Another weekend of work

Teaching something for the first time is a lot of work! One 50 minute lecture to fourth year students takes a lot of time to prepare. I have seven lectures in a fourth year module I hadn't taught before; originally, I would have four of them in my second week (mind you; my first week was only three days long). That wasn't feasible! And then having a field trip booked over the Tuesday didn't help. I had to work hard to get my lectures ready in time. The first weekend went up in preparation. Climbing was sacrificed to it too. Digging was invoked to keep me sane; if you're only working you go doolally pretty soon. And then the next weekend was spent working as well. At least I can do some at home; reading up is done swimmingly on the couch, with a mug of coffee on the table. But quite a lot of it has to be done in the office! So I am going pale and wild-eyed, but I have already done three lectures and so far I've managed...

Some marine diatoms; one of the topics I had to read up on is the production of dimethyl sulphide by marine algae, such as these. Pic by Kostas Tsobanoglou