luck

for some unknown reason, I have been really, really lucky with all things science this year. Everything I've tried works, or at least works with minor issues. Yesterday, I managed to get a fairly decent western blot from a new antibody that isn't very homologous to my protein (it's only 70% with the recommended minimum is 75%). To add to all that, the antibody was held up in Australian customs for a week without refrigeration, so I really had no idea if it would work at all. And, it even works when it's really diluted (1:50,000) so I don't have to worry about using it all up. All in all, it was a good day.

Translation: a western blot basically allows you to identify proteins. You grind up tissue in a special buffer with things that keep enzymes from destroying your ptoteins. Spin all the non-protein junk down to the bottom of a tube, figure out how much protein you actually have in your tube using a very cool assay that changed from green to purple when it finds protein. Then you load your proteins onto a gel to separate them according to size, transfer all the proteins on the gel laterally onto a membrane using an electrical current, then apply your antibody to your membrane. Unfortunately, you can't see what your antibody is binding to at this point so you have to apply another antibody, called the secondary, that recognizes a little tag on your first antibody. The secondary has its own little tag that can be made to give off light. So you expose your membrane to film and develop it and you have a western. If an antibody is 70% homologous it means that the chunk of your protein that the antibody binds to has 70% of the same amino acids. The more amino acids that are the same, the better the antibody binds.
Now you can all call ourselves molecular biologists. Funny enough, there's also Southern and northern blots. East was left out of the party, but we can save that lesson for another day.

Spamalot and Thanksgiving fun

I almost forgot...after an amazing Thanksgiving lunch with my supervisors and other grad students, a couple of friends and I went across to Melbourne to see Spamalot, which has just started playing. I never got to see in on Broadway, but it was fantastic! It's showing in one of Melbourne's largest theatres, but it was still very small by NY standards. We had awesome seats in the front row of the balcony. I was laughing the whole time, and they even threw in some uniquely Australian moments. The only thing that was not done perfectly was actually funnier as a result. It's very hard for Australians to imitate a French accent so the French characters had an Australian twist to their accent that was fantastic.

A new PM

Well, ir has been an eventful couple of days for Australia. In a landslide victory, we have overthrown the sitting government and elected a new prime minister, Kevin Rudd. It has to be pretty big news if anything related to Australia makes front page of the NY Times. I watched the election coverage on TV saturday night. It was rather amusing. Voting is mandatory in Australia; if you don't do it, you're fined. To circumvent people with excuses like "I don't have time between 8am, and 6pm on Saturday to vote", you can vote at polling booths in the few days preceeding the election, or you can send in your ballot by mail. On the ballot, you number the candidates in order of your preference. If your first preference doesn't win a certain percentage of the votes, your second preference is counted, and so on. This has the very interesting consequence that a vote for a minor party doesn't detract from a major party's ability to win the election.
There was a gradation of silliness on the network channels in terms of election coverage. ABC, the national company, was the most serious; completely lacking such embellishments as cartwheeling cartoons of candidates as parliament seats were won or the 'tower of power': a projection of the number of seats won by each party onto the tallest building in Melbourne. The networks also vastly disagreed on the early outcomes of the election with one channel declaring Kevin Rudd the winner almost two hours before ABC finally caved.
Because Australia has such a relatively small population, the votes get counted very quickly. For many parliament seats, almost 100% of the votes were counted just 2 hours after the polls closed. It definitely made for much more exciting election coverage.
I'm off to a conference in Perth toward the end of this week and from that point onward life becomes really exciting for a while. First, seeing Perth will be amazing because it's a completely different side (literally) from Australia and I'm excited to present at my first conference. Only a few days after I get back, Becca arrives and we begin a several-week long adventure around Australia and New Zealand (since she convinced me to see NZ with her as well). I am sooooo excited, although from the looks of it the NZ part of the trip is much better planned than the Australian part. I think we will get on alright, though and have some awesome adventures on the great barrier reef and in the outback.

rockies

So sad.

At least they made it into the series.

Really?

