Federal Holiday

So I went into work at around noon today, after classes this morning only to find the office shut, the doors locked and hardly anyone there and it turns out that it is Columbus day which means a bunch of people skip work for the day, but schools are still in session. Well, Nik was still in his office so I was able to talk to him and we discussed a bit about the directions of my research and the possibilities for the content of my thesis. He suggests that I should plan for between 3 and 6 chapters and that I should treat each chapter like a paper with the potential for publication. He also came up with a new idea about doing a study on the differences between various leaf wetness sensors which could result in a methods paper publication which has a guaranteed high citation rate and would be a good starter project for me to get me familiar with the weather station equipment and the statistical tools used in epidemiological studies.

Aside from this I am still working on identifying the isolates I am going to work with initially and then getting them growing on plates so that I can actually begin some detached leaf inoculations and stuff.

And one other thing - I just added a new link to my photography page which at the moment only has some photos from the work I did at Rothamsted this summer, but there will be more to come, including microscopy images and specimens from my mycology collection for a class I am taking this term.