) Martin Lilley 15/3/10

-----

You are ignoring

my questions to you

Maybe I should leave them

to ponder and stew.

Were they important?

Was I remiss?

Should I interrupt

my state of bliss?

(c) Martin Lilley 17/3/10


----


It is hard to find
sense in prose,
when rhyming my brain
is all that it knows

Try as I might
I can't seem to find,
Sense or Structure
of Any kind.


(c) Martin Lilley 17/3/10

----

To space your repetition
for the pleasure of thought,
A good rhyme costs money
and needs to be bought

(c) Martin Lilley 17/3/10

----

Ribbons are great

fun to twizzle,

particularly curled
with scissor or brizzle!

Now I have bubbles

to clean my glass;

drinking wine

and feeling class!

Martin Lilley 18/3/10

Far far away, in a land unexplored...

Since my PhD ended I have stepped back from work a little and started to relax, moved house etc. Coupled to this the need to blog appears to have diminished, although whether this is a good thing is yet to be clarified. Anyway today will be the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

Firstly I've posted minutes from six years of Swansea Uni Hiking Club into the university archive. The minutes had been passed down to me and had spent far too long in my flat before I finally got round to preserving them. As far as I know the hikers are the only club to have put material into the archive. Sad really, but in 50 years time there won't be records of any other clubs in the university. UCS Ramblers, UWS Hikers, SU Hikers... and nothing else :(. History isn't just about finding out about what happened. It does rely on those in the present to preserve material for the future.

Secondly today should really mark the end of my PhD... I'm taking a break from university. I've sent off all the material I can to journals for publication and I'm taking a break. Hopefully I'll be appointed to a short-term position in a couple of months time, or a permanent job somewhere else, but in the mean time a holiday is required.
Plan - drive to Scotland.
Destination - Isle of Skye.
Activities - Walking, scrambling, possibly climbing, exploring, sitting, looking, cycling, relaxing, and photographing.
Staying - nothing booked - camping, bothies, bunkhouses, hostels, B&B if I feel the need for creature comforts.
Aim - to discover the magic of Skye.
Nervous - a little.
Care - required.
Enjoyment - assured.
Weather - unpredictable.
Records - photos and a notebook.
Contact - minimal.
End point - uncertain.
Looking forward to it? - of course!

See you later ;)

Where next?

Holidays are coming...
For you and for me
For one, the Mountains
For the other, the sea

Why have a British holiday
When Greece you could go?
It really depends if you need
The sun or the snow!

(c) Martin Lilley 15/3/10

With the submission of my PhD I have been lacking the rhyming touch, this one above was written a while ago. Still I would much prefer to be relaxed and not rhyming than working too hard and needing an outlet to my thoughts.

So with submission comes the prospect of what to do next. Thankfully for the moment I can sit back and relax, enjoy my working holiday and gradually come to terms with the future. None-the-less in a couple of months I will know if i have achieved my doctorate and be contemplating jobs. So what does an out of work Marine Biologist do? Do i look for science jobs, for marine jobs, for voluntary jobs?, for anything?

Personally the choice has to come between an academic post and a commercial one.. While voluntary and taking a break from science are attractive they certainly can't be long-term aims. So..., to continue at university and pursue post-doctoral positions or look for something more applied.

Currently I am looking towards the commercial aspect mainly because I don't feel that the university environment has enough funding to support a practical person and hence the need to move on somewhere else. Alternatively I could change the way I work to adapt to the university environment.. but for the present I don't feel that is a worthwhile option. All in all I am currently planning which companies to apply to with my CV and see if they show any interest. Some have suitable roles going on a 'until they are filled' basis, while others suggest that speculative CVs will be put on file until such time as they are looking for a suitable candidate.

All in all I don't know what the future holds, but I'm sure it will be interesting.

Owl or Lark?

As I have been growing up people have always talked about So'n'So being a morning person or an evening person - commonly known as Larks or Owls. I have also met the odd Nightingale as they shall now be called who spend more of the day sleeping than awake!
Walking into the office this morning at some ungodly hour (it was still dark..) I was struck by the fact that personally I am quite capable of adapting to suit the situation. Maybe the shift work on ships has helped but I can enjoy the day just as much when I get up early late, or even at Midnight..  This led me onto thinking that the labelling of a person is probably more down to their habits than actually when they can physically work better. It is possible that a certain time of day does suit some people, but how did they get to that situation in the first place? Is it simply being used to getting up at a certain time and then switching on mentally so-many-hours after that?

All in all I would suggest that your habits dictate the way you are. Anyone can be anything if they put their mind to it. Otherwise an owl would become a lark when working on the Western Seaboard of the US rather than London...  Maybe it is simply conformity which results in our daily lives fitting around others and the working day.

When would you like to work/get up/have your free time?  Give yourself a couple of weeks to adapt (just like jet-lag) and you can. Go on, go for it! ;) That is what flexi-time is for.

(This posting is brought to you by PhD-writeup-distractions.sea.sci.swampea)

Long time, no sea!

I appear not to have blogged for a while... all I can say is - You try writing a PhD (!).  It has been going all fine and dandy when I can work at my own pace, but the thought of having a true deadline or even a job to go to raises the stress levels tenfold and the social life goes to pot.  Here I am in the office on a Saturday afternoon while the sun is shining for only the second time in 52 days (correction, not raining for the second of 52 days, this is 'Swampea' after all!) trying to form some coherent sentences.  Well I shall get back to it again, but before I go may I recommend the video online of Megson's performance at Shrewsbury Folk Festival this year - memories, powerful lyrics, great music.  All I need to do now is go and buy their album(s) :D
Adios amigos xo