To celebrate passing Confirmation 2.0, I think I'm going to delve into some palaeontology inspired cooking. One of the palaeo lab members made dinosaur shaped biscuits for my birthday, and this amazing ichnofossil cake for another lab member (thanks Amelia!)

But now, THIS. THIS I MUST DO:

Martha Stewart + plastic toys = brilliant! And how awesome are those trilobite biscuits?
Amelia, you're gonna have some competition! From me, not Martha Stewart. Obviously. BISCUIT.

(inspired from this Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs post)

I passed my PhD confirmation! Hooray! I can now legitimately call myself a PhD Candidate.

Was it annoying and stressful to have to re-write the confirmation document? Yes. Was it a waste of time? Certainly not! Although the actual project plan is similar to the last, the way in which I articulated it and outlined hypotheses and goals is a lot clearer.

I've got little time to relax and take it all in though (although the weekend was pretty good), because now I have to set up my crocodile and fish decay experiments. Be prepared to see a lot of dead croc photos on this blog!

Although you never had to convince me to keep reading about dinos cos of new found feathery-ness! The best example is: imagine you found a fossil chicken, and this is how you reconstructed it.

Yeah.

So I'm sitting here, finishing off my PhD confirmation document, looking outside at a glorious Sunday in Brisbane (fine and sunny, 22°C). A part of me wishes I could be frolicking outside in the sunshine (obviously!) But the other part of me realises that I get to write about dinosaurs. DINOSAURS! Not that I'd forgotten this per se, but that realisation had taken a back seat to the arduous process of trying to keep my PhD position at this university.

I haven't blogged about this yet, because to be frank it is pretty embarrassing. When I handed in my original confirmation document way back in June, it was rejected. I was given 3 months to re-write and re-submit. And the thought crossed my mind, "If it took me a year to write a 'terrible' document, how am I supposed to write a brilliant one in 3 months???" I guess the answer is, it wasn't that terrible. If the project was completely flawed, then I wouldn't be here anymore. It did, however, require a major re-think (especially the rare earth element analysis portion).

The problem now is knowing whether I've done enough, whether it will pass this time. The obvious answer to the conundrum is to just read through the list of recommendations I was given for the last document, and make sure I've made all those changes. But I have to admit, it was a pretty terrible feeling to not pass confirmation the first time round, so my confidence has pretty much been shattered. Do I hope to look back on this post and think, "Oh melodramatic you! It all turned out ok!" Yes. Do I think I will be doing that? ...it's very hard to tell.

So back to DINOSAURS! Yes. The point is that I have a very privileged position here, an opportunity to play with fossils til my hearts content. This is what I have been striving for all my life, and I'll be damned if I let anyone stop me! So I'm gonna keep sitting indoors on sunny days, keep writing and reading and researching and writing, and don't anyone dare stop me.