Week Two point Five: Walks+Penguins+Chocolate+Friends?! (not in that order)

Over the weekend I had a great amount of fun, funnily enough not during what I expected to be fun. Like, the pub? Especially since I don't drink and it didn't sound like there'd be any music/dancing but I went anyways because....socializing right? So I was glad I went, especially because Jakubi was playing music and, eventually, there was some dancing. I won a pool game as well! And the last time I played with Elena at the Wheaton pub (awwwright Sporty's nights) and I was awful so it was a nice little ego boost. I was playing w girl, Steph, was also the best teammate. We strategized to no end, and we took every mistake beautifully. There were also teams that everyone was split into during the first night aaaand I was on the yellow team (naturally, because that's my favorite color). People accumulated points from trivia night (which was incredibly hard, who knew there were "flavors" of quarks and one of those flavors was "charm?") and from mini golf. In the end we won a substantial amount of chocolate (like what's below), so I couldn't have been happier.

:)

If not for her I don't know what would've happened at the pub either because there were some incredibly persistent townies flirtin' with us.

And oh dear, here comes my mini-rant.

At first I was like ok, conversation is fine. But the flirting, that was too much. And guys, regardless of the age and attractiveness of the guy hitting on me I really wasn't into it, at all. I was there to have fun with the people I chose to have fun with and could trust. I'm sure not everyone in the bar is a predator but not everyone in the bar is looking for a hook-up. So back off when you get those sort of signals and/or when the person says no. I know, it can be hard to read signals or not everyone reads the same signals the same way. In fact, I probably just should have said, no, I'm not interested, at the beginning. I guess I believe that it's egotistical to think that someone's talking to you simply because they're attracted to you; generally speaking I don't try to start a conversation based only on the fact that I find someone physically attractive. Which lead me to believe that perhaps the guy I was talking to was just being friendly. People can be friendly right? Well, I still believe so but that Saturday night the guys were just bein' creepy. So, if anyone's hitting on you and you're not interested just say no and move on. And you don't really need a reason to say no to that situation. It's something that hadn't really hit me until sometime last year, when I didn't want to dance with someone but he was pretty insistent so I said, "I have a boyfriend," as if I needed an excuse. Sarah, you set me straight and said something along the lines of, "Even so, if you didn't want to dance with him you just have to say no and he should listen to you." I didn't dance with that guy from last year or the one from Saturday night, and continue to learn about how these things work, for me. On the othah hand, if you would have enjoyed dancing and/or hooking up, HAVE FUN! Just make sure ALL parties are having fun. And that's the end of my rant haha.

The wise and wonderful Tina Belcher from Bob's Burgers

And Steph stuck it out with me, she was a trooper. Everyone was an amazing dancer as well and there was no grinding. There may have been one couple grinding but that was it! And yeah, grinding can be fun and if you enjoy that, go for it! However, I've gotten over the whole idea. I think because it's not really dancing with someone, it's more dancing on someone. But feel free to disagree:)

Apart from that negligible amount of drama, everything else went fantastically. As you can see on Facebook or down below. Just FYI, the song below definitely has some strong language, regardless it's pretty uplifting and the rapper is pretty interesting. Thanks to Atiya (I believe it was Atiya but I couldn't find the original post so perhaps not?) for posting the link on Facebook that lead me to Angel Haze. What an amazing music artist, she did a great cover of Same Love as well. Well, not really a cover but something like a cover.

(Battle Cry by Angel Haze Feat Sia)

(Phillip Island pictures!)

Wallaby!

Sorry, this was the best I could do for penguin pictures, it was night time and you aren't supposed to use flash to take the pictures. I was luck to get a picture from someone else's flash:)

Oh, can you not see who that is? Lemme help your eyes a bask in the wonderful and beautiful man that is...

MISHA COLLINS (aka CASTIEL)

Yes, I made it to the tail end of a convention for Supernatural stars. No, Jared and Jensen weren't there but Cas, Crowley, the Trickster guy (Gabriel), the grandfather of the boys AND John Winchester's actor (the young one, not the older guy). But here's the full guest list. 