I get daily US Info e-mails from the embassy in Canberra designed to keep diplomats up to date on the state's version of current events. Generally, they are pretty bland articles (i.e. "Librarian Nancy Pearl promotes reading, library services"), split between regions of the world. Today, under the Africa section, was the following headline:

U.S. Soft Drink Company Teaches African Teens About AIDS

Now, what does it say about our global influence that we entrust a soda company to educate a country on a life-threatening disease? I read the article out of curiosity and it turns out Coca-Cola actually is doing some interesting philanthropic work in Africa. However, that work is mainly limited to sponsoring concerts, etc, that are supposedly simultaneously teaching African teens about AIDS. On another note, it's also poignant that this was the only article under the Africa section. Apparently the US Department of State deems Coca-Cola's influence the only newsworthy event for the continent.

THEY DID IT!

The Rockies made it to the world series!
I'm totally skipping a day of work to watch them in the series

A not-so-boring weekend

I'll just skip over Saturday (complete with errands, grocery shopping, cooking, and laundry ugh!) and head right into Sunday since it contains enough adventure for many weekends.

I got up in the morning, went for a run, then headed out to a farm that I nearly ran by earlier in the morning where a colleague of the guy I rent a room from lives. Gus is a mechanical engineer (Graham, if you turn out like him in 30 years, I'm totally coming to live with you) who works at Avalon airport, the Chicago Midway airport of Melbourne. I have always really wanted to go flying, and I thought I might get to go flying with him. Then again, I wasn't really sure what was going to happen so I didn't want to get my hopes up.

When we arrived at his farm, we talked for a while about Australian farming politics and unions and then started a pre-flight check for a 44 helicopter that we would take to the waterfront (about a 10 minute flight). The helicopter is for tourists and normally charges 130 an hour, according to Gus, but due to complaints about helicopter noise it parks at Gus's farm every night so he can take free flights into the city of Geelong whenever he wants to since the helicopter has to get there anyway.

So, that was an experience in itself and I was thrilled. We flew over Geelong and around Port Phillip Bay and it really felt like we were floating. I got to sit in the front and the windows were so huge you could really see everything. We eventually returned to the farm and had morning tea and then Gus said he was going to take me out in his cessna, which he keeps in a barn attached to his house. Now I was really excited! We took off from a makeshift runway/pasture and flew to a nearby tiny airport to refuel. Then we took off again and flew around the Bellarine Penninusla, over Queenscliff and over the rip, an area at the mouth of Port Phillip Bay where water moves faster naturally than any other place in the world. Visibility was so high that we could see clear across the bay to the skyscrapers of Melbourne. Then we turned South to follow the coast (i.e. the Great Ocean Road) and I got to fly. I got to fly! So I flew down the coast until Anglesea when we encountered a rain storm so we skimmed across the Eastern part of the Otway mountain ranges and back toward Geelong. I flew over Deakin Uni and over the house where I am staying before Gus took back over the controls to land us back at his farm. It was so much fun! The best part is that he goes flying at least once a week and he said I could come back and fly with him again. We're planning trips to go further down the coast to fly by the Twelve Apostles (some cool rocks) and over the true Otway ranges as well as a night trip to see the lights of Melbourne. AND, as if you didn't have enough reasons to visit me in Australia, Gus is emphatic that I bring any visitors out to the farm so he can take them up as well.

I think I'll be dreaming about flying for a long time. I'm still really elated.

Here's a rough map. The farm is near where the main road from Geelong splits off to go to Queensfliff. Queenscliff is on the tip of the penninsula and Anglesea is at the bottom left. Lake Connewarre, my study site, is the big lake in the middle of the penninsula.

BTW, my favorite baseball team, the Rockies, are officially in the National League championships. They are such underdogs that even though they haven't won the World Series since 1995 and even though they have had an amazing season so far (only one loss) the story of the game didn't even make the front page of the NY Times sports section. I have a secret plan to convert everyone I know in Geelong into Rockies supporters so they will have a strong contingent somewhere outside of Colorado.

Was I really like this when I was 15?

