Its been a while between innings...

I've been having hard week at uni, trying to generate some last ditch results now that the last bits of tissue have come in. It was control tissue so I had to repeat everything. After starting off well last saturday by having the H&E and CD3 stainings go well, I came in on monday night, leaving at 10pm after preparing the GFAP for tuesday. The first 3 worked fine and I was looking forward to finishing up exps on Thursday. Hopes of that were dashed on Wednesday afternoon when the Control KO tissue came up positive for axonal damage, then on thursday the lectin stain caused its problems again and I suddenly found myself with only 3 of 5 stains to back up my hypothesis. So here I am again repeating the SMI-32 for axonal damage. There's no point trying to repeat the lectin as I've got no tissue left and its the more *temperamental* of the two.

God I hope it works. I just wanna finish up and start writing :(

handball champ and Dancing Rooster

Friday was a busy day. To celebrate the end of the footy season, my department had a *Pie Day* and handball competition. There were meat pies, party pies, sausage rolls, mini sausage rolls, pasties, mini pasties, mini ricotta and spinach pies, apple pies, and apricot pies. Basically there were a lot of pies.
The handballing competition was similar to the one they have on tv - everyone gets 3 shots and you aim at a big target; the bullseye (hole) is worth 10 points, inner circle is 7, outer circle was 5, if you hit the cardboard 3, if you hit the wall you got nothing. With my first go, I managed 15 points which meant I was actually came 6th. The top 5 ppl had a second go and the person with the highest out of those 5 won. After the first 4 finalists, it turned out that the 5th person had already returned to the lab so I took their spot. And I scored 21 points which was the highest! So I won, much to everyone's shock. Especially given the strange picture of me in a frilly pink skirt and knee high boots doing handballs. Who would have thought? :P

Later that night I went out to the Croft Inst. with friends. For people who havent been upstairs, its sport themed and the back wall has bleachers which give you an excellent view of the dance floor and the dancers. There was a guy who'd dance by lifting up his leg and then stomp it back down and bend over, like a rooster. He had some pretty weird moves. In one he kinda bent over, and with feet pointed in opposite directions, turn circles. It was very entertaining and I was disappointed when he went cos there wasnt anyone to point and laugh at anymore.

On Saturday, I spent most of the day in the lab, the sole bright spot being a phone call from Mandy in London. *Thumbs up*

eppendorf rocks!!!

Eppendorf came to the dept today to show us their wares, and like always, they brought along a great deal of freebies and foodies so everyone would come look-see. They fed me morning tea and lunch - I'm so full of food now. But I dont know how they can justify the fact that they put a small bottle of wine into every showbag. Scientists on the juice? Outrageous!!!

My hand was stung by a stinging nettle yesterday while I was turning a plant. Afterwards it swelled up and went lumpy then went down again until i just had a bunch of red spots on the back of my hand. I was reminded of this because the red spots are itchy tonight

Weekend adventures.

His name is Gaspard Ulliel, and I'll get to him later.

After a quiet Friday at home with my dvds, I had an action packed Saturday and Sunday with my sister's car. Those who know me know I'm not a big fan of driving, especially to places I'm not familiar with. But I did a lot of that on Saturday, and I did it ALONE!!! (mostly)

Firstly, I drove to Kew to pick up Queenie and then proceeded to drive the two of us (using her directions) to Camberwell for brunch. And it was an AWESOME brunch. We split eggs benedict with extra mushrooms and hash browns. nummie nummie nums. We then browsed through many shops on Burke Rd looking for a present for my new cousin (currently un-named although she will probably be named Isabelle). I got her some pink fleecy blankets. Toys weren't necessary because my auntie already has a 1yo boy. I then drove Queenie back to her house and played with Cookie for a while. She's such a happy dog, although it was tiring playing with her.

I then drove through Kew Junction to Uni to pick up my spare hairdryer. I don't think I've ever done that during daytime before. I parallel parked outside the Med Bld, picked up my stuff, then drove to Faraday St to buy some oriental lillies from Lygon St and then walked to the Women's to gossip with Tash and wrap them for free at the old Flower shop.

Then I did the hard bit....driving to Sunshine hospital all by myself. I did get lost once - I took the wrong slip lane and ended up driving somewhere I wasnt supposed to be, but a quick consultation with the Melway told me how to get back on track. Good thing I stole the new one from my brother's car. By the time I got to the hospital it was no longer visiting hours. The downstairs nurse quizzed me on information concerning my auntie as if she thought I was some random person! And then the ward nurse told me off for visiting during non visiting hours! Some people are busy, ok!!! But anyway, I carried the baby around for a bit but I found I had to be careful about the positioning because she had a tendency to go for the breast. My uncle came in later and I played with baby Ethan while Uncle fussed about the new one. I *heart* Ethan. I want a baby just like him - happy.

