Still here

Ok, so I didn't die. In fact, playing the entire game was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. But I couldn't play this week cause I hurt my back and was laid up in bed on wednesday...I hear we won and that the other team was a bunch of kids. Been calling home a lot...trying to get my work done so next week I can book my flight home for July. Went to 3:10 to Yuma last weekend...western with Russel Crowe as the bad guy - weird but good. Out for Japanese on Tuesday night and we sat on the floor (on little chair like things without legs) and I think that's what did my back in as it had already been bothering me. Tomorrow is Shannon's birthday...not sure what we're doing - something cheap - but I am cooking him dinner and baking a cake and got him a great present! K, back to work now...

Last posting before possible death on the basketball court...

Where does the time goes? Last week was very busy...out for Thai on Monday, Mexican (again) on Tuesday, Basketball on Wed, went back to Central Otago to collect snails on thursday, Department Happy Hour and hung at Rachel's on Friday and I spent most of Saturday baking so I could warm up the house! I think I will be baking heaps this winter as the houses are frickin' cold here! In the last few days I've made apple pie, wheat bread, roasted winter veggies, cinnamon raisin bread, apple crumble. We've got a couple apple trees so the apple desserts will keep on coming. Research is going great this week. I was worried 'cause we didn't find very many snails last week...where would they go?...but I found plenty of them infected with my parasite species - so YAY, finally I should have enough snails to get my first experiment started...as soon as I can take a break from working on my microsatellite library - which is going well so far...keeping my fingers crossed as I hear it's quite frustrating. Other exciting news: got my hair cut last night! Woo hoo! I'd let it grow out the longest it's been in quite sometime. Crappy news: only 2 of us girls can play basketball tonight (Rachel's in Korea and Kelly is sick) so that means I have to play the whole damn game...hope I don't die! And I'm sick yet again with another sore throat (5th one since moving here).

Sand Fly Bay

Went back to Sand Fly Bay this weekend...Deanna was playing tour guide for a friend of a friend.

Me running down the sand hill...fun to go down, not so much to come back up... you can see the group of folks resting on their way up the hill.


See if you can find the penguin


Now he's moving!


This pair went all the way up the cliff, over it and then came back down closer to the blind.


They hold out their wings to cool off.


Sea lion pair...some tourists were standing there too scared to walk by, as soon as we started to walk by they ran up behind us to walk by with us....wish I would've gotten video of that - funny people behavior!

Noche de Mexicana

So the Mexican night was muy bueno! We had a house full of people,and the food and margaritas were fantastic. I by far drank the most margaritas but then I didn't have to drive anywhere. I was asked how many I drank and I tried to say an uncountable number but it came out as something like "an uncournerble number". Don't think I'll live that one down. Everyone didn't clear out until about midnight and then Dee and I attacked all the dishes...it totally sucks to have a dinner party without a dishwasher! Friday morning I slept in and then walked to school. Our friday seminar was by a parasitologist...he talked about how salmon farming affects the ecology, evolution, virulence of salmon parasites and how that in turn affects the wild salmon populations. After work, we all went to the staff club for drinks. The staff club is this unmarked brick building in the middle of campus that you go in, up the stairs and lo and behold there's a bar for post-grads and staff and faculty. It's cheap too! My glass of wine was about half the price that I'd pay elsewhere. Almost my entire lab went and quite a few others as well. Then Deanna and I headed home for dinner and we watched Rat Race - hilarious. And finally Shannon got home from Wanaka so I headed over there to hang out with him. Yesterday was chore and errand day. Then I headed out to an Irish pub with Rachel and a couple of her friends for some live music - where I discovered that they think a jag bomb is a small shot of jag and an entire can of Red Bull and was $12! Yikes! I didn't stay out long as I heading to the lake this morning to collect more snails. Rebecca and Yuri went with to help so I got many thousands of snails...with a 0.2% prevalence I hope there's some infected ones in there! Tonight I'm trying out yet another of Susanne's recipes - Lamb chops with caramelized onions and couscous - yum!

So what have I been doing with my life for the past week? Umm, lets see...

Well, we lost horribly in basketball last week. So Bryan and I went to the gym on Saturday so he could give some pointers to work on and lo and behold I pulled a muscle in my leg! I thought it was getting better and I jumped rope on Monday and hell, if it didn't start hurting again. It hurts to even walk up the stairs. To say the least, I didn't play tonight but hear we lost anyway...we should've never won that first placement game.

Last Friday was the department happy hour...lots of socializing and food, and drinks were on Robert because we were celebrating Clément turning in his thesis last week! Yay for Clément! Afterwards, the lab went for drinks at one of the Irish pubs, again on Robert. However the night did not end well as I got food poisoning and ended up with the chills so bad I was shaking uncontrollably even though I had fleece on from head to toe and the electric blanket was on high.

