15/12 | Big
month
Wow ... December has already been a huge week for me .... a busy and important
week. My supervisor Brad Marsh left to visit the University of Colorado in
Boulder not long ago, which meant that I had to finish updating a little document
I keep with all my PhD ideas on it, so that Brad could show it to a guy called
David. This David is a gun programmer and wrote the huge piece of software
we use in our lab, and so it's pretty critical to my PhD project that David
likes my ideas, and help me add to the massive amount of source code he has
written.
1/12 | Lesson
learnt: Humour is NOT a good idea in a scientific
seminar. It might have worked at JCU, where I knew everyone, but not in a
research building.
1/12 | ComBio
seminar
The following Friday I had to give my first big seminar to a group called
"ComBio" (Computational Biology) .... and so that meant I only had
three days to make slides for a one-hour presentation. And sadly it didn't
go so well. :-(
I don't think I've ever given a bad presentation before, but this stunk.
The odd thing was I felt really great about my slides: I had decided to add
humour throughout the thing, and use very pretty slides to help people stay
awake. I was proud of those slides. I attended a workshop two months before
saying it's a good idea to have a couple of slides at the start to introduce
yourself, and a few funny pictures help people stay alert. But humour is NOT
a good idea in a scientific seminar - not if you're just a PhD student. Maybe
the occasional dry joke works, but I managed to sabotage my whole presentation.
On the very first slide, while I was announcing the title of my presentation
and (stupidly) admitting I didn't have time to rehearse the whole presentation,
it skipped to the next slide, which said "yes I am the traitor from
level 2". And so I said "oh, that's interesting",
and then clicked back to the next slide. Throughout my whole presentation,
my slides kept skipping ahead. Every time I was looking at a slide and started
getting my rhythm, it would jump to the next slide, and throw me off. I stopped
10 slides in and changed the mouse, but that didn't stop the problem. Technical
difficulties are not unusual - especially when we have several old laptops,
with different operating systems, and old versions of MS PowerPoint .....
but instead of dealing with it gracefully, I basically got frustrated, and
acted like a little kid with a broken toy. At one stage I just put my fist
to my forehead and counted to five, trying to get my composure.
This was suppose to be an interesting presentation damnit!.. instead I saw
people falling asleep ..... and although I'm guilty of closing my eyes in
many seminars, I didn't realize how obvious it is from the front. At one stage
I stopped facing them altogether, and just faced my slides - and decided to
pretend they weren't there. By the end of the presentation I was 3 parts frustrated,
2 parts upset, and 1 part angry. However, I did at least admit it was my own
fault. I only arrived at uni 30 minutes before my presentation, which was
only JUST enough time to get an old laptop from level 6, load my presentation
and set up - not enough time to rehearse. I was so angry, I said at the end
"I'm going home to get drunk", or something to that effect.
I did go home, but I wasn't about to start getting drunk on my own - once
was enough. I just wallowed in self-pity for a bit - wondering what might
have been if I had a different laptop ... and then felt even more stupid when
I worked out I could have fixed my major technical problem myself by going:
"slide show > set up show > advance slides > manually"
... instead it was set to "use slide timing if present".
Then I wrote an e-mail to Brad, saying my presentation went poorly. Brad said
he was disappointed ... and was fairly blunt, but that's actually the great
thing about Brad. He does have expectations of all of us, and he'll keep us
motivated when he has to, and tell us when he expected better. But, as a guy
called Radosav (Rad for short) explained to me ... Brad is fairly unique as
a supervisor because he's hard on you because he cares.
And wow - I am so impressed by Rad. He is the most unique guy I know. Let
me tell you a little about Rad.
