I’m somehow managing to keep on top of Friends of the Earth work in Sam’s absence—probably because it’s a quieter time of the year with so many people being on holiday, although local groups conference is approaching fast (I have to organise getting the group there, as well as planning a workshop which I’m running) and there are deadlines for the newsletter and membership leaflet coming up. We’ve also started a company to run the group’s activities through—for which muggins here has ended up as the company secretary as a result of being the only person who knows a lot about company law.
MPhil progress (or lack thereof)
I still don’t have my experiment up and running, though that’s largely because I’ve spent so much time fixing code written by other people (especially JTidy, who don’t keep their documentation in sync with their latest release—I wasted several hours trying to figure out why I couldn’t use a documented method, only to find out that it didn’t exist). I’m hoping to get things going this week though, as I really need to get some users through the system, tune the algorithm and then start writing up my results. I’ve only got two months left until I finish—although I can, and probably will, ask for a year of “submission pending” status, during which I can’t conduct any further research but am allowed to write up and submit my thesis. I think I will get everything done in time, though it all hinges on my results as I’m fairly confident that I can write decent chapters for related work, future work, methodology etc.
Jobs
Haven’t heard anything definite yet from anyone who I have spoken to, though I did have a constructive lunch on Tuesday—and discovered a reasonably-priced restaurant within walking distance of Euston—so I am currently waiting to see what, if anything, happens as a result.