Blog free week
I have actually been busy this week ! *gasp* *shock* *horror*
Currently, the only puter access I have is from work, and so when I have too much time on my hands, blogging is as good a way as any to pass the time of day. But this week things are starting to happen. My feet have touched the ground, I have set off, and am beginning to hit my stride.
It's still slowly slowly in terms of lab life, but I've actually done some stuff! I learnt some techniques! I got some results! I analysed some data! I drew some graphs! Hold the next
Nature edition please *giggle*
A busy Dr.K is a happy Dr.K and so I am really feeling good about this whole moving to the other side of the world caper. Aside from the obvious downsides, it really feels like i've made the right choice.
Stay tuned...
Happy Birthday Maia !
I wish I was at the night cat having a boogie with you all.. But I know that it's a place full of happy vibes and groovy tunes and you'll have a great time.
Get out there and strut your stuff !!
C'mon Aussie C'mon
It's strange how people are more patriotic when overseas then when they are at home. I myself am
such a proud Australian when I am away, whilst at home I tend to bitch and moan about the state of the country...
This has become quite evident to me recently with the advent of the world cup. Before I arrived in the UK I had possibly only watched one soccer match in my whole life. Now I am hooked... And I think the reason why I like football (football will refer to the game of soccer from henceforth) is that the old saying "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" really does ring true. In many ways, the score during a football game doesn't always reflect the nature of the match. Of course there is an incredible amount of talent and skill involved in football, but there is a very large element of chance mixed into whether or not that little black and white ball makes it into the net. There are many tense "what if" moments and many games can really truly have gone either way. In this way, the stigma of losing is lessened.. Your team might lose 1-0, but if they played well, that can be just as significant as winning. And so winners can be far more generous to the vanquished; especially if it was a close game, or it came down to a penalty shoot-out. Of course obvious landslide victories do occur.. witness the 6-0 victory of Argentina over Serbia & Montenegro...
(Grandma, is there a point to this blog... ???)
Australia qualified for the world cup, for the first time in 32 years, and I am excited! They won their opening game against Japan.. and then had to face the world champions, Brazil in their second match. I even went to the pub, on my own, to watch the game! There were quite a few rowdy Aussies in the
Old White Swan, and I was so proud at half-time when teams were 0-0. See what I mean.. there was no score, and yet I was still really happy. Even when Brazil scored a goal early in the second half, I was still proud! The Aussie team never gave up, they keep trying and it was just really unfortunate that they didn't make the most of their opportunities to equalise. I told myself that a 1-0 loss to the world champions wasn't at all a bad thing.. and that I could still walk out of the pub with my head held high.. So I was
heartbroken when Brazil got another goal to give a final score of 2-0... BUT I still know that my team played well!!
Tonight we face Croatia. This is the final match for Round One, and Australia need to win or draw to go through to the next round. The match starts at 8pm tonight and I will be at the pub watching it, fingers crossed around my pint glass hoping that the boys in green and gold will shine! Of course by the time some of you read this blog entry, the game will be over, and you'll know the result and so I hope you're smiling right now !!!
So I have officially been diagnosed with a case of world cup fever.. but I know
I'm not the only one!
Procrastination
Twas the day before the weekend
and all through the lab
not an experiment was stirring
Transmogrification
I've moved to the UK and dropped 2 shoe sizes and 1 dress size.
Amazing.
Girl I'm gonna make you sweat...
In an attempt to counteract pints at the pub and an evil tempting dish called cheesey chips (better than a kebab in the early hours of sunday morning) I have embarked on a fitness campaign. I am being aided and abetted in my exercise regime by
AntQueen, who although on the other side of the world, is still able to supply motivation and moral support.
It's amazing how quickly one loses cardiovascular fitness. The first time I attempted jogging here I was worried that if an ambulance was required I would be so out of breath and so impaired by my Australian accent that I would expire before I could summon help. Then I figured that one look at my atomic tomato red face would be enough to have the paramedics on site, stat.
