Missed me? I was on holiday for 4 weeks. I was convinced I had blogged my leave of absence before I departed. I noticed now that I hadn't. Our holiday was only slightly too long, which has made the return of focus to my PhD a little challenging. It's only Day 2 back at the desk, so I'm treading lightly. It's not all that amusing how a short holiday can make my Action-list bulge at the seams.

In these 2 days some progress has been made - mainly financial. Considering it's June and I had not yet been paid for being here since November last year, it's high time. I'm hoping you're nodding with me.

I'm also back in the field next week. Not for my project yet, sadly, however it will be a good exercise nonetheless because it's for the bigger project that mine forms part. I'm sure this expedition will go along way to me adjusting my state of mind with respect to how far I am. Can you believe I've been doing this for a year already? Some days I wonder how I've spent all that time.

Yesterday I also heard that I have been short-listed for an associate lecture post here. This is very exciting since I applied nearly 2 months ago and was beginning to think that the lack of communication was because I was not successful this time around. The interview is tomorrow. The lecturing will actually be for those courses that my supervisor can no longer present due to her other commitments. There are 3 undergraduate courses and a Master's level course. The courses are all right up my alley of scientific knowledge and experience and should slot into my career building aspirations quite nicely, thank you. *dreamily considering my own office in these hallowed halls*

Watch out soon for some more paper-based writings of mine. I'm working on 2 for industry-related periodicals while I blog. If you can imagine the world-wide collection of scientific periodicals as a continuum, you'd see the one I'm submitting to on the layman-side for the non-technical reader. The other is sort of in the middle, scientific enough for local (South African) industry specific readers. Here's hoping that they are both accepted on submission and need no revisions. To finish the mental picture, the other end of the continuum are Science and Nature. The 'one-day' list for every aspiring scientist.

Back to building the "Published Papers" part of my resume!