New skills

I now know how to dissect a cockroach brain.

Pick up attempts

There's a running joke among my colleagues that I only seem to attract 'very special' men. Except it isn't really a joke. Normally the only non-caucasian in a room, I'm used to being approached by people saying "ni hao!" only to then explain to them in German that not only do I not speak Chinese, but also that despite my appearance, I'm am not Chinese. Cos you know, 2 billion Asian people on the planet counts for nothing. The attempt from this weekend took the cake.

Out in da club with my gals, some guy broke through our circle of dance and greeted us somewhat politely. Then as our eyes met, he pointed at me, pointed at himself, then rounded his hands over his stomach. As I took a moment to process exactly what was happening here, good ol' Caro who also saw the exchange shrieked, "Omg, HE WANTS TO FATHER YOUR BABIES!!!" Wonderful as that offer was *cough*, I had to decline.

Or did I just lose the father of my babies?!

Self Control

Yesterday was a public holiday in Bayern and I decided to take today off just to give myself a long weekend. Normally on a day off, I'd probably be found reading in bed or cleaning the apartment, BUT NOT TODAY. After a discussion with Pato Peach, it was decided that I would hang out in her apartment (she does home office in Munich for her job in Madrid), and apply for jobs.

Doubting Tomas (her bf) was all, "Oh you girls are just going to sit there talking and doing your nails or whatever girls do - everything except work!" But you know what? That wasn't the case at all! Apart from our lunch and afternoon tea break, it was silent as we sat opposite each other, tapping away at our computers. It was actually kind of bizarre.

Following our productive work day (!!!) to top off this day of extreme self control, I accompanied the two of them to Ikea....and despite finding many things I wanted, all I purchased in the entire complex was a hotdog and drink! THAT'S RIGHT, I WENT TO IKEA AND ONLY SPENT €1.50. What the hell?!?!?!

Then to top off the day, I went home...and did some exercise?!?!

Silvester Vorsätzen! (New Years Resolutions!)

Now that I'm into my second year in Muenchen and it's the new year, I may as well set some things to achieve!

• Save money. I'm not burning through it but I'm not exactly saving a great deal either. Excluding things like rent, bills, gym membership etc., I will set myself a weekly budget of €100. This includes things like food/groceries, alcohol, and entertainment, and if I don't spend it all, it can roll over into the next week!
• Ride my bike. I don't think I've ridden it since I got it...
• Prune the friends from my FB account. 
• Lose 2kg. I think I've put back on the weight I lost but since losing 3kg led to such a dramatic change in appearance, we'll keep it to just under that!
• Ich werde mehr Deutsch sprechen! I've lived here for a year now and after moving with pretty much no (usable) language, I can understand when people are talking to other people on the phone on my behalf (thanks, Markus!). So now armed with German friends and colleagues, German flatmate, and German TV, I will start speaking more German this year. *nod* Let's just hope Fabi doesn't get concerned when he realises I'm talking to my TV in German!  

Imprisonment (aka Hives)

Before I went swimming at Nordbad, I was chilling in my flat, eating a bowl of tom kha gai that I'd made myself (and was pretty damn delicious), and enjoying German-dubbed TV. At some point, I noticed I was developing an itchy red spot above my eye. Having encountered this kind of reaction before, I wasn't particularly worried, dabbed it with some corticosteroid ointment I'd brought from Aus, and chalked it up to a mosquito bite. (I know, mosquitoes in Munich in the middle of Winter. What the hell was I thinking?)


The bump went down, I went off and swam my usual kilometre at Nordbad, and returned home incredibly peckish and decided to polish off more soup, this time supplemented with carbs in the form of pasta bow ties. At about 11:15pm, I noticed my elbows and armpits were developing a slight rash so I dabbed them with corticosteroid. At about 11:30pm it went haywire and I noticed the rash was travelling along my collarbones and about to join up together. It also felt like burning so I removed my jewellery, changed from my shirt to a singlet, and sans hat, gloves and scarf, ran out into the 0C weather in the search of a 24hr Apotheke (pharmacy). 

