My New Years Eve

Happy New Year Everyone - hope it is great - not too boring but not too difficult also.

My nye was packed - and not entirely in a good way. I started off by going to the post office ...but my local one was closed. Which i think is stupid since it wasn't even a public holiday!! So i had to hop back on the bus to a new supurb where the line in the post office was huge. Sigh. Then I had to go to my field site in La Parouse - cue a long bus ride and walk. And to top it off none of my limpets were where they were supposed to be.

Finally I got to do something new years eve-y. Meet up with friends for a picnic evening watching the fireworks. For me though - I don't really enjoy waiting hours (7 in total this year) in a cramped area, on a rug covered in damp patches of spilt vodca just to watch fireworks. But I did enjoy spending time with friends. And eating. Ate 3/4 of a packet of cornchips with salsa :) And drinking experimental punch. Had strawberry and cream tisane mixed with kiwi vodka and other things. Interesting. Finally got home at 3. Long trip home on the train - but at least we had a seat the entire way.

How was everyone's nye?

I am back and Christmas

Hi everyone just letting you know that I am back ...yay...maybe...

I will try and put photos of holiday/wedding up soon but at the moment this computer won't let me upload them!!!

I hope everyone had a great christmas. Present wise I am reasonably happy. My mum gave me tickets to two Bell Shakespheare Plays at the Opera House (we go every year). Twelth Night and something else. I really enjoyed Twelth Night last time I saw it performed. She also gave me some new books (I rely on her giving me books each year). They were as follows

* The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
* The Lost Life by Steven Carroll (and it autographed ...yay)
* Love Song by Alex Miller
* Too much happiness by Alice Munro

all of which look great.

I also got some cds, a glass lizard, bracelet, fudge and a calender from other relatives. And my boyfriend...Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and something which is arriving in the post but has been delayed...still not shipped yet :( :(

With my Dad's family we donate money to charity instead. So all up we donated $1100 to UNHCR so I am happy with that

My christmas day was spent very quietly (apart from the excited noises and present playing of Kaia (Daria's son)). just relaxing. Watched lots of tv. Played trivia.

Just letting you know...

that i may not be on here in the blogosphere till after boxing day as I flying to New Zealand tomorrow morning...for Daria's (from Three Little Birds www.darnonymous.blogspot.com) wedding :) Rest assured I will put up pictures even if she doesn't!

Also...sorry for lack of photos recently. The current computer I am doesn't seem to allow me to post them :(

Computer shops are lame

In a follow up to my previous post - I went to about 5 computer shops today to see if they could test my laptop cable thing by plugging it in to something

All i got was - we can't do that - you will have to bring in your laptop (que pay us lots of money)

or...that will cost you $10-$15...to plug a cable in???? No thank you. To me that is a rip off

So I still have got no where :( :(

My month of no luck with computers

It seems that this month everything has gone wrong with my laptop and other computer related thingss.

Firstly, the cord connection on my external hard drive broke. This, though not necessarily the end of the world, upset me as it contains all the movies my boyfriend kindly put on there before he left. Fortunately I could just buy a new case for my external hardrive (~$30) and with a bit of help from my boyfriend over the phone managed to pull the original case apart and move the hard drive to the new case. Yay...return of movies.

But now to the more worrying issue. My laptop will now longer turn on. For a couple of weeks it has been getting worse and worse with having problems connecting it to a powersource...until i reached this point. The problem is most likely either that there is something wrong with the cable or with the connection in the laptop. I am seriously hoping that it is the former as then I will only have to fork out for a new cable and not an entirely new laptop!!!! Which obviously costs more money! And I have so much stuff on my laptop. Luckily I had backed up most of my uni stuff at uni :)

So how am I writting this when it would seem that this is at home hours...well i actually own to desktop mac computers so all is not lost. Though this computer is a bit slower ...and not so good at the internet...and drives me crazy sometimes...all is not lost thankfully.

Is anyone else being completely frustrated by computers at the moment??? Or is all the bad luck being funelled to me...

The evil sun

Yesterday (Sunday) I was again out in the field (the rocky shore) studying my limpets. Now yesterday was very hot and sunny - so I dutifully suncreened up and did the whole reapply thing every couple of hours.

So i get home and around 8.30 I strip to have a bath...and what...what is that on my back???? My entire is back is bright red!!! Somehow the sneaky sun had sunburned my through my t-shirt!!!! Ok Ok...i was wearing a white t-shirt...but stilll...I never though the sun was into piercing through your clothes to get to your skin. I even have a bra strip of whiteness!!!! So when I go for a swim next time in my halter neck bikini...i will have this weird tan mark! (not that I care too much...)

Another lesson learnt...