It's also amazing how quickly one regains cardiovascular fitness. This morning I enjoyed a nice 30 minute jog along the river ouse and was pretty happy with my progress... and contrary to rumour, I don't jog in a skirt!
Dr. K's exercise tip for today:Always ensure that you remove any trace of mascara before jogging. Failure to do so will result in you looking like a fat panda doing a runner from the zoo.
Trust me on this one.
The dark of the matinee
I was very relieved to discover that there is an
arthouse cinema in York. This is very important for my state of health and wellbeing.. a life without film is a life half lived. The cinema does screen Hollywood blockbusters, but also shows independent and foreign films (including Australian ones!). They've started up a monthly retero Sunday matinee event called "The Breakfast Club" after the
sensational 80's film of the same name. This month they screened
"The Lost Boys" and it was an event I couldn't miss. So I hauled out an appropriately black outfit, smudged on some eyeliner and tagged along.
I had forgotten what an ace film this is.. though it is hard to be objective, when many of the reasons I love this film are for it's sentimental value. It contains 80's fashion at it's worst, think big big hair, acid wash jeans, huge shoulder pads, flamboyant coloured shirts on men matched with grey ties. I would be interested to hear a review from someone seeing the film for the first time, if such a person exists, though I guess anyone under the age of 23 would probably fit the bill. It's such a classic, one of my friends has a video tape of the film that he taped off the TV with the words "Lost boys" lovingly inscribed in barely legible handwriting on the label, that I am sure he still has and will probably never throw away. A DVD copy, whilst useful, just doesn't hold the same appeal...
It was fun to see all the classic 80's teenage stars,
the Two Coreys are adorable as the Frog brothers - Edgar and Alan, and I loved
Bill (as in Bill and Ted) as a vampire with a seriously evil blonde mullet, and who can go past
Keifer Sutherland with all that eyeliner.. drool!
Favourite Quotes:
The movie tagline: Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire.
Sam: You're a vampire Michael! Oh, you wait 'til mom finds out buddy.
Sam: Don't kill me, Mike. I'm basically a good kid.
Alan Frog: Kill your brother, you'll feel better.
All time favourite cheesy line
Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog: We're fighters for truth, justice, and the American way.
Ahhhh... i remember all those late night girly slumber parties sighing over these dark lost ones.. and that was just last year *giggle*
The flatpack adventure challenge
There is only one thing worse than cheap flat pack furniture, and that is
very cheap flatpack furniture. And there is no greater statement of optimism in the world than that from a person who looks at the picture on the front of the box and thinks "Surely it can't be too difficult to put together". On the weekend, this person was me, except I went one step further and declared "I have a PhD, surely I can manage to put together some storage units and a bedside table"... Hmmm...
I ripped open my cardboard boxes with glee.. it was so cute! Little bags of screws and casters, planks of wood, strange and interesting bits of plastic, and step by step instructions, written in English and everything! The instructions stated that I needed a flathead and a phillips head screwdriver, and yes, I do know the difference between the two. My housemate lent me the necessary tools, and I was away....
Time passes. Frustration mounts. She turns the wooden parts over and over again, she screws the metal frame on upside down, she ruins the head of the screw and has to slam it in with nothing but sheer force, she stares in bewilderment at the cam joints and the allen key...
This is an official flat pack disaster:
There has been a recent discussion amongst my friends regarding the hypothesis that the more pieces of paper you have (ie the more qualifications) the more useless you are. Seeing I recently received a very pretty piece of paper and a floofy hat, it appears that I have climbed another rung on the uselessness scale. However, even though I was reduced to the point of tears, I was fiercely determined. I stood and pointed at the pile of potential furniture and shouted "Damn you flatpack! You will not defeat me! I will conquer you!"