Rad doesn't mince words, and he manages to say things which you couldn't imagine
ANYONE ever saying to another human, but using his cheeky grin to get away
with it. Just to give an example, there was a new girl on our level (there
are lots of attractive girls on our level, but this one was new), and we asked
her if she was the new PhD student. She said she was just a summer student,
and Rad explained how the building worked, followed by "I'm serious,
it's a great idea. Just get into a serious accident, spill some acid on your
face or something, and sue the IMB... sure you'll have scars, but you'll have
so much money you can get yourself a toy boy to have sex with" .....
and keep in mind he'd never met this girl before. She didn't know what to
think! But, oddly enough, even though Rad scared her, there is something very
lovable and trusting about Rad. He's a pretty muscular/solid guy, with night-black
hair and a beard, but although people who are blunt as Rad might scare some
people away; I think there are far too few people like Rad around. Most people
have a layer of deceit over the top of them: they'll pretend they like you,
or steal your ideas, or use you, or bad mouth you to everyone else .... if
Rad doesn't like you he'll probably spit on you ... and hey; call me old fashion,
but I think that's great.
After my crappy presentation, no-one in the office could really cheer me up,
I didn't think ANYONE could cheer me up ... but then Rad came in and said:
"Seriously; who cares how many shit presentations you give - no-one
cares! Just go home and shave your balls"
"What?!"
"No I mean it, go home and shave your balls and your arse or something
.... have a play with yourself"
And then he just kept going, and I just couldn't help laughing.
Actually, I think Rad thought I was gay for a while. Giving him a massage
and calling him a "sexy beast" probably didn't help ..... but then
I explained I wasn't gay, and liked a girl on level five. Then he started
asking questions, and yesterday told me that if I wanted to go out with her
I had to treat her mean. I'm suppose to ask her something like: "So have you figured out why you don't have a boyfriend?"
"No"
"It's because no-one wants you"
"But you like me"
"Nah, I was only pretending because I felt sorry for you" Somehow I can't see it happening; it's too late for me to change into
that guy .... and so I guess, it's little wonder that, even after moving to
Brisbane I'm still single and find it awkward to talk to a girl as soon as
I realize I like her.
2/12 | Lacking
rad charm
On the following day, Jim (my favourite gay housemate) was about to go to
a job interview and was depressed about it, because he was sure he wasn't
going to get the job .... and so I said:
"Seriously; who cares about the job interview - no-one cares! If you don't get the job you haven't lost anything .... you can just go
home and shave your balls"
"What?!"
"No I mean it, you can come home and shave your balls and your arse
or something ... have a play with yourself"
And so Jim just stared at me funny. He was slightly confused, but I hadn't
cheered him up. I'm obviously missing the Rad charm ... but hey; it was worth
a try. :-)
3/12 | Mum
and Jenny visit
This was the day Mum and Jenny visited me! The plan was Mum and I would go
searching for a small 2 or 3 bedroom unit for me to buy near UQ. This was
an idea we'd had way back in March, and a pretty good idea too. The thing
I noticed immediately when living with Jen, Jess, Nikki, Alby and Jim, was
that five housemates meant a LOT of distraction. Then, add the fact the three
girls were bossy; which meant getting bossed around whenever I go upstairs
.... and the fact most of them don't do their own dishes; which meant Nikki
or I usually ended up doing 3 times as much .... then add the fact four of
them were undergrads who like to drink and party ... and the noise ......
and suddenly there isn't much time to do uni work at home. I've lived/been
by myself at my old house in Cairns a few times periods - only 1 months while
everyone was away - but enough that I really enjoyed it, and there wasn't
THAT much maintenance. I could do all my cooking and cleaning, and water mum's
plants, and still have enough time to work on my honours. And yet, here I
felt like my entire weekend was just maintenance. But my worst problem has
been the TV. There was a period of about 3 months were everyone in the house
was madly renting movies, and so when I went upstairs to have a snack, I'd
see this brilliant movie I'd always wanted to watch! And so instead of reading
a paper, which I had planned to do .. I'd spend the next 1.5 hours watching
this movie, and then regretting it.
To cut a long story short, I think I'd be a lot more productive if I was living
with post-grads, and NO television.
Sadly, Brisbane prices are now really inflated, and so mum and I could buy
nice little two unit flat, but it would cost upwards of $300 grand - which
is more than our wonderful 4 acre 5 bedroom house in Cairns cost!! Unbelievable.
