Waiting....

So, I handed in the first draft of my literature review to both my supervisors almost a week ago and I'm patiently waiting to hear back from them. One of my supervisors is notoriously unreliable and the other is frantically busy in organising the conference that I'm going to this weekend (more on that in a moment), so I'm not holding my breath that I will get feedback anytime soon. I'm not sure I want feedback - I'm a little concerned that it might be a bit too much like this:

Its not that I haven't tried to do a good job of it, its just that there was no real guidelines or structure to follow. I perform much better within a rigid structure than when its all so wishy-washy. Welcome, to the real world, I guess. If you can call Honours the real world (which you probably cant).

Lit reviews are a very strange thing - they usually relate to your thesis topic in some way, but are not quite the same (mine relates less than I would like it to, but it was my supervisor's choice) and while they are bound into the back of your thesis they aren't actually a part of it. Also, you have to hand in an acceptable lit review by the due date (a few weeks away) but you don't actually get marked on it - its just either acceptable and you go on with honours or it isn't and you don't.

On to the conference. Well, I have been pretty bored most of the week and haven't really done anything except feel guilty for not doing anything, but there isn't much I can do until I hear from my supervisors. I haven't been feeling quite as guilty, though, because I am devoting my entire weekend to a conference. It just so happens that the Australasian Wader Studies Group yearly conference is being held in Hobart this year and being hosted by one of my supervisors at Birds Tasmania so it has been strongly recommended that I attend. Tomorrow is an 'invitation only' coastal management workshop which I have been invited to and Sat and Sun are the actual conference. I am meant to be there at 8:30 on Sunday morning - I'm usually only just getting out of bed at that time on a Sunday morning. It should be quite an interesting conference, though, so I don't mind too much. At least it something to do.

Oh, and just a quick note about "Arctic Blast" - has anyone heard about a competition the Mercury is supposedly running to win an on-set visit, a spot as an extra, and a meeting with Michael Shanks? I havent been able to find out anything about it (yes, I have thought of looking on the Mercury website). I heard that the competition closes this weekend, though.