I discovered that the best way to assemble flatpacks is to read the instructions and get a feel for how things should work, then put the instructions away and use your common sense. Trying to decipher those quaint little sketches with arrows is not worth the effort, just try and think logically about how on earth those four pieces of wood are going to fit together and withstand gravity.. and then suddenly, like something out of a dream, it all becomes clear...
Suddenly the wire baskets were coming together, I slammed the casters in with the force of a women scorned..the bedside table had three drawers and four walls... i was gathering momentum... on go the sides and the feet.. almost there and then, the final step, hammer on the back. Hold on, what do you mean hammer on the back. They never said anything about a hammer. I re-checked the instructions and a hammer was definitely not listed. Nope, no hammer... I don't have a hammer.. NO!!
What is a hammer? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, so a hammer would, were it not a hammer called, retain that dear thumping action which it owes without that title. So I hunted through the apartment for something heavy and flat and hammer-like. The extremely solid metal end of the shiny kitchen knife proved to be my only option. Don't try this at home kids, and Mum, look away now... BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG !
TA DA !!! I won the flat pack adventure challenge !!
Now repeat after me:
I, Dr. K, do solemnly swear to never ever to buy flatpack furniture ever again. From this hour henceforth, till death take me or the world end.
I am an intelligent, competent, accomplished, modern woman.
I am perfectly capable of paying someone else to assemble my furniture from now on.
Some days are blog days, some days are stones
All growed up
Today I used my UK debit card at my UK bank to withdraw my UK pounds which I earned from my UK job! It kinda made me all happy and excited on the inside. Like a teenager with my first pay cheque. Though i'm not going to run out and buy
Green Day's Dookie or
The Offspring's Smash this time.
Wow, I was such a little punk rock girl :) Emo before my time...I am contemplating having a t-shirt made, black with spidery white writing that says "I'm emo on the inside". There's a
shop just up the road from where i live that does custom made T-shirts while you wait. It's so tempting!
Hmm... now I am just a boring grown-up who has to buy groceries and pay electricity bills... *sigh*
It's a small world after all: Part 2
It still amazes me that even though i am on the
other side of the world it is still a small world after all. Since I began this blog, several of my dearest darling friends have taken up the blog habit too. It's not technically classified as an addiction, but I have got them hooked through passive blog-reading. Blogging has proven to be an excellent way to keep in touch, albeit indirectly. So even if i haven't spoken to my friends, i still know if they
take up martial arts or have
altered sleeping habits, which means that I am still part of their lives through the sharing of experiences.
And then there is
Skype. Skype is cool. I cannot praise the concept of Skype enough. Skype is like an internet telephone system which provides a FREE way to talk to people, no matter what time zone you are in. It is great. All you need is a puter, decent net-access, a microphone and some speakers.. though a headset is the coolest. I got a skype headset as a present from the other Dr.K before I left Melbourne. But never mind technology, if the person I want to call doesn't have an on-line set up, then I can call Australia using Skype for only a few p' a minute. And if the person i want to talk to isn't at home i can call their mobile and chat at a rate per minute which about the same as sending one international text message. You can fit a large number of 160 character messages into 60 seconds of real-time chat. Today I spoke to my sister in Canberra, my girlfriend in Melbourne and my boyfriend in Wollongong and spent all of £1.33. That's $AU 3.30 (or $US 2.50) for over 4 hours of chat. Nice :)
Email is cool. Specifically Gmail is cool and G-chat is cooler. It is almost beyond belief that chatting online is now an accepted form of communication. Ten years ago (yes, I am getting old huh) I was ashamed to admit that i'd met my boyfriend online in a
*gasp* chatroom. Now this method of meeting people is not only socially acceptable, but probably the way most teenagers facilitate their love lives.
With all these ways of staying in touch, it would be possible for me to live in a little Australian bubble. In some ways I'm concerned that I will so spend much of my time interacting with all the people back home that I won't have the motivation to meet people here. I could sit at my 'puter and skype and g-talk and blog and eat my tim tams and twisties and listen to the waifs and nick cave and dwell entirely within my australia-simulation. I would hardly have the chance to feel homesick or miss anyone, because in the press of a button, they are here.