Maybe I have just blocked it out of my memory, but I do not remember being that bad when I was 15. The 15-year-old I live with had her birthday last week. Yesterday, she had a bunch of friends over for a 'slumber party', but apparently no one told the girls about the slumber part of these events. They stayed up all night screaming and giggling and playing pop music in the room outside my bedroom. Fortunately, I tend not to have a problem falling asleep, or sleeping through extremely loud noises. But they even managed to wake me up a few times during the night. I don't mind since it is a one time thing, and everyone deserves to have a little fun on their birthday, but I do not remember doing the things these girls were doing. In fact, I don't think I stayed up for a whole night until college. Then again, I led a sheltered life with a 7pm bedtime and sans barbies or nintendo. She says she had fun, which makes the noise worthwhile, but some of her friends were feeling pretty sick when I saw them on my way to uni in the morning.

how long can I pretend that the seasons are not reversed?

It was really windy and stormy here today. Wind in Geelong has a category of its own. There are literally days when the gusts blow you over. Today was one of those days. I mostly stayed inside and baked bread and made pumpkin soup. My body is apparently still convinced that we are heading into winter, not summer, and so recently I have had strange cravings for squash. Hopefully the soup can ward them off for a while.

When I picked up the area official tourism map a couple of weeks ago, one of the events was a marathon along the great ocean road, supposedly one of the most beautiful coastal drives in the world. The idea started to form in my head that I should train for the marathon. It's in May, so it gives me a long time to train, and there's a half marathon race as well if I don't feel up to running a whole marathon by then. I've been perusing training schedules and, unfortuantely, they all seem to only start about 16-20 weeks out. I have much less confidence in my ability to suddenly run 20-odd miles and would prefer to build up to that distance much more slowly. So, I've been running three miles a day pretty consistently for the past couple of weeks and decided to officially start my training with a long run this morning. It was only six miles, a distance I used to run routinely in Ecuador, but it felt like a really long way. The constant threat of magpie attacks doesn't help, either. Although I have yet to be attacked while running. I'm building a theory that they only attack walkers, and that they seem to target people with curly hair (a curly-haired Macedonian friend of mine here is the only other person I know to routinely be targeted). But I digress. I decided to brave the wind since skipping my first day of training wouldn't exactly set a good precedent. But the wind was surprisingly strong. At one point an unexpected gust actually knocked me over. Fortunately, I made it back home and spent the rest of the day cooking, eating, and watching Australian television so as to completely negate any positive health value the run might have had.

And Geelong wins the premireship!

After graduating in June, I spent a few months in Maine, a couple of weeks on an island off the coast of Michigan, and now I am in Australia for a year (visits are encouraged!)
Here's a brief summary of what I've been up to in Australia:

• I live in a city that my lonely planet guide says is not worth a stop. A few weeks ago I would have agreed. It's slowly growing on me, though.
• Fortunately, that city is in very close proximity to Melbourne, which is worth a stop.
• The Geelong cats are the town's Australian Football League team (aka uniquely Australian mix of rugby and American football). They had not won a premireship (aka super bowl) in 44 years. They won tonight.
• I'm getting an honours degree in biology, which means I am again an undergraduate.
• I'm studying how some very tiny mussels in a very salty lake tolerate that salt.
• My mussels are actually surviving.
• I'm starting to learn some Australian vocabulary beyond G'day Mate and No Worries: i.e. tea=dinner, swearing is encouraged, especially when amoung people of authority, and any word can and should be shortened with a y attached to the end of it (sicky = sick day, cafy = cafeteria, etc).
• I have seen kangaroo. I have eaten kangaroo.
• I have seen emu. I have not eaten emu. I will eat emu on October 23rd.
• Australia is believed to be the only country that eats the animals that grace its coat of arms.
• I have not seen koala, yet.
• I have been attacked by evil magpies. Several times.
• I have tried vegemite. It is good in small quantities.
• I've visited Canberra, the nation's capital; Sydney; the Blue Mountains; Melbourne; and Rutherglen, a small country town in Victoria.
• I would reccommend seeing all of them.

If you would like to see some pictures...

Graduation: http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012153&l=34103&id=40901628

Maine: http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012477&l=26f17&id=40901628

Katahdin (the tallest peak in Maine/end of the AT): http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014179&l=06047&id=40901628

Beaver Island: http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014181&l=8fc0b&id=40901628

Australia: http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014182&l=c4dd4&id=40901628

and http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014183&l=d710d&id=40901628

stressed?

