Rain rain rain

I'm finally managing to catch up on my blog after far too long...

So I've got plenty of data, although more can never hurt (I'm a fan of large data sets!). I should really begin thinking about what statistics I will use and trying them out.

Today the trip is cancelled (hence me managing to catch up on the blog) due to bad weather conditions. Although I didn't actually know that the trip was cancelled until I came in this morning. I had dressed up in full waterproof gear, including some very fetching waterproof trousers that my dad lent me. Feeling somewhat like a big plastic Michelin man, I managed to slog in through the drizzle (I swear it was raining a lot more as I was putting my waterproofs on!). Now I'm waiting for someone to arrive who can give me a lift to the Spar supermarket, as all I have left at home is some couscous.

Things I have missed blogging about;

Hermanus for Ollie's birthday...

Fellow Brummie Ollie celebrated his 22nd birthday out here, so we all went to Hermanus for a nice meal. We had a bunch of shared starters, which included "Aztec Mushrooms"; dark chocolate, mild chillies and cream on some button mushrooms (amazing!), "Passion Fruit Crocodile Tail"; kind of speaks for itself, but yes, I ate some crocodile! It was so tasty, very much like pork, and quite unusual with the passion fruit sauce on it, kind of like sweet and sour sauce. For main I had a beautiful seafood pasta, with a tomato sauce. Everything was absolutely delicious!

Volunteer braai...

So the volunteers decided to host a braai last Wednesday, which was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people there too! Volunteers from White Shark Projects, the boat crew, all the volunteers from Marine Dynamics (of which there are quite a number now) and I'm sure there were a good few random people there as well. So the drinks were flowing and the food was braaing, courtesy of some guy I'm not sure anybody knew properly. It was brilliant! The lounge was converted into some sort of dance floor and my lovely Canadian friend Jenna had bought some coloured torches for us to dance about with, so it really felt disco-esque.

A few of us then decided to go to a bar called "Friends" I'm not sure what possessed me to go there, as I was really starting to flag, but it was fun all the same. I didn't really drink much at all, but the next day I was really, really ill. I'm guessing I ate something dodgy.

Introduction nightmare...

So I was assigned the task of writing a draft of my introduction, so that the lovely marine biologists here can have a look over it and see whether they have any input, as well as a general encouragement to keep as up to date with my work as possible. A task that was due to be complete this time last week. So far I have written 450 words, not [entirely] through laziness, but through a lack of papers about shark behaviour. The 450 words I have written, however, have been fully referenced and I have actually read quite a lot of papers... I'm just struggling with the structure and content of my introduction.

The knowledge that there is very little on 'personality' of sharks (or even any elasmobranchs - that's cartilaginous fish including sharks and rays, for you non-biologists out there) actually terrifies me. I mean I'm all for the glory of pioneering work, but only if I feel comfortable and confident in what I'm doing. I don't feel like I'm doing anything particularly *wrong* but I also feel like it's very haphazard and difficult to be 100% accurate in everything. I guess that's what behavioural ecology is like, but it scares me. I have a love of structure, accuracy and objectivity... but behaviour is so random and relatively subjective (although my categories of behaviour have been designed to be as objective as possible), and it is influenced by so many variables; not all of which can be measured, I feel like my data can't be altogether perfect. I hope all behavioural scientists feel this way, otherwise I am definitely doing something wrong!

Next step (once I've finished writing my introduction) is statistical analysis. If that shows some sort of pattern, I will be over the moon!

Blog soon!