Hug me… I’m new!

Hello, everyone. My name is Lauren. I’m a new addition to Mad Art Lab and I can’t even describe how thrilled I am to be here, squished in alongside such awesome people. Before I formally introduce myself, let me explain this accompanying picture…

To cut a long story short (not that it’s a long story anyway), last Thursday I had planned, bought tickets and was thoroughly excited to attend An Evening with Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers in London. As (bad) luck would have it, that day I also got food poisoning. Instead I spent the evening watching WALL-E with my cats. Not a bad evening at all, you might say. True, true, but I do fear, that from this time on, WALL-E will always be tinged with the bitter taste of disappointment. So, I thought I’d draw a picture of what I would have done, had I been able to attend the event. I would have included PZ, too, but I was lucky enough to see him the night before at his Dancing on the Graves of Gods talk, so I figure he’s all hugged out by now (and he is tremendously huggable).

On to happier things, and there are plenty of them. As I said, I’m thrilled to be here and hope I can bring a some good things with me. I’m a children’s editor and illustrator at an educational publisher in London, and I’m looking forward to bringing you stories of what exciting messes are made when skepticism, children’s publishing and business meet. Here are some other interesting things about me:

• I sing alto in the British Humanist Association choir
• My favourite scientific disciplines are paleontology, geology and astronomy
• I am a recovering hypochondriac
• I can’t whistle
• In August I will be competing in a roller-skating marathon
• My beloved dinosaur wristwatch is slowly breaking, if anyone knows where I can get a nice new one, please let me know

I’ll leave things there for now. I’m sure we’ll discover some more interesting things together in the future.