Girls playing in the mud

So I was helping Julie in the field yesterday...collecting anemones and crabs. We were having a difficult time finding the crab species she needed. Finding holes in the sand/mud at low tide and making a big scoop around the hole and sieving...found very few that way. Finally we started finding bunches around the rocks and in the muddy gravel. I had to laugh out loud as we were picking up rocks and digging in the mud/gravel with our hands where there heaps of worms and crawly things and we were having a great time...except for my few girlfriends I've made in biology, all the rest of them would be disgusted! Afterwards, Julie introduced me to her favorite cafe that is out on the peninsula...I'll definitely be going back there. Aside from that, I had a productive day in the lab as I dissected fish and Julie helped me by setting up my snails for shedding (putting the snails in an incubator with light so any parasites will leave or "shed"). My lab has not previously found this stage of my study species...which I need to do experimental infections. I'm disappointed to say that there were none of my species swimming around in the dishes today. There has to be some infected snails because the fish are infected with the stage that leaves the snail. So now I'll be collecting snails from another site on Monday and trying those. Other than that, I'm spending my weekend dissecting fish - woohoo.

Left-overs galore!

As I just ate chili for the 4th day in a row, it's a good thing it was the last of it except for what I put in the freezer...and that includes taking it to a potluck and feeding it to Deanna and Rachel after the movie last night...no beach or horse races as it poured most of the day - Golden Compass was great! And I agree with Emily...who the hell wouldn't be in it for Daniel Craig! - Anywho, back to the left-overs...I've had Oyster Stew twice and am saving the last bowl for De. And we have heaps of ham left! I'm planning on making pea and ham soup and scalloped potatoes and ham. Also lots of pineapple upside-down cake with loads of whip-cream left that I'm trying to feed to anyone that comes through the door! De's peanut butter cookies however can't be given away...I'm working on those and the Sangria too! Christmas was good and relaxing and full of food (good thing De and I fit in a walk on the beach each morning). And after working for 3 weeks straight, I did not work at all over last weekend like I intended to. Back at school today...to do a little bit of work as I'm also helping Rachel move this afternoon. But I gotta get back in the swing of things as I have heaps of lab work to do and am helping Julie in the field tomorrow to collect crabs. It was great talking with everyone over Christmas...I talked to or left messages for most of the family and many friends, which was great! Hope all is well for those of you I didn't get to talk to!

Merry Christmas!

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! I will be spending most of my weekend working. Then Christmas eve I'm making Oyster Stew and Chili and bringing the chili to a potluck at the home of one of my fellow lab member's. Will probably return home to hang and drink with Wayne and his girlfriend and open all my presents...I haven't gotten this many presents since I was a kid! :) Christmas morning, aside from opening my stocking that was Priority Mailed from Santa, I will make mashed potatoes and Pineapple Upside-down Cake (birthday cake for Jesus as my mom says) for the dinner potluck. Spend the day with Rachel and a couple of other girls, then head to Jen's for the potluck, White Elephant gift exchange and Christmas movies. The 26th is Boxing Day...will be doing something fun with Deanna and some friends...beach bbq, horse races...depends on the weather. Somewhere in there I will call as many folks back home as I can! Keeping too busy to miss home too much!

Proposal, potlucks and planning...too much to do!

Finally, I finished my proposal yesterday and sent it off to my committee to read before my meeting tomorrow. I'm also done with the eels (for now) but it looks like I'll be collecting snails and fish on Friday or Saturday (weather dependent) so I won't be getting much time off during the holidays...at this point, I haven't taken a day off in 2 1/2 weeks anyway...who the hell envies the life of a grad student in biology?! I'm not complaining though...having my proposal, and therefore my research plan, laid out gets me excited about my project and I'm realizing how much I should already be doing...3 years is not very long to fit it all in!

I did go to a potluck/party on Friday at Sabine's, one of the postgrads who's office is next to mine. I had a fabulous time! And it's such a small world - my friend Rachel showed up...Sabine is friends with Rachel's soon-to-be flatmate. We ate, drank beer, played SingStar on PS2 -ha! I sang, duets with this total cutie, Careless Whisper by George Michael and Suspicious Minds by Elvis (my mom would be so proud) and then sang Avril's Complicated with another girl - and ended up dancing when I was trying to leave. Some pushy German guy asked me for a ride home, when I was saying I was leaving he actually took my dish out of my hands and grabbed and pulled me to the dance floor - god, I was annoyed! - but of course then Sabine's flatmate wanted me to dance so to avoid dancing with the "hands-on" guy, I jumped in the middle of the circle to dance...he wasn't so grabby once I was the center of attention! Then on the way home he wanted me to drop off my girlfriends first, I told him no. Do pushy men really get any where with women?

I felt another earthquake! 10pm monday I was sitting on my bed - working on my proposal - and it sounded like thunder and everything shook, even Anton, the cat, picked up his head. But again it only lasted a few seconds. It was a 4.2 only 25 miles away!