I made an educated guess that it would be in the direction of a party zone not far from where I live. It was wrong and when I finally reached an Apotheke that had a sign saying where the nearest one was, my frantic condition stopped me from being able to translate it. This is where the lovely and happy/drunken citizens of Munich came to my rescue. Seeing some people outside a bar/pub, I ran over and asked my usual *Entschuldigung, sprechen Sie Englisch?* and they happily translated the sign and explained to me how it works (the pharmacies take turns on who gets to be all-nighters) as well as looking up the location of the closest ones. Thank you, friendly drunk Germans! I raced off to the closest one to my place which turned out to be in the opposite direction of where I'd run. The pharmacist took a long time answering the bell asking for help (it was around midnight at this point) and some other random German asked if I was alright and gave me the translation/pronounciation for antihistamine (turns out it's antihistamin-ah). I swallowed one quickly and headed back home. Two hours later, the rash had pretty much spread all over me, joining up over my back and chest, and started up over my wrists which nearly joined up to my elbows so that I was wearing a burning red shirt. I decided it was time to go to the hospital.


This time I was properly dressed so I didn't look so frantic as before, and in fact, when I jumped into a cab and asked to be taken to the Krankenhaus (hospital), the driver was a bit surprised. I showed him my collarbones/neck and he said what I think was the equivalent of *HOLY SHIT!!!* The funny thing was by the time I made to Emergency, I actually felt a bit better and considered going home, but then thought I'd made the effort to come, I may as well check myself in. After an amusing pantomime conversation with the security guard, I was admitted and pumped full of cortisone, antihistamines, and had some blood taken for tests. Here's some photos of what I looked like:

Note the classic raised wheals in my armpit

My elbow rash trying to join up with my wrist rash.

When I woke up around 7am, the rash was completely gone and I wanted to check myself out - I had a full day of experiments planned. The doctors were a bit *WTF?!* and asked me to go to Dermatology and talk to the specialists there about my madness. I got the same reaction there and so when I rang work to tell them what had happpened and they begged me to stay, I ended up staying after they connected me to an IV drip. 

Pooey finds this incredibly funny.

At 4pm, my doctor said the results of my blood test had come back showing I was perfectly healthy with all my results being wonderfully within the normal zone - except for my blood glucose (remember, I'd eaten a bowl of pasta and soup before they took that reading!) - and since the rash wasn't there, they couldn't keep me there. I was however warned to come back if the rash came back.


Needless to say, it did come back during the night. I examined myself in the morning noting I was a pink marshmallow but my breathing was fine so having confirmed that I wasn't dying, I went to work. They took one look at me and begged me to go back (quote: Your earlobes scare me, they are red! Please go to hospital, we don't want to tell Australia that we killed you). I went back, met the same specialist (quote: I told you it would come back!) who promptly put me back on the antihistamine drip, then doubled the dosage later when the rash spread over my face. Thus began my second incarceration.


And when I say I was in prison, it really was like I was in prison, except prisoners are allowed to spend a portion of their day outside, wash their hair, and have a variety of foods. (Random fact - Pooey also told me prisoners in Norway are allowed to spend time with dogs). Because I was hooked up to the drip, I wasn't allowed to get my arm wet meaning I couldn't shower, and was fed only rice and potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the extent that the 85-year old woman I shared my cell with asked me if I was a vegetarian. I dreamed of meals of French cuisine and looked at other peoples (not particularly appetising) meals with envy. I couldn't even have butter, salt, or pepper with my carbs and carbs! I was later shifted to a room with a 27-yo (Anni) and when she went to get some more bread to go with her dinner, she was instructed not to share any of her meal with me! There was one television in the communal patients room which seemed to be permanently surrounded by old men watching the Biathlon (apparently a German man won for the first time in years?), although Anni and I managed to grab it and watch the second half of Tropic Thunder. I also started doing an ancient jigsaw that I quickly established was missing quite a few of it's original 1000 pieces, much to the amusement of the TV audience who would come up, say a few words in Deutsch, laugh when I said I spoke kein Deutsch, and then walk away.

Eventually, it was conceded that the barrage of tests conducted on me had proven that I was EXCEEDINGLY HEALTHY, and that since the rash had subsided and didn't come back 24hr after they changed my drip to plain Ringers, I was free to go. I tried to restrain my happiness for Anni (she was told she might be allowed to go on the weekend, maybe) and we impatiently waited for someone to remove my drip. As soon as it was out, Anni gave me some of the best chocolate of my life. Okay, it was just Moser Roth but hey, something! This experience has taught me that I am not to be taken to hospital unless I am dying. And even then, I think I'd rather die than be made to stay in hospital for 4 days again. Please.