All I got were pictures, I couldn't get autographs for reasons unknown and stealthily took these pictures because I wasn't sure if they would actually like me taking pictures freely because you had to pay for professional ones. By "they" I mean the staff for Hub Productions, the company that organized the whole event for the supernatural fans of Australia. Hopefully next time I will actually talk to the actors rather than stalk them and take creepy pictures haha. 

Anyways, this happened this week:

We set up some mice on running wheels, set up some mice with corticosterone, and the control mice who were to have normal lives. There were also some mice set up to mate with each other and that was interesting because the female mice are very vocal about saying no....and it got noisy. We were in a room full of squeaks, so another thing to be unsettled about when working with mice.

I have also begun to be not as ok with working with animals, I don't mind cells. But where do cells come from? Animals! Ahhhh, a new moral dilemma?! I already have enough! For now I'm going to focus on the benefits of this research but those mice are starting to get to me.

So along with what's happened I've actually made some friends around my workplace. Yay frands! I can't promise I will remember all of the names of the people I had met on the trip but I loved being able to meet everyone because everyone here is awesome (so far, and not including the townies).

As always I'll keep you guys up-to-date on any other happenings. I miss all ya'll and hope the summah's workin' out for you! :)

Love,

Syd

Week Two: PENGUIN. PARADE.

Hey ya'll! Here I am, checking in and letting you know that everything is going pretty well so far. I'm finally learning how to navigate to and from my job from the apartment WITHOUT getting lost. The key word there being 'WITHOUT," naturally. That includes Melbourne's campus as well, which is rife with distractions such as sushi, crepes, and just food, all that food.

But it's ok guys, I've learned how to avoid buying it all....at once. 

Seriously though, I haven't gotten lost in a few days, I'm learning things! I also got to help set up the cages for the mice and everything which was pretty tedious, and boring but I've also been to my first Monday meeting where one of the researchers presents their lab project...kinda. So, there was some talk about statistics and some stuff we learned in quantitative research methods (known from this point on as QRM). Such as repeated measures design and analysis of variance tests (ANOVA, if you will). So I'm also learning about the applications of what I've been taught which is a real comfort. Other than that I have been pipetting more, which is considerably more exciting than setting up mice cages. 

But then...on Tuesday...it happened....I was asked to do MATH. And this was my initial internal reaction:

Although Terence was able to tell that I was worried because he was like: "It's really easy, you just have to remake this spreadsheet." However I was still really worried and put it off by going to lunch! Yum, food.

And then I looked at the math and IT WAS THE EASIEST THING EVER. Especially since, you know, excel. If you don't know excel, that's ok but really, you're making life harder than it has to be. That is all I have to say about that. And Terence checked it and it was all good! Yaaay math!

Moving onto more fun things, like the beach! So Michael, Karlyn, and I went to St Kilda Beach which was AMAZING because I really do miss going to the beach.

(Lost at Sea by Zedd Feat Ryan Tedder)

So I felt pretty at home, and we were there to support a friend! I can't remember her name but there was a sort of demonstration/performance/flashmob she was doing for tap week. Apparently tap week is a thing which is fun! Shout out to Jenna Tramonti and her beautiful tapping self: happy belated tap week from Melbourne!

(Life in Color by One Republic)

Yeah, Minnie Mouse was there, making it a pretty official tap celebration that was happening.

Pretty tappers in pretty dresses!

Getting ready to do some tap! 

 That panorama setting.

 Look at'em goooo!

So they had a bit of a tap parade ending right by the entrance to Luna Park, an AMUSEMENT park (we have made future travel plans to go, if you were concerned)! And after that we were able to go eat at a vegetarian restaurant and it was delicious! And we had wandered around before and after the whole event, here are some pictures of those wanderings:

Look at the top of that meringue! I took this because I immediately thought of Aunt Giki, mah li'l bro, and our lemon meringue pies! Note: I was planning on sending a text to you with the picture but completely forgot per usual. Hopefully you've gotten it by the time you're reading this.