Thanks for the award Dar

Daria from Three Little Birds (http://www.darnonymous.blogspot.com/) (i havn't worked out how to do that properely) has awarded me an award!! Yay

As part of accepting the award I must post ten things which noone on blogsville knows...so here it goes

1. At high school i was the goalkeeper in indoor and outdoor hockey. And for the two years I played outdoor we won the comp one year and were runner up the following year (by overall goals throughout the season).
2. I used to play the clarinet - and got to travel to Europe (Austria, Germany, Czech republic, Slovak republic and Hungary) and China with the school band.
3. I love Iago from the play Othello. I think he is really cool and I love that he is so manipulative.
4. I love the phantom from the phantom of the opera. This may partly be because i love the music from that musical!!! As you can tell a pattern for loving fictional characters is forming.
5. Charles Darwin is my biologist hero
6. If I could travel to anywhere in the world I would choose the Galapagas Islands. This is partly because of Charles Darwin
7. I love Tintin comics. I also have the DVDs....I even did one of the comics as one of my supplementary texts (we got to choose some) for the HSC.
8. I cross-stich. I wish I could do it more often but it is expensive.
9. I hate sand. Very silly since I am currently a marine biologist who works on the intertidal region. (Well..doing my honours)
10. I am missing 4 adult teeth. I was born without the things to have them! So currently I have a tooth which is really a baby one with lots of filling material on it to make it look big, and a gap (not one of the front teeth but the next ones along) where I have a plastic tooth hanging from a plate. The other two, the baby teeth were pulled out and the gap closed. I will eventually have an inplant where the gap is.

Well, I should pass this award on but Daria has given it to basically all the blogs I read!!!! So i will need to think of an alternative plan.

A recommendation

Sorry I havn't postedfor a while - been so busy and tired. And this is going to be a very brief post (but I am going to do a proper post v. soon).

A new lesson learnt (which is really so common sense I am stupid for falling into the trap).

Do not drink lots at uni/work christmas parties if you have to do field work the following morning.

I am finding it so difficult to get up and I need to be at La Parouse by 9.30..by public transport.

Saved by the cricket

I normally don't mind work at all. Just sitting, typing up data, drifting in thought. But today - today I could barely sit up I was so tired. No idea why. Was just consumed with sleep.

Thankfully - the cricket was on today. Australia vs West Indies. 4th day. I love the cricket..and I love listening to it on the radio. So i sneakily went onto the internet and listened to online with my headphones plugged in.

Ahh...saved me from dying at work :)


Daniel Vettori - my favourite cricketer ...and yes he is a kiwi...but i think he is kind of cute :) and good at cricket :)

Does anyone else have to rely on outside forces to keep you sane at work?

Guily pleasures - Part 3

Books

I love to read. Every single day. Anywhere and everywhere. Here are some books I read when I want a cheering up or a relax or whatever.


Anything by Agatha Christie. I have read every single of one of her books! I think they are so clever. I even have about 20 of them as audio dramatasisations which I listen to at night before going to sleep. I really like the Dark is Rising sequence. I just find reading them very satisfying :)

Most things by orson scott card. Speaker for the dead is probably my favourite (the 2nd one in the Ender's game series). I also really like Ender's game, the rest of the ones in that series, The worthing saga. Pastwatch- Christopher Columbus the redemption, and Earthborn (5th in the Homecoming saga). I also like Maps in the mirror - I like how he talks about the stories in that and their inspiration etc.

I really like this book..and it improves on 2nd and third time reading. This is because when you first read it you are trying to work out what is happening etc...but the next time when you read everything is infused with the emotion of knowing the whole story.

Haha. And i like to read all the Harry Potter books. Except for the 5th one which annoys me!

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Another book related guilty pleasure of mine is book stores ...every single time I go into one I can't help but buy something!! Very bad for the wallet.

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Also in this category of cheery up books are ones by Isabelle Carmody, lord of the rings, Foundation series by Isacc Asimov and many more.

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The books listed here do appear very childlike...but these are not my every day reading books...just ones I rely on having there when I need them.

Guilty Pleasures - Part Two

DVDs

I love to lie in bed watching dvds on my laptop or mini dvd player. Here are a few i love/cheery up dvds.

Yes minister and Yes Primeminister. This english comedy always make me laugh. I love seeing Sir Humphrey not winning!! I have all 5 series on DVD


Seachange!!! I recently got given the complete box set of this tv show for my birthday. I love watchning this drama...never tire of it. I like reminiscing about bits in episodes.

Joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat. I love this musical. We performed it at my school one year. I like to sing along to all the good songs. I also love Phantom of the Opera and Jesus Christ Superstar. I love the songs :)

North and South. I love watching this. It is a four part series and I watched it all again yesterday. One of the reasons why it is a favourite is because of the character played by Richard Armitage...so cute :) Every time I watch it I watch the last scence twice. And I like him and the series better than Darcy/Pride and Prejudice.