Saturday, I met Rebecca at the farmer's market and then headed to work. I spent the entire day working on extracting DNA from cercariae, larval parasite stage which I get from the snails and I also discovered that only 3 out of my 22 infected snails were kicking out parasites...not enough for my experiments damnit so I'll be collecting yet another several thousand snails! Anyway, by 7pm I discover that the extraction did not work...ARRRRGG!! I was crabby and tired and hungry. I was supposed to go to a party and tried to find someone to go with me...no luck and after fixing dinner and showering it was 10pm and I certainly was not in the mood to get ready to go to a party by myself (normally it wouldn't bother me as I would have know a couple people there).

Early Sunday morn, I was awoken by Shannon, who had partied all night long and was on his way to my place...on foot! It is quite a long walk, especially after dancing all night, so being the sweet, loving person I am, I left my toasty, comfy bed to go get him. We spent most of Sunday together until I took him home so he could get ready for working out of town again this week, hopefully for the last week...I'm so looking forward to him being done with that!

I started working on my microsatellite library this week...using DNA from metacercariae I already had prepared (the cercariae DNA was just a back-up plan). So far so good but I'm just in the beginning couple of steps...digesting the DNA into smaller pieces and adding sequences that we know to the ends...

Monday night I went to Rebecca's for dinner...vegetable curry stir-fry - delicious! And after she dyed her hair, I did the highlights...yes, dinner was a bribe! Tuesday night, Dee and I went shopping and prepped for our dinner party tomorrow night. We are having all the Americans in the department over for Mexican. There is like 1 or 2 Mexican restaurants in town and I hear they're not very good. There are 9 of us in the department, including Dee and I, and 3 of us are from MN! So with partners and Wayne, there will be 13 of us for dinner. Deanna's making enchiladas, we'll fix a salad, I'm making Susanne's Avocado and Grape tomato salad again (still have heaps of cherry tomatoes ripening) and margaritas! And even though we told folks not to bring anything, Jen is making home-made salsa and Lisa is making guacamole. Yum! I can't wait for tomorrow!

Kiwis really know how to celebrate Easter!

The good news last week was I finally scored during a basketball game! Woo Hoo! Bryan is the greatest for planning that out for me :) And I'm still eating cod!

Sadly, today is the last day of our 5-day holiday weekend. I haven't been up to much...worked a wee bit and relaxed most of the time. Friday Shannon came over as soon as he got back from working in Wanaka for the week. We hung out and fixed cod again. This time I coated it in flour, then egg, then a breadcrumb seafood mix and boy, was it yummy! Again I fixed potatoes and onions...yes all these potatoes are coming from our garden. And Shannon made the lettuce salads with all types of yummy toppings. Deanna made Self-saucing chocolate pudding (pudding here means cake with a sauce)...it was delicious, and she made it in the microwave - amazing! Saturday morning I spent browsing Susanne's blog and all her wonderful recipes she's been posting for the last couple of years. I was looking for ideas since we had a few pears left that hadn't fallen off the tree and rotted away and our cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen. Saturday night Dee, Kathy and I ordered curry, and using a recipe from Susanne's blog, I roasted the pears with honey, red wine and cinnamon and served with ice cream...roasted pears are way better than I thought they would be! And we watched Pirates 3. Sunday, I made Susanne's Avocado and Grape tomato salad using the cherry tomatoes to accompany some left-over cod, and it was delicious! And yet again Shannon and I talked about going to see the glow worms but ended up watching Casino Royale instead. Oh and I also worked a wee bit on my manuscript. Easter Monday and New Zealand is still in holiday mode...Kristin actually went into the lab and dissected fish - which she should have been doing all weekend... Monday night played poker at Shannon's. And today is Otago Anniversary Day, meaning another holiday! I slept in, did laundry, made deviled eggs for the pot luck and headed to Haseeb and Stephanie's for shark bbq. Yes, that's right, shark. Last weekend there was a local shark fishing tournament and Haseeb was given some of them to dissect for parasites. Well, there were heaps of good meat going to waste so Haseeb kept some to bbq. They cut off the tail behind the dorsal fin and slice for steaks. Shark tissue is full of ammonia and urea so you have to soak it for a day in salt water and lemon (or milk or salt water and vinegar). Then Haseeb did all these different types of marinades that I can't even begin to describe how good they all were. And we tried blue shark, 7-gill shark, dog fish and taupe shark. Shark meat has the consistency of a steak...much firmer than you'd expect and the 7-gill was very firm. It's been a great holiday weekend - relaxing and eating - but I have heaps of work waiting for me...

Best day in NZ yet!

