Too much to do, too little time...

Ah, what to say? I know it's been very long since my last post and I've shunned taking the time to write up a proper account, also keeping in mind that I will have to select a couple of photos (they exceed 1000 by now, could be more, yes, but still a lot to choose from).

Anyway, back to actual interesting stuff. I've been working in the lab for a couple of weeks now (actually just two, since the first two were spent on reading papers and gluing my eyes to Google scholar) and research is coming along... well, slowly but surely. It's interesting to learn and experience the full process of having an idea what to inquire upon to planning, proposing, preparing and actually doing it. Right now I'm still in the process of doing preliminary tests for optimum conditions. If you have no clue whatsoever what I'm actually doing here as part of my studies as a Bioengineer here is a quick layout for you:
For my intermediate thesis (=Studienarbeit, like a Bachelor thesis) I'm doing research on lignocellulose (wood) degradation (rotting) using bacteria (you know what that is) for bioethanol (fuel) production. Pretty cool, ah? Yeah, well, let me tell ya, you can't get much done in just three months, but it's interesting. Luckily my bug grows pretty fast, let's me start from the beginning faster if I screw up (=important). But until now everythings gone pretty ok, though I'm not sure how usable my data is. I collected quite a bit this week (~750 values), essential outcome: pH A is fine after one day. Well, could have been worse, like pH B after 7 days (meaning I would have had to go in saturday and sunday as well, arg!), but yeah, welcome to science. I'm going back over to engineering again after this! ;)

As much as I would to extend this post and tell you all about the last couple of weeks, for the sake of this not being delayed for weeks I will just mention most of them and I may write about them at another time. As always, you are welcome to inquire on them personally... among the are: seeing the Cape Town Castle and the Company Gardens (wonderful on a sunny day!), and some of the

City Bowl in parts (like Long St. where the bars are) in a couple of different days and nights (mostly those) as well as of course the V&A Waterfront. Sports wise owing to the long-term British occupation Rugby and Cricket are very big here and going out to see a game is very fun. Yesterday was special, because it was a terrific day to go around the Peninsula and see the Cape of Good Hope, which I did with some international students I had met at a DAAD (german exchange student service) football tournament in one of the townships (Khayelitsha) the week before. I'll post some Cape Point pictures later, since I haven't yet pulled them off the camera, but that was a great experience!