Habituation

Sat in the laboratory, petri dish under the microscope and another sample is now ready to count. The dish has a 1mm square grid on it. Music playing, counter in hand ready to record the essential details in the next five minutes. The only decisions to make are whether to go to the top or bottom first and to scan from  left to right and back again, or up and down likewise.

So why have I never scanned up and down? I always, as far as I am aware have gone horizontally. Is this a thought-out decision or just a habit?

The same situation faces us in many situations in our daily lives, but for the most part we probably aren't conscious of the decisions because they have become habits or we don't make a definite decision, but go with the flow. But at what point does something become a habituation? And was there ever a logical reason for the decision in the first place?

To give a few examples: Why do you shop in that supermarket, buy that brand of soap or tin of beans? In some situations such as going to the cinema on a particular day of the week this may be a matter of cost and owning a particular brand of telephone and the rest of the routine develops around this.

All I am driving at is the suggestion that maybe you should question some of your actions sometimes. Things change, one brand becomes cheaper or more ethical. For others you may not know why you do something but it is simply the way it has always been done. Make your life easier and figure out the most efficient way of doing things. Change your driving habits to save fuel rather than driving to the speed limit. The time difference is probably minimal, or maybe it is worth the extra cost and environmental pollution that the exponential fuel use causes.

The classic story is the family that always cut the end off of the ham bone before roasting it in the oven. Many years later someone thought to question why they always did this difficult task..... and discovered that it was simply to fit it in the oven that was available in grandmother's house and there was no advantage otherwise!

Question, question, keep your mind moving and enjoy your life.
To misquote: Take care of the seconds and the minutes of free time will add up by themselves. After a while there will be a nice half hour to enjoy a book chapter or a glass of wine (or both).

And so the scientific logical mind takes another turn to the obscure, back to my counting!

Gelatinous sampling

As many of you will know I have the luck, or possibly the bad luck(!). to study jellyfish. Among my studies today I came across a quote which I couldn't leave hidden away in the article. I thought it might describe some of the fun and challenges that I go through to find out more about my chosen organisms.

"As Richard Harbison is fond of stating, sampling with plankton nets is akin to flying over London with a grappling hook. You might pick up hats and umbrellas and a few tree branches, but you can only speculate as to where hats belong, and what umbrellas are good for."
Haddock, 2004, A golden age of gelata: past and future research on planktonic ctenophores and cnidarians. Hydrobiologia 530/531: 549-556.

As you might expect, much of my practical research into jellies has been with the ubiquitous plankton net. It is used for its convenience, and often because we are meant to be sampling something more suited to the net, but you are always left scratching your head and wondering what else was in the water and avoided the net.

I hope your work is just as enjoyable as mine and has a smaller element of chance associated with it!
Bonne Chance!

The Daily Routine

Everyone has a daily routine. For some it is getting the children ready for school, for others planning the dinner and having it ready on time. But it occurred to me this morning that many of these routine things are, well, Routine! We don't think much about them, we just get on and do them. So, what it there in your daily routine that you have to think most about?

Here in Marseille my daily routine is generally based around the commute. I suppose you could classify work as being routine, but for me science always has a challenge and something new to think about and do. I don't think reading the emails and answering them is going to be a particular challenge for me on most days . During my commute I obviously have time to think, to relax (!, the other option is to stress about the slow buses, so relaxing it is!) with a book, and to figure out the day ahead or that which i have just had. If I want a challenge then I will consider which is the quickest way to work or home, depending on the direction and your priorities! I think I have alluded previously to the fact that at present I have a walk, two metros, a bus and a short walk (in several variations). This could be shortened to a slightly longer walk and one bus, but it would take longer. Anyway, the thing that I think about most and challenges me the most...... is where to buy bread!

In Marseille, bread does not last long. It goes stale very quickly, almost whatever you do with it. It is tasty and a fundamental part of the daily life, with jam, cheese, oil, mopping up the end of your dinner, they are all with bread. So where to buy My baguette depends on the time of day I am travelling. Obviously I want to carry it the shortest distance possible, being an unwieldy item, but to be assured of having bread in the evening and for breakfast the next day. So at present I have four or even five boulangeries that I frequent depending on my route, my mood, and the time of day. I haven't yet figured out opening hours, so it is a bit of a game to work out which will be open and whether to take the risk of the one on the corner of my street or not.

So, expense vs distance vs quality of the bread vs risk of the shop being shut. That is the biggest challenge in My daily routine. Et tu?

And this will all change as soon as I move house or find an apartment for myself. What fun!

Welcome to Marseille

The Vieux Port, Marseille

Having travelled down from the UK the day before, my first day in Marseille, the first of a new month, was an eventful one. After getting up at a sensible hour of 9am I walked down to the Vieux (old) Port and had a wander around. I was amused by the strange mix of old and new buildings in the area and cultures too. From block to block the scene changes. Marseille was historically a major port and there are many North African cultures here as well as French. A waterside Spar provided an expensive breakfast, as it would also have done in the UK, and I found where the 21 bus for Luminy campus left from.

Arriving at the end of the bus route and the end of the road, I was struck by just how rural the campus is. If you type Luminy into a image search engine you’ll find a few aerial photos showing what I mean. Set in a valley away from the conurbation of Marseille itself limestone outcrops from scrubby vegetation provide the views, while dry Mediterranean soils shelter drought-surviving trees and thorn bushes. The campus buildings themselves were built in the 1960s and show that typical concrete squared off corners and covered walkways. Many of the buildings show signs of crumbling and neglect, strange for a University in my view. The corridors and stairways remind me of schools and the lifts have a hinged door to access them and tend to only be trusted on the way up! Set within this there is much sophisticated equipment.

I bumped into my supervisor/boss on the stairs and after a few flights we put two and two together and introduced each other! The rest of the day was spent filling in forms, meeting people and touring the laboratories of our building. For the most part there are various research groups working in many fields of chemistry, oceanography and biology, but they are split up by floors and stairways and I wait to see how much interaction goes on. My research group is small and I will be sharing an office with equipment and my supervisor. That will be a new experience. I did meet some lovely people working in the department though and found one doing her PhD on some very interesting jellyfish populations in a local lagoon.

I also got a taste for how the French system works when you realise you can’t have a contract without a bank account, or a bank account without bills and a place of residence, and likewise residence without a job or bank account… There are always ways around these things, but they are designed not to be easy. Equally I hadn’t realised that the 2^nd of June was a Bank Holiday (Ascension Day?) and so work was closed this day, and that most people would take the one ‘bridge’ day between the Bank Holiday and the weekend off too. I suppose in the UK most bank holidays are on a Monday so this doesn’t apply. The holiday didn’t help the visit to the bank or the search for accommodation for me.

Eric with his Gambas

In the evening I went down to a restaurant in the Vieux Port with someone from the hostel and ordered food. At first I thought we were being ignored by the waiter, but overlooked was probably closer to the truth. My opening gambit of “D’accord pour manger?” (Okay for food?) was a bit Franglish, but I managed to get through the rest of the ordering and meal speaking to him only in French. It did wonders for my confidence. I also had a small carafe of wine without any ill effects. Maybe I am gradually relaxing…? Either way I still think that the alcohol isn’t the cause of my recent allergy, but the thing that tips the balance between health and ill-health.

There is hope for this Englishman yet.

Weatherwise – 20 degrees, strong winds and showers is not pleasant for the French but was quite nice for me!

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.