For the past couple of years K has been trying to get its students to lighten up. It all started many years ago when the day of gracious living was established. It is a sunny, hot day in Spring when you wake up to the chapel bells signaling that all classes have been cancelled for the day and the college sponsors busses to the beach as well as other fun activities. A year ago, facilities management installed a swing on campus. Soon thereafter they hired a chaplain who takes us on canoe trips, leaves cookies and tea out for anyone who wanders by, and keeps a steady supply of bubbles and hula hoops during the day and s'mores and a fire pit at night. Lately, however, things have become even more silly. One staff member drives a 'random act of kindness cart' around campus handing out free ice cream sandwidches to students on hot days, and at a recent senior event, we were all given kazoos to play our alma matter in front of the campus. As the culmination of silliness, we had a cirque de K circus with the band recently, as well.




It's hard to be stressed when you're eating ice cream and playing a kazoo, until someone reminds you that by Wednesday morning you will officially no longer be an undergraduate student.

My praying mantis emerged from their egg case today! Off to the wildflower garden they go to eat some lovely insects

fire drill

I was almost done with the anion-exchange chromatography step of my biochemistry lab when the fire alarm in the science building sounded. It wouldn't have been a big deal except that our professor told us to stay put and continue collecting fractions. The whole lab followed her directions and as the rest of the building evacuated we dutifully collected fractions. Finally, a few other chemistry professors asked us why we were not evacuating and as we explained to them that we were instructed to continue our experiment our lab prof informed us that the sirens were not a drill and we should actually leave. Since it has been snowing for the past two weeks in Michigan, we all huddled in the snow without our coats right outside the door of the building hoping we could return inside quickly. It turned out that some grey water dripped onto a sensor in the smoke detector system and set the alarms off but you would think that a bunch of science majors would know better than to 1) stay in the building during a fire alarm and 2) evacuate to approximately two inches away from the front door.

new wall decorations

My roommate had a brilliant idea to paint a mural on a particularly boring wall in our living room during Spring Break. I unfortunately ended up in the hospital halfway through construction of the fence and we lost out momentum. Fortunately, the continuous snow for the past week prompted us to finish this weekend. We haven't put quite all the flowers on the arbor over the door, yet, but otherwise I am quite proud of it. I will try and take another picture during the day so more of the detail is visible. For now, this is as good as it gets:

life with one fallopian tube

Twas was the day before classes, when all across campus, not a student was seen, not even the senseless. I was reading a book peacefully outside, hoping that all this talk of school was a lie. Then, the pain started. The most excruciating pain I have ever experienced had me in tears all afternoon. I tried taking warm baths, drinking ginger tea, and napping before moving onto extra strengh tylenol and 800 mg ibuprofin. Then suddenly, the pain disappeared. I quickly attributed this to the wonders of painkillers and went on about my day. Unfortunately, it returned to haunt me that evening and refused to yield to the cocktail of painkillers I attempted. I grudgingly went to the student health center on Monday morning where they told me they thought I had a bladder infection and sent out a culture even though they found no white blood cells on the dip stick. They also, however, scheduled me for an ultrasound at the hospital on Wednesday. After two nights in tears without sleep, I stumbled into the hospital for my appointment. Although the technician couldn't tell me what I had, I knew the huge sac of fluid I saw wasn't normal. She suggested I return on Friday for an appointment but I refused to leave the hospital and finally found a doctor who would see me in family practice. It turns out I had a huge ovarian cyst 10 cm across that was wrapped around my fallopian tube. Later that evening, I was in surgery. I naively believed I would be up and about the next day and able to attend classes on Friday. I was finally discharged from the hospital on Friday afternoon and started to go back to classes Monday. Fortunately, my surrogate family in Kalamazoo has been making sure I take it easy and made sure I had company in the hospital. Classes on Monday were tough...I completely underestimated the amount of energy it would take me to get around campus. But today I feel many times better.
By far the most frustrating part is realizing I have to take it easy for a couple of weeks. No running, no lifting (i.e. no carrying a backpack or picking up dogs) and no bike-riding. Grr.

ithaca

Please remind me when I spend the next seven-eight years of my life at Cornell NEVER to fly our of the Ithaca airport. All attempts thus have been disasterous. The first time I visited Cornell I couldn't fly in or out of the airport due to weather and then overbooking and ended up missing my spanish comprehensive exam as a result. Most recently, I managed to make it into the airport but barely managed to escape after hours of standing in line and begging with ticket agents.

