Tag Archives: microbiology matters

“Resolutions.”

Confessions of a Microbiologist, ,

As this year draws to a close, I had a look back at my 2016 resolutions, posted in January this year, to see how I got on…

  • Get book published! – Yes, managed this one. “The Art of Clinical Microbiology” was published in April, and copies have gone to many different countries in the world. I am still pondering on how best to write a sequel to it…
  • Drive across USA.– Suceeded on this one also. With the family, we did a 5 week road trip across the USA from Los Angeles to New York. A fantastic experience, and worth spending the money on as opposed to decorating the house.
  • Do another ultramarathon.– Failed on this one. Ultra-marathon training takes heaps of time, which was a commodity I unfortunately ran out of. Would still love to do a 100k ultra. Unfinished business!
  • Keep working on my French.– I sat and passed the DELF diploma A2 earlier on this year, my first formal exam for years. Quite nervewracking actually.
  • Get back to Paris, even if it is just for a holiday! -Got to Paris in November this year with my two oldest children, combining it with a conference in Scotland, and visiting my parents in Ireland.

So 4 out of 5 isn’t bad, considering I am inherently quite a lazy person.

So what are my goals/resolutions for 2017?

  • Get the Microbiology Matters Youtube channel established with at least 15 video tutorials uploaded. I am extremely camera shy so this will be a real challenge! Hopefully my 12 year old son will help me.
  • Do at least three marathons – This is probably  a more realistic goal for this year. The ultra-marathon will need to wait for Tarawera 2018…
  • Sit the DELF B2 French exam.- Hopefully B1 in May and B2 in October, all going well.
  • Visit 5 countries I have never been to before. – Not sure how I am going to manage this one, or which countries I plan to go to, but the USA road trip has definitely re-ignited the travel bug.
  • Get the house re-carpeted. -This resolution is definitely a sure sign of my advancing age. This would never have made it onto the list a few years ago. But we have a carpet from hell. so it has to be done!

I look forward to looking back on these resolutions at the end of 2017 to see if I can go one better and achieve all 5 this time…

Michael

“Time makes Fools of us All…”

Confessions of a Microbiologist, ,

April has been a difficult month, trying to find the time to fit everything in. With the move to Paris getting closer, organising flights, shipping, schools, accommodation, trans-global transfer of cats etc etc, has left little time to build the Microbiology Matters website. As a consequence the articles have been a little less frequent and a little more rushed than usual. The upside of this time pressure is that I now have a little queue of ideas in my head, waiting impatiently to get put onto “paper”.

Despite this the website continues to grow slowly but steadily, both in content and visitors, with the stats recording 3200 visitors and 21500 “page hits” over the month of April. My goal for May is to attract 1000 visitors a week to the website.

I have produced an “icon” in the laboratory for the website (see below). I just need to edit it now to a circular shape and get someone with HTML knowledge to position it on each screen. Hopefully in the next week or two.

"Looking at all things microbiological"
“Looking at all things microbiological”

I doubt the next couple of months will be any easier, what with time closing in. I do plan to introduce a new subset to the educational section, that of “Result Interpretation”, looking at different microbiological result scenarios and how best they might be interpreted.

I did wonder about getting professional help to make the website look more “polished” and also about getting some commercial sponsorship. However on reflection I quite like having an “independent”, non-commercial website. I will let it be my “point of difference”, for the moment anyway…

Michael