Moth traps - *WARNING*

WARNING!!!

THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC PICTURES OF DEAD MOTHS IN TRAPS.

I hate moths, they're bastards. They're disgusting little critters who get into your house, lay their eggs and then then die so you end up finding moth bodies here and there if they manage to evade you. But those little eggs hatch into larvae which get into your clothes and chew little holes in them, the little bastards. This is particularly upsetting to me and Pooey because she left some nice (shared) knits in her closet for the summer months, and when I got them out to wear in April, they were holey! Bastards. We use things like naphthalene balls, oak balls, lavender patches etc. to repel them to no joy.

 

A few weeks ago, Mischka informed me about these awesome traps she uses in her wardrobe. They consisted of a small square of moth pheromone located in the middle of a glue surface. the pheromone attracts male moths which then get stuck in the glue. With the males gone, the females can't get preggers to lay eggs! But if they do lay eggs, they'll get traps in the glue as well! It's like a vicious circle of moth death. I ended up purchasing a packet with her - each packet includes two traps, perfect! One for me, one for Pooey.

 

The red spot is the pheromone lure.

 

The trap sitting on top of some knits in Pooey's wardrobe. 

And so three weeks later, this is what we got...

EUW GROSS!!!

  

But on the other hand, at least we know these traps work! They need to be replaced every three months or until the trap is *full*. I'm not sure what defines a *full* trap; it might be related to your tolerance for seeing dead moths.

Satisfaction

When I got back from my Euroland sojourn, I was pretty horrified to see the condition of the house. I mean, I was only gone for a fortnight! My biggest shock was the condition of the shower. I realise I should have taken photos but this might be enough as a description - there were black bits. I was waiting to see if the brother was going to do anything to rectify the situation. It probably should have occurred to me that given that he'd clearly been using the shower as this condition appeared, he wasn't going to do anything to clean it. 

I finally went crazy on the weekend when I woke up EARLY after going to a killer party (thanks for the invite, Azu!) and proceeded to give the cubicle a strong rubdown followed by hot water rinse. My madness extended to the rest of the bathroom so when I was done, the recess was sparkling white, the walls and doors were sparkling clear, the mirrors had been shamwowed...and perhaps most satisfyingly, brother took the hint that I was cleaning the shower so he used a different one. Kekeke.

Random bitch session.

This is going to sound really petty and bitchy but....I know someone who hunches over as part of her 'normal' posture. It really annoys me. The slouching makes me want to slap her, grab her shoulders, pull them back and down, and push her into a proper posture.

Bacon gumball review

A few weeks ago, Dr. I posted a picture of a tin of bacon flavoured gumballs on the book of face with the caption 'Only in America'. Going against the flow as I often do, despite many people decrying about how awful they must be I found myself intrigued at how the combination of savoury bacon and sweet gummy flavour would work. Wonder no more!!! The gumballs have arrived and in the grand scientific tradition of self-testing and experimental replication, I can no report on how they taste!

Opening the tin, you'll find yourself assaulted with an intial aroma of artificial smokey-bacon flavour in conjunction with the rubbery undertone of gumball. Upon putting one of these in my mouth...when the gumball shell cracked, a dry, smoke-like flavour expanded throughout my mouth, permeating my soft mucous membranes and continuing down my throat. I felt as though an actual smoke cloud was there, so I would describe the experience as to akin to smoking cigarettes although given that I've never smoked a cigarette ever (yes, this is true), I could be wrong. The initial 'smoke' is then juxtaposed by the sweetness of gum leading to a flavour best described as a melange of smoke and rubber. The awfulness made me laugh and I eventually had to eject the gum and swill my mouth out with glasses (yes, plural) of water. As one of my audience said, "I wish I had a video camera to record that!"

Pooey's description, "...like eating the remnants of a burnout."

Scientists are a curious bunch, in being both inquisitive and also of a strange nature, and so I was highly entertained going around ACB asking various people if they wanted a bacon gumball. From Honours Student to Associate Professor, one could track the piquing of interest, followed by the horror induced by the scent, the resolute attitude of whether they were up to the challenge, an initial confusion in response to the initial flavour, disgust in response to the second, and then either humour or declarations of how evil I am. So regardless of edible rating and whether they fulfill their promise of being a bacon-flavoured gumball, there is definitely much entertainment to be had from them!

