Well, my fish have a swim bladder infection and it looks like my experiment is going belly up...literally! I haven't given up on it yet, but I lost 17 fish in a week. It'll only get worse I'm sure, so I'll probably be pulling the plug on it this week. I won't have enough time to repeat before I leave for Australia and I want to make sure I get all the tanks and equipment disinfected before using any of it again. I'm a bit depressed about it cause it's a lot of wasted work, but I keep thinking "I'm going to Australia!" and I have lots of other things to focus on and get accomplished. Maybe I can get 2 of my thesis/dissertation chapters written in the mean time.
But I've been doing a few things to balance out the stress. I went to a wonderful acoustic concert in a beautiful church on Friday night. Kiwi pop singers and the main one, Boh Runga, was fantastic! Saturday was the Spring Food Festival to get folks out for Internat'l Climate Change day. We learned some seasonal cooking with asparagus, got lots of free plants & a free eco light bulb, listened to live music, etc. Then went to Jen's for dinner...we made venison, garlic mashed potoatoes, cali, brocli & aspargus with a sauce we just learned how to make at the festival. Yesterday was yard work - I fixed a terrace that washed out from all the rain during the winter, moved some plants, ripped some out, weeded and Anson weeded, trimmed & mowed so it's not embarrassing to show someone around anymore. Then met some labmates at the pub to play darts...first time since I've moved to NZ! I've missed it! Today is Labour Day but I'm at work...lots to do before my holiday!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Update
Exciting News: I'm going to Australia for Christmas! Flying into Brisbane on the 15th, Rebbeca will pick me up and we'll do some traveling before spending the holidays with her parents! I'm sooooo excited! I had to book my flight back to Dunedin on New Year's Eve to get a good deal, so I'll be back here for the New Year. I started reading Down Under by Bill Bryson...borrowed it from the Aussie that I just got done housesitting for while she was away getting married in India.
I posted a couple photo albums. Anya left a while ago but I'm just getting around to posting photos.
I've been busy getting rust fixed on my truck. This country and it's damn requirements for vehicle "fitness" are crazy and frustrating! I've spent $300 on what needed immediate attention. I still need to have a color matched and paint it myself. Then I'll have about $400 worth of rust to remove from under the body! I really dislike living in such a humid environment...sweat doesn't evaporate, mold all over the house and now all this damn rust!
Lots of work lately! I've been teaching labs (which are over for the semester), doing some grading for extra money, I'm giving a 3-min talk on Friday competing for money, went fishing for dogfish (a type of shark) last week, trying to finish up another paper from my master's research, and most importantly, I've got my last experiment up and running and it hasn't been easy...leaking tank, running a cart into the tank and shattering one end (I cried hard over that one). I'm using eel-scented water to see if my parasite species can sense if it's next host is present or not. I'm also using perch water as a non-host predator. European perch are gorgeous!
I posted a couple photo albums. Anya left a while ago but I'm just getting around to posting photos.
I've been busy getting rust fixed on my truck. This country and it's damn requirements for vehicle "fitness" are crazy and frustrating! I've spent $300 on what needed immediate attention. I still need to have a color matched and paint it myself. Then I'll have about $400 worth of rust to remove from under the body! I really dislike living in such a humid environment...sweat doesn't evaporate, mold all over the house and now all this damn rust!
Lots of work lately! I've been teaching labs (which are over for the semester), doing some grading for extra money, I'm giving a 3-min talk on Friday competing for money, went fishing for dogfish (a type of shark) last week, trying to finish up another paper from my master's research, and most importantly, I've got my last experiment up and running and it hasn't been easy...leaking tank, running a cart into the tank and shattering one end (I cried hard over that one). I'm using eel-scented water to see if my parasite species can sense if it's next host is present or not. I'm also using perch water as a non-host predator. European perch are gorgeous!
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