so, since i last wrote, a sudden realisation wave swept over me, and work had to occur.

1) next monday i am giving a lecture for an hour to the rest of my class, and yesterday i had to give them all an abstract and a run down on what i would be talking about. this required me knowing what i would be talking about... hence work was required. by 2am monday morning the typing stopped, and after a visit to the lab to print and then the photocopying shop to photocopy, i made it to my 11am class just in time, with handouts to deliver.

2) thesis. ouch. my eyes are blurry after spending the day down at the lab, struggling to work out the elevations and slopes of all of my sites. this is how i go about it: firstly i select one point from one computer programme. this point represents a village and the programme is made up of tables that give data about that village. however i want more than tables so the point must be transferred. so, secondly i export this one point out of the programme into what i shall call twilight zone, where it sits in a form that allows it to be manipulated into other programmes. thirdly, i import the one point into another programme. however, while the point can be seen, the programme does not yet understand it. thus, fourthly, i have to convert it into a file that this programme understands. in order to do that i have to create a fake map to act as a background for the new point, and then once the point is put on that fake map i can give it a name and then, fifthly, put it into the map containing slopes and elevations. the complexity has not yet begun. this little village then needs to be overlayed in such a way that everything is black except the little dot representing the village, which then shows the elevation map, that is behind it. i then zoom in, find the centre of the point. and mark the elevation.

one village down, 34 to go!

and then i do the slopes. and then i put a 1km radius buffer around each of the sites and find a mean elevation and a mean slope. then i compare the over all mean elevation and slope of the entire region (sadly my supervisor mentioned standard deviations and statistics today... so prepare to be ambushed with data if you know things about stats - heh heh, i have a few contacts up my sleeve. heh heh.).

then? i switch to another computer and start to use satellite images that give geology and terrain and vegetation stuff, which in turn can also be analysed. by similar type methods as above.

3) i have much reading to do before friday. but at least im not presenting this week.

enough about work. what else have i been doing? um. well. i am in the midst of planning a week long trip to spain. cool huh? morna, eric and shannon are heading to morocco for two weeks around easter time. and then me and joe are planning on flying down and meeting them in southern spain, hiring a car and driving up the east coast to barcelona. ryan air flights are pretty cheap and hiring a car, not only is cheap, but allows me to stop at every single deserted beach i see... need i say more?!! (ha, of course i will say more, but i have no more to say right now).

today is shrove tuesday. so tonight we eat pancakes.