Stories from the salon - The Cut

I've been thinking about cutting my hair off for quite a while now. A number of factors have resulted in my having long hair for many years. For one, I like the simplicity of long hair - it's perfect for lab work because it's easily restrained, and then it's easy to style it for formal occasions. I'm also extremely lazy and its just easy ti tie back. Also, due to a combination of poverty and time constraints, I don't get my hair cut often - probably around once every six months. But recently it's occurred to me whenever I left the salon that I'd been walking out with what I walked in - long layered hair. And I started thinking: *Time for a change!* and so an appointment was duly booked in 6 weeks in advance

As some of you may remember, I experimented using the InStyle programme. But while the bob seemed to look okay on me, I was unsure about it - especially the bangs/fringe. My female friends were all *yeah!*, while the male friends were *no!*
Or in the case of Spuey, "All girls look better with long hair! Name me one who looks good with short hair!"
My reply, "Audrey Hepburn?"
"Better with long hair."
As time to appointment steadily grew closer, I kept insisting that I was going to cut my hair off, while wondering if I should. Eventually, something made me think of Natalie Portman's character in Closer and the range of hairstyles she sported - pixie, Louise Brooks-esque bob, longer bob, blonde wig, and then long curls.

Wow, she looks good with that hair...just like Pooey, I wish hairstyles came with face transplants

And so I took half a day off work, gave this pic to my hairstylist. Cue this conversation:
"So! Last time you were here, we said we were going to cut your hair off!"
"I still want to but....do you think this would suit me?"
"YES!!!...but I'm going to cut it longer so that it hits your shoulders."
"That's good cos I think she has a longer neck than me."
So I sat back and didn't look up from the magazine as I could feel my hair getting shorter and shorter. And then all of a sudden, we were done! The real shock came when I went to move my hair from beneath my scarf and there was nothing to move!

I went back to work and was met with a number of screams, declarations that I looked younger/sophisticated/peppy/Asian (duh)/good.

Nothing like posing in front of a whiteboard listing experiments to be done

So I guess it's a successful cut and a significant enough change to alter the way I look. Well, except for one person who said, "Something's different' about you."
"I cut a good 15-20cm off my hair."
"No, that's not it."
"Yes, I had long hair this morning and now it's short."
"No, I think it's because you're not wearing glasses."

CHEESE!!! With extra books!

I finally submitted the final bound version of my thesis. So here I am, posing with them in front of Professor Jones' personal library in their eye-gougingly red (Oxford Red!) and gold lettering glory.

Me and my 300 page baby (x2)

That's it! Depending on who you talk to, The Phud is officially OVER!!! (The Uni reckons I'm not a Dr. until I get my fluffy hat. Tight!)

Good week last week!

I just feel like sharing the goodness that was my week last week.

Monday - lost 2kg, got cleared of cancer, had a great afternoon nap.
Tuesday - productive day at work, good session at the gym, delicious roast lamb leg dinner!
Wednesday - productive day at work, good session at the gym...I can't remember what happened in the afternoon.
Thursday - *pritti hearts* birthday of my husband *pritti hearts*, another productive day at work, got interviewed for another job, finished thesis corrections.
Friday - CAKE!!! THESIS CORRECTIONS PASSED!!! OFFERED JOB!!! EXCELLENT SICHUAN DINNER!!!
Saturday - My birthday, duly celebrated with tea, cakes, pastries, dinner, and drinks.
Sunday - Yum cha + cake.
Monday - More cake, given the go-ahead to print out final copy of thesis, printed out final copy of thesis.

Yes, my week last week was damn good. Seriously good stuff. Here's to this week being just as good!

Huh.

Late last night, I decided I needed some casual runner shoes. Well that's not entirely true, I had decided I needed them earlier in the week when I was looking for some slip on shoes that would adequately support my right leg (cramped from all that sectioning on Tuesday) and missed my old Le Coqs and the Golas. I decided to get some Lacoste flats but Pooey told me to wait because she's going back to Meldon and suggested that I instead visit her place of work and get some Dunlop Volleys because they're on special.

SOLD!

