Last year I helped out at an event at university called STEMpunk, an event designed to showcase STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) by putting on an evening of themed activities for families. Like last year I was working on the biology stand doing insect handling (you can see last year's photos here) which I really love doing because it gives me the opportunity to play with the insects for several hours as well as telling people all about them. This year the event was Alice in Wonderland themed, and although I didn't get round to take photos of any of the other exhibits, I did find a bit of time at the end to grab one or two outfit snaps.

I dressed as Alice and was pretty pleased with my costume even though I just put it together out of things already in my wardrobe. The only thing I had to buy was the socks, which I think was the perfect finishing touch to the outfit.




I think you can really tell by looking at my face just how exhausting I found the event on top of a full day of work (the photo above in particular!), but I still found it very rewarding. I was really pleased to have the opportunity to get involved; I was going to attend as a guest if not as a member of staff. We actually have some new insects in the lab (which I'm sure I can do some kind of blog post on if anyone is interested) so that was exciting as well.






Angie, one of our technicians, made this awesome caterpillar too. I love his face. He also had a hookah which I didn't manage to get into this picture. I know I've mentioned before how much I love Alice in Wonderland so this was a really perfect theme for me. I wonder what they will choose next year!