I still think it's a great idea to buy a unit, get someone to pay YOU rent/board
for three years, and then sell the house and make capital gain at the end
.... it would saves you spending $5000-$8000 a year on rent and hopefully
deliver return ... but the market is too risky .... but that's not the only
reason we gave up our search.
I realized that there was another difference in Cairns. In Cairn's my honours
was always going pretty well, I enjoyed tutoring, I knew all the lecturers,
and I always had mum to hug and talk when I had a bad day (which was almost
always related to the infamous cp3120 I stupidly agreed to tutor). Here I
don't have anyone to hug, but at least, whenever I've had a really long and/or
bad day (almost always related to the fact it took me 6 months to find a PhD
project) I could come home and talk to Alby or Jim. If I was living by myself
I would come home to nothing .... and even if I was in a 2 bedroom house,
and managed to get a great house-mate, there would be no guarantee I'd have
someone to talk to. And so even though this house can be noisy, and distracting
... it are those distractions which save you, and help keep you in touch with
the real world - a world outside academia. As has been said to me before:
if all you have is your project, then you if that goes wrong, you have really
have nothing. The house is going really well at the moment. My best friend
Big Jon has moved in and replaced Jen ..... Alby is going to stay on at least
another 6 months (I hope longer) .... and in 4 months we might have a second
postgrad in the house to replace Jess. The house has become a lot more mellow
and relaxed, and so the thought of moving all my furniture into a little room
in a unit suddenly didn't seem like such a great idea. We are now four friends
from a the same high-school in Cairns and two brunettes. To say we are an
odd mix is an understatement. A big friendly computer network person who blushes
bright red but who's luck with girls has been almost as bad with mine, an
asian people-person who tried unsuccessfully to make me conform to Brisbane,
a homosexual who prefers us to use the word "fag", because
"homosexual" is too clinical, a postgrad who's goal is
to prove he can be successful at a big uni (or as Alby like to call it; a
"real uni"), a girl who always seems serious and worried,
except for her big smile when she gets drunk or after she's farted (which
she's being doing a fair bit lately), and another brunette who, only now,
after 11 months, is beginning to understand my often strange habits, and even
hugged me once (albeit reluctantly) on her 21st birthday. We are a strange
bunch, but sometimes it feels like a family. It's very rare when we're all
together; and it's not common that we're all happy .... but it is a *kind*
of a family. And I, for one, would like to think that if I got into trouble,
they would be there to help me out. Except maybe Nikki, who would just stab
me and take my coins. :-P Oh, and Jess; who's too much a fashion god to be seen helping out someone
as uncool as me.
9/12 | ACB
research council presentation
Sadly, my mum's visit was very poorly timed. Brad had put me down to present
in front of a research committee on the 16th, but then they moved it to the
Friday before (the 9th) - right when my mum was visiting, and we were suppose
to be looking for property.
And I knew all too well it was important that I didn't "fuck up"
again. And so, instead of being a great host, I spend a lot of my time preparing
for my second seminar at UQ. Luckily it was only 10 minutes, and I'd been
given good advice after my first presentation, but I still had trouble sleeping
- although maybe that's because I put mum & jenny on my bed, and had to
sleep on a hard mattresses.
And so the question you're asking now is "how did it go? ... how
badly did I fuck up?". Or maybe you don't care and you're asking
"wow, why am I reading this kid's journal thing, I don't even know
him?"
The great news is it went really well. :-)
Woot!
I was worried I had too many slides, but a couple of speakers cancelled, and,
unlike my first presentation, I had the time to pace myself. But it was also
not what I was expecting - there were only six people at this ARC meeting
(there we more like 40 at my ComBio presentation), and I felt it was a real
shame there weren't more. In some respects I felt it was a little dirty to
try showing off what I was doing, and making claims that I would be able to
save cell biologists thousands of hours of work if my PhD project/proposed
techniques are successful - but that's the nature of the game. Brad says "if
you feel dirty now, you'll fell positively filthy by the time you finish your
PhD". On the other hand, it is really important for you to feel
like your PhD makes a difference, and to me, the real test will come in a
few months, trying to convince the biologists themselves (not just maths and
computer people), that my work is valuable. Friday finished on a high note.