(s)no(w)

In response to my previous post, spring has not arrived. Not in Michigan and certainly not in Ithaca. In what seems to be a trend in my graduate school interview forrays, The 70 degree weather everyone along the midwest/northeast part of the U.S. enjoyed earlier this week quickly turned to snow upon my arrival in New York. Eleven to 16 inches? In less than 12 hours? No problem! At least I don't have a comprehensive exam to rush back to when my flight out of Ithaca is cancelled on Sunday.

Spring?

It's finally warm here! After weeks of living in a frozen world, today reached a balmy 70 degrees! And the sun shone all day to top it off. The highlight of my day was finding an awesome shield bug while walking in the woods before dinner. You know it's Spring when the insects start emerging.

Too bad there's a cold front coming in tomorrow :(

a relaxed week of finals

I have no *real* final exams this week. That is, I presented my Spanish final (an analysis of the impact of the Bourbon reforms in Spain on the indpendence of all of Spain's Latin American colonies) last week. My genetics final was an open-book take-home exam that I just handed in and I just need to revise my final critique for journalism--a critical look at the effects of subtitling foreign films. Technically, I have to work at the vet clinic and finish grading some things, but mostly, I get to enjoy finals week.

A (belated) review of the Oscars

The Oscars are generally a tedious multi-hour self-congratulation by the established acting industry inexplicably popular with the American public. But touted as the “most international of Oscars”, this year’s show vowed to be different. With a record number of foreign film nominations accompanied by the most ethnically diverse group of nominated actors, the academy seemed to finally recognize the talent in non-Hollywood productions. Alas, at last night’s awards ceremony, they couldn’t manage to fully pass up lesser-quality, traditional Hollywood films.

At first the evening looked promising. Pan’s Labrynth, a Mexican film, was nominated for 16 awards and received three (best art direction, cinematography, and makeup) within the first hour, which were dedicated to “all the filmmakers in my country [Mexico]”. The excited cast received a slap in the face later in the evening when the award for best foreign film went to The Lives of Others. While the Academy was grudgingly willing to give up minor awards to a Hispanic film, it couldn’t neglect its Anglo-European heritage for the big one.

This pattern was repeated throughout the evening with smaller awards conceded to the international population of nominees while saving the larger awards for the tradition of Hollywood. Letters from Iwo Jima picked up an award for best sound editing, while Babel received one for best original score. The Blood of Yingzhou District won best documentary for a short subject, The Danish Poet received an award for best animated short film and West Bank Story won best live action short film.

Yet a series of faux pas starting with some of Ellen’s well-intentioned jokes began the night’s downward spiral back to the safe and tedious celebration of old American cinema, showcasing Hollywood’s lack of consideration for foreign films. Ellen’s first jokes about the degree of diversity at the awards ceremony were well intentioned, “Spain is in the house, Japan is representing, I think I see a few Americans as well…of course I’m talking about the seat fillers.”

Then she mistakenly referred to Penélope Cruz as Mexican instead of Spanish. When The Departed received its award for best adapted screenplay, the work it was based on, Internal Affairs, was cited as Japanese instead of Chinese. There wasn’t even an attempt to translate Ruby Yang’s portion of the acceptance speech for The Blood of Yingzhou District. Although given Clint Eastwood’s botched translation of Ennio Morricone’s acceptance speech for his honorary statuette in Italian, that decision by producer Laura Ziskin was probably less painful for the audience.

As the longest Oscars yet slowly rolled to an end, the international films it heralded were nowhere to be seen. Alan Arkin took the award for best supporting actor for his role in Little Miss Sunshine, Jennifer Hudson took the female version of the award for her character in Dreamgirls, and Forest Whittaker and Helen Mirren won best actor/actress. Although blockbusters were scarce among this year’s nominees (Little Miss Sunshine, an independent film, was the highest grossing nomination) the most blockbuster-esque film of the group, The Departed, picked up the awards for best director and best picture as the Academy finally hit bottom.

The drudging ceremony reaffirmed that the Academy is still too pompous to fully appreciate the diversity of today’s cinema.

I'm going to Australia!!!

I am officially spending next year in Australia courtesy of the Fulbright commission. Visitors are welcome anytime. I am not exactly sure where I will be because my original mentor took a job in the States but the choices are not bad: either Cairns or Melbourne...