Because I'm flying to C-town later today and figure they might be handy there, I decided the best course of action would be to get up early and go with Pooey to her work. By 9:30, I had the shoes plus some other things . I was now stuck in the quandary of how to get home. I decided the best way was to take a bus that I'd hadn't taken since my early university years (as opposed to my more recent ones). The route has been amalgamated into a circle route across the city so I asked the driver whether it was possible to buy a ticket for the short leg I wanted to travel. "No, the ticket for that is the Zone 2 ticket valid for two hours." As my only choice, I purchased the ticket, got my change, and sat on down. Then I actually looked at the ticket and realised he'd given me a concession fare. :O A fare which is only valid for people showing appropriate ID which I was not asked for, or people under the age of 15.

Okay, my hair was down, I was wearing no makeup and was wearing a cotton dress...but I'm pretty sure I've passed that stage given that bottleshops and some bars and clubs have stopped asking me for ID. Or he just assumed I had a student concession. Or I have found the fountain of youth!!!

Third place!

After a few years of trying, I've finally won a judged prize-winner at the Under the Coverslip competition!
Here's my pic!
After the presentation, I was told that one of the judges vocally thought I should have been placed higher. I'm not sure if I should be happy or pissed off at that.

The Hike v2.0

The last time I was in c-town, I somewhat notoriously went on The Hike v1.0. I swear, I have never had so many people laugh in my face before whenever I told them

1. That I was actually going /went on a hike. Me! Hiking!?! And of course
2. The story of what actually happened on the hike.

When people found out I was going to c-town again, I got a lot of people sniggering and asking if H was going to make me go on another hike. In fact, some people wished me a happy hike rather than a happy trip (Pom, I'm looking at you!).

Because he values his life, H promised me that this time we wouldn't go off the track. Yay! Also, because I am a sun-hater, he decided we should go in the late afternoon-early evening. Double yay! And so, more mentally prepared, we went off to walk the track around Mt. Majura. I had my ipod and happily sang along to 80s movie soundtrack classic - a bit to H's and to the general public's bemusement that I was disturbing the birds. We made it to a clearing part way up the mountain and watched some planes fly in and out of the c-town airport while enjoying some fruit and muesli bars.

H admires some trees.
(EDIT - and vanillabear admires H's ass)

This wallaby came quite close!

Come back, Mr. Wallaby!

After deciding that we didn't have enough time to make it to the summit, we went on down back towards the start. Now, I suffer from quite bad hayfever. You probably all know where this story is about to go. I had popped a 24-hour antihistamine a few hours earlier thinking it would keep me sane and sniffle-free. Not so. I'm not sure when I started sniffling, but by the time we made it back to the carpark, I was full on blowing my nose.

Excluding the summit, the track was only about 3.5km long - peasy. Peasy enough that H decided we should take a walk around the neighbourhood while it was still light for extra exercise. Figuring it couldn't hurt that much, I acquiesced with what I hope was minimal fuss. Bad mistake on both our parts. By the end, hayfever had made my face and especially my eyes feel so painful that...I stopped talking.

Poor H noted afterwards that the ensuing silence made my misery readily apparent and he finally realised that nature just isn't my friend. No comment on whether he'd make me do it again yet.

Influencing life since the last fortnight

Well now, all the love I've been giving to the Pretty Woman official soundtrack for the past two weeks have borne fruit. Pretty Woman is going to be shown on TV on Saturday night.

Kekekekekeke.

Me + Hollywood Hair = Skank

So Vanillabear felt like she should get a hair makeover and to help her decide which style to use, she decided to use the InStyle Hollywood Makeover website. I will confess to being slightly fascinated by these types of programmes - which girl hasn't wondered what she'd look like if she could be made up to look like a movie star?!

With Jessica Alba's hair... ummm....no, doesn't suit.

They're also quite fun for doing things like messing with hair colour - clearly I would look terrible with blonde hair in real life but with the magic of The Interwebz, we can now tell how it would go!

Blonde like Amanda Seyfried (Mama Mia!/Mean Girls)

One thing I also noticed while using this was that Hollywood women have HUGE hair. Like....HUGE!!! And a lot of it too! I know this is due to hair extensions/weaves to make their hair look more lustrous and full but on an ordinary person (i.e. Me), it looked downright ridiculous.