On the same day I also found out that the girl I liked was back, but even
though I went up to her level, and still felt great about my presentation
- and (as my mum reminded me) was well dressed in a nice shirt and shoes -
I didn't have the courage to go in there. There is something scary about Hume
lab (or as other' people call it, the "Hume army").
10/12 | Mt
Glorious, and the decline of Cairns
Even though I was preoccupied during my mum's visit, we did manage to go out
to a couple of restaurants though, which was great (I'm so use to cooking
my own meals now it's nice to have a stranger do it) .... and mum had a car
so we took the opportunity to go to Mt Glorious - which is a REALLY beautiful
area - reminds me a bit of the Atherton Tablelands (but smaller)! Would be
a great place to take a girlfriend/boyfriend if you/he/she had a car. I wish
I still had a car *sigh*. On Saturday we went to Mt Cootha - which is always
nice - except that the day mum came was the day of our heat wave! I guess
mum must have brought Cairn's weather with in the plane. It was stinking hot
weather. On Tuesday we decided to go to the swimming pool at uni to cool off.
Unfortunately, about a hundred other people had the same idea. I counted eight
people per lane, and mum reminded me that at Paradise Palms swimming pool
(just over the road from our house in Cairns) it was rare to have more than
seven people in the entire pool!
It's sad news however; Cairns is going through another huge phase of development
(thanks in part to a guy called Hedley we don't like) and I think mum said
they predict Cairns will be the largest non-capital city in Australia by 2030.
I just tried to confirm that using the internet, but couldn't so maybe I got
it wrong, but I did find one site saying the Cairns region population is expected
to grow from 126, 000 to 250,000 within 30-40 years. And I think that's pretty
sad, because I think Cairns is a lovely place without being spoilt with more
ugly developments. But the worst thing is they are going to turn Paradise
Palms into a series of housing estates, and so there will be several buildings
in the rainforest just behind us. Mum is trying to fight them however she
can. She runs around with a camera tracking their progress, and making sure
they put in proper rainfall-traps, and she's writing letters to the local
government, but hey; the local government is pretty scared of Hedley, and
as far as governments go in Australia, the Cairns local government is know
to be pretty corrupt - "under the table" - you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours.
I told mum that, if they try developing the land next to ours, which is a
wildlife corridor along our creek line, she should make a phone call to Current
Affairs. I don't think she likes that idea though. Apparently they were dumping
soil on national heritage land, and the council found out, but instead of
fining them and slapping Hedley's wrist they just told them to move it. Anyway,
I can't prove any of this myself, so maybe I won't write too much more about
it. I just think it's sad, that's all.
10/12 | Nudgee
- where mangroves and fish go to die.
On Saturday before mum left I told her I was curious to see what the coast
was like just outside Brisbane (I'd always wanted to see for myself). So after
lunch at Mt Cooktha we went to a place called Nudgee just North of the Airport.
Just like Alby said, there is no real beach there (hence people go to the
Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast to swim and tan) ... in fact, there wasn't really
much at Nudgee at all, except mangroves and a tiny community .... but that's
what made it interesting. At Nudgee is right on the edge of the Boondall Wetlands
there, and they have some nice little signs talking about the history of the
place and a really nice 1.5 kilometer mangrove boardwalk. It was nice to see
some mangroves again - reminiscent of Darwin, although most of the trees at
Nudgee were avicinia marina; I didn't see any stilt-roots. Along the way I
saw a couple of guys fishing and walked over to ask what they caught, and
they were really friendly; said hello before I had a chance to. Not like city
folk, not many city folk say hi. :-)
The older guy had lived at Nudgee for 30 years and told us about how the place
had changed. He said, 30 years ago the fishing was fantastic, but then of
course they let the trawlers patrol offshore, and suddenly people stopped
landing fish. Bloody trawlers. Same thing is happening in Cairns really. He
also talked about the erosion, and how the 1 meter of beach/sand estuary we
standing on use to be a proper beach, about 5 meters into the sea.