I also enjoy watching chick flicks..though some are quite dodgy!

Guilty pleasures - Part 1

Food




I love eating. Here are some of my food guilty pleasures.


Eating an entire mini wheel of camembert cheese in one sitting.


Microwave popcorn - so unhealthy but so tasty



Smoked salmon - I can eat strips of this stuff by itself.



Coffee gelato




Glutinous rice balls (the onese filled with seasame)

And salsa and corn chips (I can eat an entire packet of corn chips with salsa in a city as my boyfriend found out to his loss).


Others include:
olives
feta cheese
cheds (so good)
strawberries
marinated eggplant, mushroom etc
CAPERBERRIES (not capers...but caperberries..there is a difference)


These are just a small sample of my foody guilty pleasures


What food guilty pleasures do you have?

Yesterday

Yesterday was a mixed day





I got up at 6.30 to go to my field site (that is early for me!). My second bus was late (grrr) and the bus driver was sooo slow. Like 40 Km the entire journey! And there was this noisy creaking noise the entire trip which drove me crazy and prevented me from reading!





Then when I arrive there...I was late..and to make matters worse I must have misread the tidecharts or something because the water was higher than expected! So I hurriedly glued labels on the my limpets and took some measurements...Then I had a couple of hours to waste there...so decided to go for a swim :) :) I hadn't brought my swimmers so stripped to undies and t-shirt...and splashed in..And boy did it feel good!!!! No one else around just me and suprisingly clear ocean. So cool and refreshing. Thankfully there were no old ladies glaring down from me from the golf course above my field site :)

(This is not from yesterday but from my holiday in the Northern Territory...but I think it illustrates the clearness and refreshing nature of yesterday's swim)

Anyway...on the way back I home I discovered I had failed to bring a drink bottle. Very silly of me...really getting dehydrated after at least 4 hours in the sun. So when I get back to the city...I go the ATM to withdraw money to buy a bottle of water...and wait...what...you have reached your daily withdrawl limit...what...I havn't been near a bank or ATM today,..i have been in the middle of nowhere! So i go in...and yes...someone had taken/stolen $1600 from my bank account!!! And because it was done that day (yesterday/Thursday) I had to wait till today to start the formal fraud investiagtion (transactions don't show until the next day). Now $1600 is quite a lot for me so I was very upset.



But it is all sorted now. They said I will get my money back. Yay!!!



So a not so nice end to my day

Food in compartments

I love having a meal with lots of little compartments. Like...japanese bento boxes. Sometimes when I am at work and i feel like a different meal to my usual sushi roll I will go to somewhere slightly more fancy and have one of these. Not the sushi bento boxes...but the really cool ones with a mini main meal and salad and sometimes a desserty thing and miso soup and yay!!!!

I also discovered on Little Sooti (http://littlesooti.blogspot.com/2009/11/dylans-candy-bar-new-york.html) a really cool lolly tacklebox by Dylans Candy Bar New York which was also pretty groovy.

Yum cha is also pretty kind in a compartmently way...lots of small little dishes.

Hmmm...i think I should do a cheese compartment dish someday for a picnic :)

Farewell holiday in Tassie

Before my boyfriend left for Antartica we had a quick trip along the east coast of Tasmania. Some caravan parks are the biggest rip off. For example one place charged $25 a night...and then it was extra for the use of the bbqs...and (even worse) you had to pay extra for a hot shower!!! Even more ridiculuis is that we found parks in towns with free bbqs and at St Helens you could get free hot shows at the wharf area!!! Anyway, enjoy the pictures

Frecyinet National Park. We spent a peaceful morning here in a beach with no one else - eating fresh oysters and reading books.

An echidna scrambling away at the side of the road

Bay of fires. Beautiful beaches to wander around and no one much around though apparantly heaps busier in the peak season

Beautiful lichen coloured rocks

Me walking through temperate rainforest.

My Birthday

My birthday was on sunday. Not the most exciting of birthdays. I spent the day cleaning before going to have a much needed back massage - soooo good. I did get some kind of unusual presents though



Blackwood chopping board - smells so nice and is really smooth and gorgeous looking. I love things made from native wood!

