Why I can't have a dog

MegaDeath and Meister

If I wanted my pets to love me, I wouldn't have got lizards. Introducing my two Pogona henrylawsoni, MegaDeath (gender: male; the bottom lizard) and Meister (gender: ??).

Honestly, I originally did want a dog, or a cat, ANYTHING that I could come home to and cuddle up with at night while watching a movie. Basically, what I wanted was quiet company. Realistically, I knew it wasn't the right thing to do; I've seen far too many bored and lonely dogs and cats with owners who have full-time jobs and no energy at the end of the day. Knowing my PhD is so time- and mind-consuming, I sadly decided not to get a dog/cat. I didn't want to have an unhappy pet.

"Meister, it's time for cuddles!"

But, you can cuddle lizards. And they are quiet. Although MegaDeath treats me with mild indifference, and Meister regards me as one would regard a real-life "Alien" skulking in the shadows, that suits me fine, doing a PhD I'm hardly ever home, and it's a fair compromise to an energetic mammal.
I've learnt to relish the fact that my lizards would rather I was not home. As long as they are healthy and happy, I am thoroughly entertained by their shenanigans, however detached they seem from me.

Oh Canada!

I am returned from the first Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology held in Ottawa from the 6th to 10th July. It was.... huge. 2500 attendees and 16 separate talk sessions, two poster evenings and one food-less banquet. The highlights? Meeting and making friends with many like-minded people, humble scientific geniuses and putting faces to all the names I've seen in the evolution papers I've read. All the talks I attended were fantastic and of high quality, and the ones I understood even more so (seriously, when there is such a wide variety of fields -within fields - it is pretty hard to understand everyone's research unless you are a scientific jack-of-all-trades).

The lowlight was the banquet: thrusting 1500 people into a - granted, enormous - room and then provide 50 seats, and have the small appetisers - oh sorry, dinner - run out for the evening before you even see the table where they (supposedly) were. Epic. Fail. On the brighter side, MacDonald's has no concept of a "small meal" in Canada, so there were plenty of satisfied customers after the "banquet".

For the Australians, yes, I did see squirrels and chipmunks. No, I did not see a moose. One day, one day....