May 17th, 2018

It has been a while since I have updated this journal, hasn't it? In my defence, not that I do need to defend myself, things have not gone well lately, and there has been little good news.

Firstly, the University has decided to cut down on our reasearch funding due to budget cuts. It annoys me so much that we have to suffer because some or the other administrator made a mistake! Then, our collaborators started getting impatient with us because we were not spending enough time working on our project with them. Of course, that's because of the other, far more important task we have at hand, but obviously we couldn't tell them that. We had to make excuses and now I'm afraid we might lose the collaboration too.

Speaking of our other project, we hit a small snag on it. The formula doesn't work on melanin, only haemoglobin, as we expected, and I can't get the melanin to disappear. It's taking more time than I expected and with verything else that has been happening, Sam is ready to give up on it. I, of course, am not. So we came to a compromise and put it on hold for a while. We now spend the majority of our time working on what we are "supposed to". But every spare second I get, I try to work on the invisibility task. Sam says it is taking a toll on my health but she always does worry too much.

Anyway, there is another thing I am slightly worried about. Or rather, a person. Patricia James. That is, Sam's girlfriend Pat. She works in the neuroscience department of the University, and she has been with Sam for years, but lately she has been spending more and more time in my lab. Once or twice, I felt she was casually looking over my shoulder, even. She is one of those people with suspicious, shifty eyes... And I spoke to Sam about my observation, but she shrugged it off saying, "Maybe she comes here to spend more time with me!" I don't believe that is the reason, however. But well, it is what it is.

I realise this entry has been more of a ramble about my problems than an actual update about my work, but it is my journal, after all. I do hope that by the next time I write, there will be some developments, especially in the positive direction.

Notes: Sorry about the long wait, to any readers that do read this. Hopefully, as Rosalie said, there will be some development soon!