So Saturday I went cod fishing with my flatmate (Wayne), 3 labmates (Clément, Rachel, Dave) and another post-grad (Bryan). We had a fabulous time, well everybody but Bryan who got seasick. We fished off a reef about 40 meters deep. Just as your line reached the bottom they were nibbling at the bait and with 2 hooks per line we were reeling 'em in like crazy! And from 40 meters it seems like you're reeling in forever. We mainly caught blue cod, but also some Jock Stewart perch (aka sea perch), trumpeter, tarakihi, pink wrasse, parrot fish and a red cod. Sorry to say I was either too busy fishing or taking pics of birds and thus did not take very many pictures of the fish (photo album on right). The birds were incredible even though no Royal Albatross showed up. The bird list: NZ White-capped mollymawk, Buller's mollymawk, Cape pigeon, Sooty shearwater, Black-backed gull, Red-billed gull, White-fronted tern, Artic skua, Black shag, Spotted shag. To top it off, dolphins showed up and since it was my first time seeing them in the wild, our guide marked our spot, pulled anchor and drove along with the dolphins for awhile. I climbed around to the bow and took video of them swimming under and along the boat. It was incredible! There were Bottlenose and Dusky dolphins. Glad to say I did not get seasick...I didn't take any thing cause I wanted to find out if I would. And driving a jet boat was pretty cool...you have to anticipate the boat drifting in one direction and turn the wheel the opposite way...takes a minute to get the hang of it and if you over compensate then you keeping zig-zagging back and forth. I've had cod for almost every meal since. Saturday lunch Wayne and I fried some in butter. Then for dinner I fried the cod in butter and made potatoes and onions and a lettuce salad for me and Shannon...he says it's the best tea (Kiwi for dinner) he's had in ages. Amazingly there were enough left-overs for Sunday and Monday lunches. And Sunday night I coated a couple fillets in egg and cracker crumbs and fried them. Our guide said it's best to wait a few days before battering them as they're just too wet...so I'll try that tomorrow night (going out for St. Paddy's tonight). I'm over my homesickness now!

I know there are a lot of videos but most of them are quite short.

Clément catching a trumpeter and a pink wrasse. See how long it takes to reel in from 40m!


NZ White-capped Mollymawks going after the fish we throw back


Bottlenose and Dusky dolphins


You can see the dolphins swimming under the water


Our guide filleting the fish...video taping made him nervous so this was Take 2


Filleting a Jock Stewart perch


Birds flying around the boat as scraps from filleting were thrown out


Me driving the jet boat

Where to begin?

Research has been keeping me overwhelmingly busy. I've been quite stressed about it as someone is waiting for me to be ready so she can train me on developing my microsatellite library. I haven't been ready cause we thought I might be dealing with 2 species...which might still be the case but we can't say for certain...regardless I had to go collect more fish on Saturday and start dissecting them for the trematodes so I can try to collect one kind out of the two genetic lines to redo my DNA extraction for the library. Now I find out that Tania isn't waiting on me so I can stop being so damn stressed about it and maybe take a wee bit of time off. So I'm thinking I might take this afternoon off...I'm participating in my friend's son's school geography project. He sent me a paper doll, Flat Stanley, who is vacationing with me and I'm "showing" Flat Stanley around and taking pictures and what not. I might take him out to the peninsula today (if its nice out and I can get out of working) so I can get photos printed and send him back. I'll put a photo album up in a couple of days. I had my first basketball game ever last week...we won but I didn't score any points and since everybody else has played before I am by far the worse player on the team...oh, well, it was fun. Other than that, I've still been feeling a bit homesick...it takes so much effort to make new friends and since I've been working so damn hard I just haven't had the energy. It's doesn't help that Shannon and I got into an argument this weekend, which is still unresolved...arguing through texting is not good.

Poaching

Newsweek article on poaching to fund militias

The ups and downs of research, or just the downs

The semester started last week and even though I'm not taking classes, my schedule became a bit more hectic. First, I don't have enough infected snails to start my experiment...that means another trip to central otago for more snails. But before that, since Devon (one of the post-docs) clearly stated he thinks I might be working with 2 species instead of one, I spent most of my week and evenings not only going through snails but also getting some DNA ready to be sent off for sequencing so that we can hopefully figure out what it is I'm working with - one or two and do they both have 2 life cycle strategies or does one do one and the other do the second stragtey - depending on what comes back my project might stay the same, might change a little or the whole thing may be shot to hell and I'll have to figure out what else I want to do. So waiting on those results now...in the meantime I'll hopefully be getting more snails tuesday (was supposed to go today but the weather is crappy) and waiting to find out the sequencing results. And now that the semester started, there's speakers and meetings and training for this and that so it was one hell of a week. Ooo, me and couple other Americans in my department went for KFC and then doughnuts this week. I have to say that KFC was quite disappointing as there was no extra crispy recipe, everything came with fries (chips here) and if you asked for potatoes and gravy they came in these tiny serving. The doughnuts were good...not Krispy Kreme good, but good. I've let my research go for the weekend since it's pouring outside and my field day was cancelled today. Friday night Shannon and I hung out and played poker late into the night. Most of Saturday I was a bum - lounging and napping. And then went to a party Sat. night with Rebecca. Today, Dee and her weekend company fixed an American pancake breakfast (yeah, that's right, even the pancakes are different here). Breakfast was great and we sat around all morning drinking coffee and chatting. I doubt I'll work today...it is Sunday...