The young guy was a really nice South African guy, who moved to Australia
a while ago and lived for several years in Melbourne. He talked about the
problems they had on the beach there were he watched Vietnamese and Greek
people rape the coastline - taking barrels full of periwinkles off the rocks,
breaking open urchins and catching very undersize fish ... basically eating
anything alive on the shore. He said he couldn't understand how any Australian
could destroy their own beach, where they lived, and ruin it for everyone.
He went up to some Vietnamese people once, and said "you know that's
illegal right" and they got agitated ... and so he said "I'm
telling you this for you benefit", and they pulled a knife on him!!
And another occasion there were a couple of big Greek men doing the same thing,
and he said the same thing, and they started yelling at him to piss off ...
and when he turned around to walk away the biggest guy belted him in the back
of the head! I couldn't believe it. Melbourne is one of Australia's nicest
cities, but there are obviously still a lot of arseholes around .... and a
hell of a lot of people who have no respect for our fishing laws .... and
as a consequence our beaches are being decimated. I was quite angry. To pull
a knife on someone, and then disappear into the vegetation with a stash of
periwinkles - that makes me sick.
This is one of those awkward moments where you don't want to be racist, but
you can't help but noticed certain cultures/ethnic groups are much worse than
others, and my god .... I think anyone who breaks the law should be punished.
I started thinking, what we need is to have big signs on our beaches which
say "If you see people collecting live animals off the rocks, or
anything else illegal, call this number 1800 5555 immediately".
Most people have mobile phones these days, and I'm sure they can have a few
patrol people; even volunteers; to spring these people and fine them so heavily
they never stare at an oyster again. If we want to protect our beaches that's
what we need. Then maybe we can cut back on trawlers, so locals, and tourists
can once again start catching fish offshore.
But at the same time I was sick, it's always great to talk to locals; especially
when they're as nice as these two blokes. The South African guy also talked
about litter, and says he always picks up litter on his way back along the
beach, and if everyone does their bit Australia would be clean. I agreed,
and told him I do my bit too, every time I go jogging - except I guess cleaning
the same stretch of urban road and park twice a week wouldn't be as rewarding
as cleaning a beach. I talk with them a while, probably longer than I should
have, because Mum and Jenny were waiting for me at a bird-hide down the track,
but hey; these guys were great value. The old guy said he was impressed that
the South African had managed to catch 2 whiting, because he hardly sees anyone
catch anything around Nudgee anymore. The African said his girlfriend would
be angry. :-)
10/12 | Garry's
bbq party - holding call
At the end of the day was Garry's party going away bbq/party.
He's only going away 3 weeks ... sheesh .... but I guess he just needed an
excuse to get drunk. There were lots of nice people there too - including
some neighbours, a British couple - Nick and Sophie - both working at QUT,
and I talked to Sophie for quite a long time actually - she was really interesting,
and we talked about what was wrong with the young generation. She said when
she was my age she was out partying every-night, but eventually grew out of
the alcohol thing ... I told her I got drunk for the first time only a month
ago, and she barely believed me. While I was talking to some other people
though I had a REALLY embarrassing moment, where I was leaning against a pillar,
and having a UDL (yep - you heard me - a GIRL drink ... say what you will,
but it tastes a lot better than bear) - and as I was starting a sentence I
swung my foot to the left a bit, and knocked over one of those little erectable
tables, and about 6 bottles feel onto the concrete floor; two of them smashing.
I just stood there and noticed that, this pillar was in the middle of everything,
and everyone was looking at me. Crap!!! Then, after my apology, and "I'm
not drunk, it was just an accident", I tried retreating , and my feet
knocked over another series of bottles resting on the other side of the pillar.
