3 days from home

I leave in 2 days!  I can't wait!!  Summer here I come!

I'm exhausted today.  Went to the gym yesterday morning and had a pretty easy day.  Rebecca and Deanna ended up flying into the airport about the same time so I picked both of them up yesterday afternoon on my way back from the lake.  Then went over to Rebecca's friend's for dessert potluck - I made Grandma Young's cherry pie (with more cherries and less sugar) and it was a hit - and we painted our toenails.  I managed to get up for the gym again today - it was hard since I got home late but after all that dessert it was certainly needed.  So now I'm knackered as they say here.  But heaps of things to accomplish before I leave on Thursday so no time for rest!  See you soon!

The Black Market of animals

Poaching and the animal trade horrified me as a teenager, and now it is worse than ever.  It makes me want to cry, makes me sick to my stomach and makes me outraged all at the same time.  This video is incredibly eye-opening.

The Haka

So we postponed soup night and went out to eat on Friday night...to that Mexican restaurant. I finally got the expensive meal I've eyed someone else eating everytime i've gone. It was well worth it. I was in the lab all day saturday infecting fish, and I set up a new microscope station Keep your fingers cross that my infection procedure worked!

I went to the All Blacks match on Saturday night against South Africa...we lost by 2 but it was still heaps of fun. We went to our friends' place for the pre- and post-party. We drank heaps, I left my purse in Wayne's girlfriend's car at the beginning of the night and didn't even realize it, played some intense foosball so much so that my hand is still sore. The All Blacks do this intimidating Maori dance at the beginning of their games called The Haka. The All Blacks website says "More than any aspect of Maori culture, this complex dance is an expression of the passion, vigour and identity of the race. Haka is not merely a past time of the Maori but was also a custom of high social importance in the welcoming and entertainment of visitors. Tribal reputation rose and fell on their ability to perform the haka"

The haka performed by All Blacks at the Carisbrook stadium here in Dunedin in 2004

TGIF or better yet TGFIO (Thank God Friday Is Over)!

This is how my day went...I put my snails in the incubator to shed my parasites and laid out everything I need for my experimental infections. I come back to pull out my snails and one of my labmates has shoved all of my set-up out of his way to use the scope I was using when there were 3 other scopes that no one was using. I kicked him out of my spot, telling him I had my stuff set out for a reason. Then I accidentally killed all my parasites by using a new light that emitted heat and the incubator that's supposed to be at 25C was at 33C. After transferring my snails to fresh water and getting the temperature back down, I only got one snail to shed any more parasites. My intentions were to try infecting an anesthetized fish by dropping the parasites right onto it. Well, no one could tell me how long the anesthetic solution will last but obviously two weeks is too long cause my fish was as lively as ever. I did get quite a few parasites to contact the fish though. So it looks like I'll be back in the lab on Saturday mixing up new anesthetic and hoping my snails will shed!

I'm supposed to have a couple folks over for my tomato bisque soup tonight and see what Anson thinks of the flat...we're hunting for a new flatmate since Deanna is leaving me! And tomorrow I'm going to an All Black's rugby test (it's a test not a game, don't ask me why)...I'm way excited about that! Other than that I'm working as much as possible this weekend...infecting fish and cranking out a draft of another manuscript from my master's research.

Habit at Work

New Zealand has this great website to help you assess your work area and other ways to alleviate the sources that can aggravate pain.  I now have my chair backrest in a new position and my laptop (which I already have it on a riser to make it closer to eye level) and keyboard moved to a new spot.  I highly recommend this site if you have any type of back, neck, limb, joint pain!

www.habitatwork.co.nz

Happy 4th of July!

No fireworks for me this year, but a few of us are getting together for burgers, drinks and pool tonight.  Maybe we'll find some place to play darts if we're lucky.  It'll mostly be Americans but a few international folks in my lab will join us as well.

My infection procedure is making some progress!  I had some luck getting the parasites to penetrate the fish if I anesthetize the fish first.  I'd still like better infection success...3 out of 50 successfully infected a fish and 10 out of 50 infected another and I'd like an average of 10 parasites to infected each fish.  Next I'm going to try dropping the parasites in a small drop of water right onto the anesthetized fish and see what happens.  Wish me luck!

The Attachment Style Test

My Results for The Attachment Style Test ...

The Free Agent

19% Anxiety Over Abandonment and 28% Avoidance Of Intimacy

You like to be independent, to play by your own rules. You're not terribly interested in finding a partner and settling down, and it makes you nervous to imagine that someone might depend on you for anything. Were you to find the right partner--someone as independent as you, probably--you'd not be too put out about sharing your adventures with him/her.

Fictional characters with whom you might identify: Han Solo (Star Wars), Beatrice ("Much Ado About Nothing")

To find out your Attachment style, go to: http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-attachment-style-test

Wishing I was home already...

I broke up with my boyfriend a couple of weeks ago.  Turns out he's verbally abusive which has really shown through the last couple of weeks since I refuse to take him back.  It's gotten worse the past couple of days - I suppose because I talked to him, which gave him hope but the talk turned into a horrible mess, and now I refuse to answer his calls or even read the texts he sends.