Of course, I do know that it's not the same. One thing that struck me the most is that I am not on hugging terms with anyone here! Who will I turn to when i need a hug?!?? That cannot be simulated online, no matter what the
second-life players say.
I suppose that, like everything in life, moderation is the key. Moderation doesn't sit so well with my extremist nature, but I am sure I will find the right balance for me. I love the fact that moving overseas doesn't mean that i lose people from my life. In fact, the cool thing is that I get to keep all my old friends and get to make new ones all at the same time. Collect the whole set. It's a pretty good deal. So yeah, i'm kinda glad it's a small world after all..
... apologies if that song is now stuck in your head... it's now firmly stuck in mine...
....it's a world of laugher a world of tears it's a world of hope and a world of fears there's so much that we share that it's time we're aware it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small small world it's a world of laugher a world of tears it's a world of hope and a world of fears there's so much that we share that it's time we're aware it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small small world it's a world of laugher a world of tears it's a world of hope and a world of fears there's so much that we share that it's time we're aware it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small small world it's a world of laugher a world of tears it's a world of hope and a world of fears there's so much that we share that it's time we're aware it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small small world it's a world of laugher a world of tears it's a world of hope and a world of fears there's so much that we share that it's time we're aware it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small world after all it's a small small world..... AARRRGGGHHHHH !!!!
It's a small world after all
Australians are everywhere. Considering we only have a population of just over 20 million, we seem to have infiltrated much of the homeland. A recent statistic suggests that 5% of the Australian population is overseas at any one time and about 25% of those are in the UK. But I was still surprised yesterday when I saw someone wearing a
Triple J t-shirt in the streets of York. More surprising still was when I saw a guy wearing a
3RRR t-shirt this morning. He was walking ahead of me, and when he stopped to go into a house, i couldn't help but initiate the following exchange:
Dr.K: Nice Shirt
T-shirt guy: Do you know the station?
Dr.K: I'm from Melbourne
T-shirt guy: Oh really where abouts?
Dr.K: Fitzroy
T-shirt guy: Oh, I own a house in Mt.Waverley
Dr.K: Oh, cool.
T-shirt guy: Actually, I used to work at the station
Dr.K:Oh, me too! Well, i was a presenter on Einstein-a-go-go, the science show
T-shirt guy: Really, so how are the new studios?
Dr.K: Yeah, they're really great.
T-shirt guy: I was just talking to Fi this week about them.
etc....etc...etc...
And then we all start singing the old familiar
Disney tune...
Ducks are a dabbling..
The University of York campus is just so pretty! It isn't an old historic Cambridge/Oxford type of university, as it was only established in the 1960's, but the campus was designed as a huge parkland which reflects the natural beauty of the area. And most importantly.. it has duckponds!
The whole campus is designed around a series of lakes, which reminds me quite a lot of the University of Wollongong where I did my undergraduate degree. There are lots of ducks and geese and swans.. and as it is spring, there are also lots of ducklings, goslings and cygnets. Of course, this means there is also lots of little duckling, gosling and cygnet presents which get deposited on the pavement, but they are quite a bright green and thus easily avoided.
There are lots of gardens and trees here.. and it's just SO green. And there are daisies growing in the lawns.. my mum would just love it.. it's SO English.
It's a gorgeous spring day today.. the mercury climbed above 20 degrees and campus came to life. Sun bathers sprung from the lawns, I even saw men in overalls fishing in the university lake. You have to have a permit to fish, and apparently it is a really popular spot. Maybe poor starving undergraduates will take up fishing to add protein to their two-minute noodle diets..
Though someone in the department did say to me "enjoy the brief hint of summer today because that's your lot." I didn't realise that York was on sunshine rations...
Goodness, I am talking about the
weather. I've obviously integrated further than I expected.