Man .... only two UDLs and everyone thought I was toasted. Embarrasment plus
one. :-)
It's a shame too, because it had almost been an entire week without me embarrassing
myself. So close and yet so far.
Nick told me later, "at least there is something loveable about being
the big clumsy oaf .... or that's what you should tell yourself anyway".
Bloody Brits. I also met some of Garry's lovely female housemates, and some
lovely ladies from level 3, and some really nice guys too. One was a librarian
who shared my passion for Asterix, and another was a level 3 guy who had some
interesting theories about IT support. A closed mouth gathers no foot.
I also saw Rad at the party - he came later, and his girlfriend is hot! I'll
tell him that tomorrow. :-D She has the quiet achiever look to her - with the same night-black hair as
Rad (maybe it's his sister) - and when I asked how they met Rad told me he
was just her "pity case" - she found him last year trying
to fit to non-congruent blocks of lego together, and decided she'd nurture
him. Hrmm ..... I wonder if that works. :-)
At about 11 I suddenly hit a wall ... I felt really sleep, so Garry called
me a taxi. Sophie and another guy called Craig said they expected better from
a young person. But hey, when I get tired, I really get tired. On the way
home though, it was amazing ... my taxi driver, probably late 40s, asked what
I was doing ... as they usually do ... but when I said I was doing a "PhD
in bioinformatics", he kept asking questions - and he understood everything
I said - right down to the electron tomography tilt-series, back-projection,
tomogram and segmentation. I asked him what his background was, and he said
he'd done Philosophy, and then another uni degree in Maths ... WOW. He was
one of those guys who knew a bit about everything. I was tempted to ask: "so
how did you become a taxi driver", but I was worried that might
sound condescending, and instead, when he got me home, paid him his $15, and
said .... I feel like I got more than I paid for, because the conversation
alone was worth a lot more than $15. So there you go ... talking science to
a taxi driver. And it's amazing, but mum told me there are a surprising number
of taxi drivers who are well educated. And why? Well it's hard to say ....
they need the extra cash ... they're over-qualified, they enjoy talking to
people, they hated academia or realized they could make more money driving
their own taxi.... it could be any one of these things. To often people say;
what a waste of a degree, if you end up with a job like that ... but I say,
if it takes a degree, or a PhD, to make you as interesting as this guy, it's
worth the HECs fees. There are a lot of educated people in Brisbane, and it
makes for a pretty cool community ... I notice that a lot now. I always love
the story mum tells about a guy she knew who got his PhD, got his dream girl
and then became a garbage collector, because he realized it kept him fit,
and he enjoyed it. Whether you become a great scientist, a poor scientist,
a lecturer, or a window cleaner; the main thing is being happy. I hope I never
forget that.
10/12 | Last
day of family's visit
Today was the last day mum & Jenny were here. I know, I know - how awful
that I didn't spend my last night with my family - but hey! I'm disappointed
I had to miss another party the week before - a guy called John Lock, or "JLo"
for short - and it was worth it to see Garry "holding call". Besides,
I went to a restaurant with them the night before, and I'm going to see them
again in 10 days! I'm going to be in Cairns for 2 weeks over Chrissy - from
the 20th Dec to 6th of January. It will be stinking hot (even hotter than
Brissy currently is), but it should be fun - I hope to do lots of swimming,
relaxing and catch up with friends. Might watch a few movies as well - too
hot to do much outdoors! And I might also write a Christmas letter to my friends
... or maybe I'll get lazy, and just compile all these journal entries and
send that. :-P
Anyhow, I hugged Mum and Jenny goodbye, then slept until 11 (I need it!),
and spend much of today writing this entry. This will be my last entry for
the year. Tomorrow, I want to wake up early and catch the 8:20 bus to uni...
put in a lazy week at uni (there is a summer student, Barbara I'm suppose
to be working with), and then have a great 2 week holiday putting a little
colour back into my skin!
Have a great Christmas everyone!! May you all get what you want, and have the chance to give,
as well as receive.:-) -- sincerely, Andrew.