Here's a fun song that I've been listening to on the the way to work:

(Rather Be by Clean Bandit Feat. Jess Glynne)

I just wanted to take a moment to let my family know that I've been missing them terribly and wanted to dedicate a little song to'em belooooow.

(From Where You Are by Lifehouse)

I have been getting quite homesick this week but am planning on Skyping home soon! Get ready for some babbling guys and some lag because it's coming to you from Aussie land. While writing this I JUST found out about a Supernatural convention that is/was happening Sunday. I'll tell ya'll about it in the next blog, along with my adventures on the island. Love you all! Until next time:)

Love,

Syd

Week One

I've made it through the week! Woohoo!

(Ain't it Fun by Paramore)

It's been pretty low key, I finally took those pictures of the building I'm working at and of the apartment. And just fyi, if it looks messy to you it's not usually-I just didn't feel like waiting until it was cleaner.

This was my temporary desk for the week! Hopefully I'll get one similar buuuuuuut we'll see.

Here's a fantastic view from the fifth floor. There are pizza talks every Friday here apparently, yay free lunches! 

This is the room where the pizza is served in and is on the same floor as the picture above. Along with the free food I think this area is where people are encouraged to eat lunch here and attend events here so that there's more interdepartmental communication/talks. 

More of the fifth floor! There's a balcony, it's great.

The sixth floor is the animal floor! This is where I've been most of the week along with the third floor, I didn't take any other pictures because I wasn't sure what they would allow me to take pictures of for privacy reasons and in order to be respectful of the animals' rights. It's a lab floor that has areas sectioned off for rats and mice because rats are a natural predator of mice and if the mice are able to smell the rats, and vice versa, that could be a confounding variable in the animals' behaviors. So, it just makes the studies done here more valid. The room I've been working in has a large counter area across from the fume hood where the dissection happens, before we get into the room we also have to put on a full body lab coat, and by full body I mean this:

With booties that cover mah shoes, gloves for my hands and lab goggles for my eyes. It looks real great, it's like I'm a real lab person! Those of you who saw that snapchat know what I mean. Anyways, onto the next photo...

Here's what it's like on every floor basically as you come out of the elevators.

This is the ground floor lobby area! There's a cafe to the right of where I took this picture.

Right outside the building is where I board the tram to go home!

This is the main entrance, the building itself is relatively new (about 4 years old) so I'm working with pretty new equipment as well. The funny thing is that they are running out of space for things and people, so they're working on expansions and everything.

A pretty average day is me waking up at 7 or 7:30, going to work at 8 or 8:30 and then working until 4 or 5 at the latest. When I am working I'm labeling wee tubes for pieces of mice to go into, watching my supervisor and his student dissect the mice and run the nanochip tests. I assisted them with a nanodrop this week too! A nanodrop uses runs a current through a milliter of same and shows how many nanograms per milligrams of RNA is present in the sample. I feel like for some reason I've been running into a lot of physical chemistry, something I have mixed feelings about....

(Not Over You by Carolina Liar)

Not only have we been working with brains but also the adrenal glands (found behind the lungs or right beside the lungs) and the epididymis, where the sperm of the mice are housed. The sperm is where we are looking for RNA and is pooled together from all the mice in the same experimental group (as far as I can tell). There is a lot of me standing around and watching but I've also been able to pipette a bit, a pretty simple and basic lab skill so it was the least I could do:)

During the week I also had time to see the Eureka building, one of the tallest buildings in Australia. Here's what the view was like!

And I am super excited to go to Phillip Island where there'll be a penguin PARADE among other activities. It's something for students at the Florey and only costed me 70 bucks for the whole weekend (includes food and housing, so I believe that's pretty good). 

This weekend I was also able to shop at the Victoria Market, similar to a farmer's market but it's one of the biggest farmer's markets I've been to, not including the market I went to in Tanzania.

So it's been a pretty eventful week and I have some pretty exciting things planned for this next one. I'll keep ya'll posted!

Love,

Syd