Got my hair cut for the first time since moving! I'm loving it...similar to what Maggie would do and similar price! The stylist, Andrew, also owns a tour business and gives historic, ghost tours in the evenings...they sound fabulous!

I'm looking forward to Christmas and a couple of days off!! Deanna has the house all decorated. Weird having outside Christmas lights when it's light out 'till 9 something. We have a live tree in a pot that she's used for a few years now...we decorated it a week or so ago. And it's surrounded by heaps of presents for me! Every one must be feeling sorry for me 'cause I'm "all alone" on Christmas! I can't wait to open them all! Finally Deanna got a box of presents today so they aren't only for me any longer. On Christmas Eve I'll be heading to a potluck/bbq at one of the post-docs in my lab and on Christmas Day I'll be going to an orphan Christmas, that I am now in charge of organizing - how the new girl got that job is beyond me! Not sure what's up for New Year's - thought I might go camping and to Queenstown with some friends but as I'll be collecting snails and fish before that, I don't think I can take that many days off....so am looking for something to do around town...

This is for Emily

And anyone else interested in my research, BUT BE WARNED: eel dissection details and lots of parasitology terminology!

Eels: the definitive host (DH) of my study species. So I got to see the adults of my species and collect 20 of them for DNA for my population genetics questions that might get added into my project towards the end. I also found a trematode species in the eels' stomachs! I was surprised but lo and behold, I find out it could be one of two species that reside there...collected and preserved for later IDing...need to fix and stain them. Learning loads about nematodes from the German girl visiting...the eels are really for her project, I just jumped on the chance to collect my species...most of the time I am just collecting and preserving the parasites for her to take back to Germany. So I help her during the week, then work on my proposal in the evenings and all frickin' weekend. This week I won't be able to give her quite so much of my time as I need to finish up my proposal and we're hiring so there's candidate seminars and lunches to go to this week.

Euthanasia of eels is very interesting. As with most fish, the fastest, humane way is to sever the spinal cord by cutting off the head. But eels are so muscular that with the continued nerve impulses, I guess they wrap around your arm while trying to dissect them (new version of "running around like a chicken with its head cutoff"). So instead she inserts a wire into the spinal cord to destroy the nerves...even with that, the local nerve impulses still happen so you see the gills moving.

(I deleted the videos so if you'd like to see them I can email them to you.)

My project: I'm studying a trematode system that uses snails-small fish-eels for hosts. This species is capable of progenesis, ie. can develop into an adult within the metacercarial cyst, self-fertilize and produce eggs all while in the 2nd intermediate host (IH). My study will examine what environmental cues affect the probability of progenesis and the role of genetic determinism. So I will be investigating whether the parasite can perceive cues about transmission opportunities and then make the decision on whether to take the 3-host path or the 2-host path. Factors my experiments will focus on: the condition of the 2nd intermediate host (diet, temperature, population density - all affect the chance of the parasite making it to the DH), presence or abundance of the definitive host or non-host predators (again if no DH, best strategy is to produce eggs in 2nd IH), location of encystment within the 2nd IH and point of reproduction of the 2nd IH (we assume the trematodes eggs leave the fish when the fish spawns - I hope to verify this if possible). For the genetic determinism part: I will immediately collect metacercariae in order to develop microsatellite markers (I hear this can be a really frustrating), then I can determine if a snail is shedding only one clone and use clones to infect the 2nd IH to determine the role of genetics in the probability of progenesis. Then I will do population comparisons - comparing the level of homo/heterozygosity among popns which should give insight on whether they are outcrossing within eels or selfing within the 2nd IH (I will also need to verify that outcrossing is occurring in eels as they could easily be selfing in eels as well), then I will compare other factors of these populations (eel abundance, 2nd IH density and body size). Lastly, I hope to repeat some of the environmental cue experiments on a related species in Australia and New Caledonia (might be the same sp. - I could determine that with some mtDNA work as well)...the collaborators there have not found progenetic worms in natural infections, but that doesn't mean it can't be triggered under the right environmental cues...this would require traveling to labs in these countries and running the experiments!

The Cranberry Salad goes with dinner?!

So I had Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday...it was delicious! Glad I made Cranberry Salad as it was a novelty for all but the 3 of us Americans that were there! They were all amazed that we eat dessert salads with dinner and amazed that it went so well with the dinner! Originally I had wanted to make Pistachio Salad but they don't have Pistachio pudding mix here...nor do they have Cool Whip so I had to make my own whipped cream. I am disappointed to say I didn't get any turkey...turkey farms aren't allowed here 'cause they are soo terrible for the environment, thus turkeys are very expensive! We did have a huge roasted chicken so at least we ate bird!

I managed my way driving around town all weekend! I drove De to the airport on friday, shopping and dinner on saturday and a wedding reception on sunday. I only made a couple of wrong turns...the wrong exit in a round-a-bout and often street signs are missing so you have to guess whether or not it's the turn you want! I'm feeling surprisingly comfortable on the right side of the vehicle and the left side of the road though...no mistakes as far as that goes...yet anyway.