Kia Ora. Well, work is progressing- that is things are coming together well for the commencement of official research. This past week I worked on the ethical issues consideration, a proposal of sorts that identifies ethical issues in regards to the proposed research, as it is human research. I hope to garner a full approval of it by early Nov.

While my kids were on a two week break from school- a spring break in reality, we took our recently arrived vehicle, which can fit them all, and went up onto Mount Maungatautari. We spent the better part of the afternoon, at least 3 hours hiking various trails/tracks in the southern enclosure. The dense and lush greenery of the mountain sub-tropical forest is stunning. We saw a various birds there enjoying their home, and a few new and endangered arrivals at the aviary. The kids had fun swing on the vines, just like Tarzan. These vines were thick, strong and most went all the way to the top of the tall forest canopy.

While we were eating our lunch and getting ready to go into the enclosure/bush/forest, we met two Trust volunteers who regularly check on traps or other devices there that indicate what if any unwanted critters are or might have gotten into the enclosure. We talked about the project itself and my own intentions to volunteer there and research the project. They seemed to like the idea of this.

I recently participated in a symposium, wherein graduates students presented their thesis or research in three minutes using only one PowerPoint slide. I went first- luck of the draw. The winner after a number of heats and a final and very public second presentation can win NZ$5,000 toward research costs. This could really help me out, and likely many of the other 60 participants, but I will not have a chance. Since, I went first, and we did not get a chance to get into the presentation hall early to really set things up, and since I was a little nervous at going first, and I failed to notice that my presentation/slide had not been opened up. I have been spoiled in the past at such functions when the moderator did this, and supplied a remote to advance slides with. Thus, I started talking and more than a minute into it, when I needed to show further information via an animation, I found that my slide had not been up, and thus the crowd had not seen anything yet- I ended up with some moments of dead silence in the middle of talking and time a wasting in the slim three minutes, opened it up, and continued on. It was terrible in the end- I ended up going over and not covering everything well. Oh, well, win some, lose some. I have always done well on presentations to date, so this was disappointing especially as so much was at stake- with my experience and topic, I otherwise would have really had a chance to win or win second, which is still 2500.