romunov’s blog et al

Dear Base,

The human species I was sent out to study is rather strange. I was faced with a new, at least to me, concept of "showing respects". As you already know, the former president of the country I reside in passed away, and the entire country is formally in state of mourning.

My kindergarden teacher (they call them university professors here -  things are very different from those @ home) asked us to show respect to the passed away president with one minute of silence (wtf?!). Yeah, I know, my thoughts exactly. I don’t know how that helped. I’ll explore this concept further and report at a later date.

On this same thought, I have been thinking… When George W. Bush dies, they’ll have to import people to will pay respect. Possibly from Mars or Venus.

I’ve managed to get a temporary job at the National institute of biology. I’m going through a bucket load of samples (a few 1000 vials), identifying animals, grouping them into size clusters and finally, count them. The work is done routinely, a perfect job for a graduate student like me. Behold my work place, my sanctuary where I spend my time lurking down the EtOH-ed insects (mostly), fighting off the janitors in the late evening hours. The only thing I could wish for is a good radio station. Radio Ekspres has gotten really boring, really fast.

Found this roadkill (Lepus europaeus) on Thursday morning. I cleared it off the road and placed it on a meadow about 15 steps from the road (yes, I counted so I could locate it later). This was around 7 am in the morning. As I grabbed it by the legs and carried it to the meadow, a common buzzard (Buteo buteo = kanja) fllew away from a near-by tree, sounding very upset. When I was returning home around 11 pm, the poor wittle bunny wabbit was already 1/3 eaten (posterior end and eyes). I of course ran out of battery juice  to document that, so I was forced to return in the morning. About 8 hours were enough for *something* to locate it and drag it off somewhere else. I suspect a dog, or perhaps a fox. Note my foot (number 39) for size reference.

A new program to study Biodiversity will launch any time at University of Primorska.

I’ve always been skeptical of 3 year programs. They even included statistics in the second year. Big no-no! But time will tell how things will work out. Best wishes to the participants.