With Blake Lively's (Gossip Girl) HUGE hair

Or as Pooey said when I showed this pic to her - OMG!!! YOU LOOK LIKE ONE OF THOSE ASIAN SKANKS IN THE CLUBS!!!

Highly recommended for a good afternoon laugh or procrastination time!

The Hike

I'm in C-town for a change of scenery, visit friends, see some of the tourist highlights of our nation's capital, and a less disruptive location to write the thesis. It has been going to plan for a bit with nothing particularly out of character. Until yesterday.

So people who read this blog regularly and know me (probably because the only people who read this blog regularly actually know me :P), will know that I'm a dress-loving, high heel stiletto wearing lab scientist who likes to hang out at the cinema/gallery/bar in my spare time and maybe some theatre/opera/ballet to mix it up a bit. Outdoor pursuits? Maybe if it's because I'm pounding the pavement from one European gallery to the other! I began to hear comments from various sources that H had the brilliant plan that to enjoy C-town, I should go on a walk through the bush that surrounds the (small) city. This was reinforced by him actually asking me to bring a pair of proper athletic shoes rather than only kitten heels. :O

As I said to The Pom one day on the way to the gym, I'm like a luxury Persian cat! I can survive outside but it's best for everyone that you leave me indoors. However, because we are gym partners and therefore have a more special relationship where we can abuse the other without getting mad, The Pom released a stream of vitriol aimed towards my unwillingness to go outside my comfort zone and hit me with bullets of derision that would have felled a lesser person. Not I. Instead I was fuelled with the desire to prove wrong everyone who laughed at the thought of me doing some bush bashing. That and the realisation that H did go to the gallery with me and it would be only right that I do something he liked.

And so I went on a 6.5km hike that included some pretty steep climbs to a final 750m elevation. H was willing to do something shorter and easier due to my novice position but no, there had to be a challenge other than distance. And sunshine. Here are some pics

The view from halfway to the top.
(Stupidly, I appear to have not taken any photos from the top?!?)

H enjoys the view.

Other happy hikers.

Yes we saw some wallabies, especially for the Orangehoodies

The hike was supposed to go for 2 hours. Not a problem in my eyes because I saw that we had a nice track that many other ppl had clearly been on before. This was confirmed by our meeting some ppl on the way and at the summit. Even the steep parts weren't an issue due in my eyes, bless gym. But eventually we hit a bitumen road and H said the words "I don't feel like walking along a road, lets cut through the park to the path further down the hill."

As much as I wanted to say *hell no, lets follow the path the guidebook suggested*, I deferred judgement and that was how I ended up clinging to his back as we descended along what was essentially a game trail. It was steep - I figured if I fell, I could ride his corpse to the bottom. Two barb-wire topped fences later, one that was crawled under, the other which was gingerly climbed over, we made it back the original red clay path we set off on.

At the end of the hike, H said, "I don't think I realised how much of a princess you are until I saw that look of horror when we decided to go off-road." To that I say........................................................................well I have nothing to say to that because it's true! But this is a princess can be both the Palace flower and the warrior, just like Mulan!

(Video suggested by VB and CB)

A better view of Parliament House from Mt. Ainslie (which I didn't climb).

Sure, whatever

A couple of weeks ago, I met a friend of a friend. She looked at some photos on my camera and asked me "Who is that?"
My reply was, "Errr....that's me."
"NO WAY!!!"
What followed next was akin to this scene from the 2001 spoof-movie classic (The first? The best?) when it was requested I remove my glasses and let down my hair.

(The audio has been disabled but you should get the gist at about 0:50 - 1:25)

Eventually though, the level of her incredulity moved me from being flattered to feeling a little insulted. Quite frankly, I like my glasses and it's more practical to have my hair pulled back when in the lab. Other people have since told me that the removal of my glasses and change of hair leads to a complete metamorphosis, most recently a gay senior researcher at work. I think I look pretty much the same but I'll concede that I may not be the best judge here.

So the poll is basically whether I should drop the geeky scientist look in favour of the glamour bombshell.

People I allegedly look like.

This post is inspired by the drunk guy who was sitting next to me at the wedding yesterday who said that he thought I looked like....

Michelle Yeoh.

Also I have a friend who for some reason thinks I look like...

Julie Delpy.

For other crazy lookalike, see here and here!