New neck please

I have been in a lot of pain this week. I'm not sure what is going on with my neck, but I couldn't stand it anymore so I went to the GP yesterday. I now have prescription anti-inflammatory painkillers and I have had a CT scan. 

I had my remedial massage today and I felt significantly better afterwards, however that lasted about 30 minutes. It's now been almost 2 hours and the pain just keeps increasing. I can only take the prescription medication with or soon after food, so I am going to wait it out a little while cause I only just had lunch an hour ago, and the pain is only around a 5 or 6 right now. For a score out of 10 okay that's not good, but it was like 9 yesterday. 

The Spain paperwork seems to be moving ahead a bit. I have tentative flights now. I am just awaiting the final approval now. This whole process has only take 2 months. Think of how much more actual science and research I could have done if I didn't have to spend so much time on administration.

I have been making some nice graphs in R to show some of my data. I haven;'t really done any statistics yet but it's nice to look at the general trends in my data.

I also sent in my expression of interest to present at Pint of Science this year. I've been attending this event since 2016, so it would be pretty cool to speak at one. I've always enjoyed aspects of science communication, it still scares and stresses me out but science communication is something I strongly believe is very important. 

Sparks?

Hello there... the angel from my... rainforest?

My enjoyment of research has been partially reignited, probably only temporarily considering my mindset this past 9 months, but it is certainly nice to feel the sparks again 💚.

Despite having minimal sleep, having my physio appointment at 9 am, and then driving out to uni for an hour, today has been quite good. Although, I enjoy my physio appointment, having to race between appointments and things is annoying. 

Someone I am collaborating with came to do a guest lecture today, and I guess seeing and hearing about their passion for rainforests and science is a good thing for me. I went to group lunch afterward, then had a quick meeting with my supervisor and them, and yet to come is dinner with them and a group of mostly professors and one other PhD student. This is A LOT of socialising for me, someone who has not wanted to do any socialising at all for more than a week. I wonder how exhausted I will be tomorrow? 

Anyway, that's it really, just wanted to share that I like trees 🌳. I'll be heading out to the field in a couple of days so I'm going to try and do some desk work now.