Australia for the geographically challenged:

Cairns

Melbourne

grr...

I thought I was all done school shopping after trying desperately to escape from Ithaca during a snowstorm. But no. There's more. Cornell invited me to return for their graduate recruitment weekend which just happens to fall when I was supposed to be in Oregon relaxing and hanging out with my mom. I get into Oregon late at night on Wednesday and dding insult to injury, the only available flights to Ithaca are ones that leave early Thursday morning. I can't remove the wholly inefficient jaunt across the country because I bought a cheap ticket online and changing the itinerary will cost more than the ticket itself. Rationally, I know that I should go back to Cornell. I am still seriously considering it and I would get to meet faculty members who I am interested in working with that I didn't get the chance to meet while I was interviewing. Emotionally, I would really just like to be in one place for a while. No planes, no homework, no requirement to be extroverted. Just time to hang out with my family and my dog, and see what new swaths of forest have been clearcut since the last time I visited.
Alright, rant complete.

hide your sewing kit

A woman called into the veterinary clinic yesterday asking for a second opinion on her cat. Her kitten got into her roommate's sewing kit and swallowed a bunch of thread. Stangely, the first veterinary clinic she went to said that her beloved cat only had a 15-20% chance of survival. I found this strange, since we remove string and other interesting objects from both cats and dogs fairly frequently and with a much higher success rate. Since we sounded more optimistic, she ended up bringing in her cat and we did an exploratory abdominal surgery in the afternoon. I was really excited because I got to help with it. But, since we had regularly scheduled appointments as well, I got home really late.

After I ate dinner and pretended to work on homework for a while, it was time to head back to work and check on the cat. I failed to realize, though, that since I rode my bike to work earlier I didn't shovel the driveway. So I'm stuck outside, after midnight, in a really nice neighborhood where no one is up at this unreasonable hour (I'm housesitting for a professor), trying to silently shovel the foot of ice and snow separating me from my car. I was only successful at scraping off the top layer. Fortunately, the cat was doing quite well.

the countdown

I'm grudginly counting down the weeks before I am no longer an undergraduate. Maybe they won't make me leave, but I have a feeling that in 11 weeks I'll be forced out of my haven for the past four years. Here's an illustrated summary of what I've been up to the last few months:

August: Meandering across the US of A with my best friend and roommate, Katie. Highlights include cracking our windshield within the first 20 miles, killing a bird on the highway, reservation dogs stealing my sneakers, moose, illegal campsites, and a large prarie dog.

The best campsite I have ever seen (Katie found it)

The upper peninsula of Michigan: unfortunately, I can't diss the state after spending a couple of days up here.

Bacterial mats at Yellowstone

September-November: My favorite quote (during a review of my thesis, regarding a really cool confocal micrograph that I took and wanted to include in my introduction):
Me (whining): But I really like the picture
My professor: Yeah, but I'm sure you really like a picture of your dog, too, yet I don't see that included in your thesis. (I almost included a picture of Shiloh on the last page of my final draft just to see what he would say).
Neruda's poetry, advanced analytical chemistry, thesis revisions, graduate school applications, and Pet Vet were all occasionally punctuated by escapes to the arboretum:

Spittle bugs in a conifer


The sun occasionally does shine in Michigan

The international students' visit to the arboretum

December: two great trips...a road trip to see my other best friend, Reid, followed by a short visit with my extended family and a second stay in Ecuador!

Reid and I decide to jump into a lake near her house on December 1st. We immediately regretted the decision.

My adopted family with our christmas carol rendition (my sister remembered me!)

For unforseen reasons, I ended up back in the jungle collecting turtle eggs

A great hemipteran

Some cool ants making a nest

You know your underwear smells bad when...

Larvae, anyone?

Driving (illegally) in the Amazon in a truck with a broken clutch and a leak in the fuel injection system is fun...until you drive through a military checkpoint.

The cutest kids I have ever met

January: I returned to Oregon just long enough to leave for Colorado and kick off the interview season. Three months later, they are finally over and, for the biggest news of all, I have been accepted to all three dual veterinary/PhD programs and am in the second stage of the Fulbright application process. I guess now I have to make a decision :(