A sheet of unused skittle wrappers. From this place in India apparently

A bag made from unused chilli sauce wrappers. So groovy I thuk. Will save for a special day :)

Things I learnt this week...

a) Birthdays are made good by having people to spend it with...This is the first year I have not been excited by my birthday's imminent approach (tomorrow/Sunday). Nothing planned. Probably just go to hang at home reading/movie watching or go to a NSW vs TAS cricket match by myself and take a book for back up. Part of the reason for this non-excitement is the lack of people to celebrate it. Most of my friends are all either studying for exams or out doing field work stuff. And my boyfriend is on a boat/in Antartica. Sigh.

b) Do not wear one of your favourite t-shirts when doing field work. Yesterday I was out supergluing tiny labels to my limpets. I was wearing this really cool t-shirt whilst doing it. And low and behold I got my special magnetic protractor glued to my t-shirt. You think I would have learnt by now

c) Make sure you bag is zipped properly up when there is food in it. Also a lesson I learnt yesterday whilst out in the field. I had this tasty pizza thing in my bag packed for lunch. I left my bag in a nice dry spot after getting all my gear out of it. I was in a rush so didnt really focus on making sure was all nicely zipped. I turn round and later and see my things sprawled everywhere and the topping of my pizza thing stolen by a silly bird. No lunch for me. Meant no food for from 10 till 5.30 when I got home.

Blame the supervisor - Progress report on honours

from www.seashellsofnsw.org.au

Sigh. My first experiment was going great. I had collected my data - taken 600 measurements of limpets over 2 days and 3 "sites" - and it all looked pretty good - mostly. The data suggested that limpets DO face a particular direction - downwards.

So i go and talk to my honours supervisor and he says "maybe go out for a third day". So I dutifully go back and out and take another 300 measurements and then analyse my data. Ba baaaaa (that is the quiz incorrect noise). My data now has basically no nice pattern in it any longer! Which means I have to rethink my next experiment which I had already designed and was ready to go!

I am obvisously not 100% happy. But a struggle will only make me stronger/better * fingers crossed*

In need of a massage

What I would really like is a personal massaging person.

Everytime I go out into the field I come back and the next day my back is so sore it is painful to move. This is because of the ultra ackward positions I have to get into to measure my limpets.

Now an alternative to going and paying for a massage every week woiuld be to buy ones of those massage machines - you know the ones you hold and they vibrate on your back type thing.

Except...

I can't stand the feeling of the machines vibrating in my hand. It drives me absolutely crazy.

So does anyone have any magical massaging advice?

Anyway that is my rant for today

City Vs. Country

Living in the country is quiet and peacefull...Living in the country is fun

from playschool

For quite a while I have been thinking how great it would be to not live in the city. I would really love to live in a small rural town or on a property in the middle of nowwhere. The solitude I don't think would bother me - afterall I spend most of my free time at the moment reading, eating or surfing the internet - all of which you can do all by yourself. I just the love the atmosphere and community of many small towns. And many of the so called benefits of city living aren't really for me. Most people my age seem to spend their friday evenings clubbing and dancing - boring.

So what would i miss?

1. The wide range of food - you can get everything in the city - sushi, japanese bbq, yum cha, good indian, etc etc. Yes I could learn to cook things like this ...but I don;t think the quality or quantity would be up to scratch





2. Libraries! - I love going to the library. Free books!! If i didn't have the abundance of libraries I would be spending a heap on books. I go through 3 or 4 a week quite often. Sometimes more. But there are ways to get around this in the country- cheap books over the internet, second hand bookshops, friendly local libarians ord
   ering things in for you.



3. Friends and family - I would miss everyone obviously. But i guess in this day and age so much is done over the internet or phone. And there is obviously letters.

So where would i go. I think Northen Australia is my current fantasy. I love the wet season - hot and wet at the same time. And the wildlife etc is great too. Not too crowded - lots of open spaces. And even good food in some places.

Sigh. I will have to wait a bit till I can venture on this particular journey. But it is nice to dream.

The pics on this post are ones I took whilst in the Northern territory and Western Australia. So beautiful up there!!!

The weather

Is anyone else completely sick and tired of the weather where they are?

Well I am.

I wake up in the morning and it is beautiful and sunny, but as the day progresses it gets colder, and cloudier, and eventually wetter! This has been happening for at least a week, every single day, and it looks like it will continue for another week! Really annoying me! Escpecially as to study my poor little limpets I need fine weather! If it is storming I can't even go to my site really! Grrrr.

Why limpets and penguins?

Limpets are what I am studying. What are they? They are kind of like flattened snails which live down on the rocks at the beach. Most people think they don't move but they do...just very slowly. I personally think they are pretty cool. When something attacks them they clamp down and to cool down they mushroom up - lifting their shell off the ground. As this is my honours year I predict I am going to get pretty obssessed with them. Even start having crazy dreams!

Penguins? Well apart from the fact that they are pretty cute - especially baby emperer penguins - my boyfriend is shortly to depart for Antartica for a year - so they represent him. Just need to convince him to start his own blog. So expect to see lots of pictures of them :)

So this is going to be the year of Limpets and Penguins for me.