I then drove to Kensington to have a pizza and dvd night with Lydia because her housemates went to Bendigo for a 21st. We watched Hitch (3/5) and the movie featuring that spunky young thing above - Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles (A Very Long Engagement). It's by the director of Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet), and starring Audrey Tautou (from Amelie) and Gaspard Ulliel (from Les Egares). Audrey and Gaspard are childhood sweethearts. Gaspard has been fighting on the Somme but after a fellow soldier is blown up and splatters all over him he gets himself deliberately wounded so he can be sent home. However, getting yourself injured to avoid battle is a capital offence. Rather than face a firing squad, he and 4 other soldiers are thrown into No Man's Land and assumed killed in the crossfire. Audrey believes that she'd know it in her soul if Gaspard were dead, and so begins a beautiful, romantic, not to mention quirky, mystery movie. It also features Jodie Foster with a flawless French accent! Watch it! (4/5)

Nothing happening

Since my supervisor said that I should repeat all my experiments and I'm waiting for some new control tissue to come in, I've basically got nothing to report on cos thats all I';ve been doing.

1. I worked at being Dr Love for broccoli on Monday
2. Uni Tuesday and then had pho with Pans, Katie and Tina, then mucked around wtih him in the new city cinemas for a bit. We also found a shop (cant remember its name) that sold all these funny shirts with weird slogans on them. The best one in my opinion had *BRING BACK ANIMAL TESTING - MY DOG CAN'T SPELL*, with a picture of a dog writing "masta". heheheh
3. Uni Wednesday
4. Uni right now. Although I was told that Target are selling T shirts that say *Bad Alice* on them.

Might go get some!

Quick Movie Reviews

I've seen these movies lately but havent had enough time to critically review them, so here's the rundown:

Les Soeurs Fachees (Me and My Sister) - Two sisters (Isabelle Huppert and Cathering Frot) grew up with a drunk mother who psychologically abused them. Isabelle has since moved to Paris and is very emotionally controlled and cold, while Catherine stayed in Le Mans and always tries to see the brighter side of things. Isabelle lives in bourgeois comfort and has never had a job, while Catherine is a beautician. The story comes from Catherine coming to Paris (she has written a manuscript and has an interview with a publishing house), and the conflict between the sisters. You will at times really hate the way Isabelle treats Catherine, but in the end you can't help but pity Isabelle. In French.
3.5/5

Gong Fu (Kung Fu Hustle) - Stephen Chow wants to be a gangster and masquerades as a member of the Axe Gang, bringing trouble in the form of the real Axe Gang to the inhabitants of Pig Sty Alley. Hilarious fighting and multiple references to other movies ensue. Just dont think too hard about whats going on. If you're looking for a silly movie that's plain enjoyable without sex but a lot of comical violence, this is it
4/5

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - good, but not as good as the first one. While the explanation of why Willy Wonka is so weird makes the movie less *dark* than the first one (where he was just weird for the hell of it), many things in this movie didnt work as well IMO from the original. For one, the Oompa-Loompas. I dont like how it was one guy repeated over again and i found their songs about what was *wrong* with each child broke up the rhythm of the movie as a whole. The interaction between Wonka and the children just seemed off. Case in point - after Violet hugs Wonka and introduces herself, Wonka replies with *I dont care*. Well he cared enough to put out 5 golden tickets with the idea of randomly finding a successor, so you'd think he'd have a vested interest in getting to know her. The children themselves...the other 4 just seem so awful, that to me, Charlie didn't win because he was the best candidate out of them - it was more out of default. There are more gripes...but really, its an ok movie.
2.5/5

weekly summary

Gee, its been a while between innings.

Tuesday - Lab all day, home at night
Wednesday - Lab all day, home at night
Thursday - Lab all day, went to watch Daniele perform in *Le Pillole d'Ercole*, a play which was in Italian (so i didnt understand most of it), then slept over at Lydia's place
Friday - Lab all day, home at night
And tomorrow, its gonna be lab all day.

I'm kinda seeing a pattern here...

Day in the life of a Couch

When people wish to dispose of large objects that they no longer have a use for, one method is to simply dump it on your nature strip. From then on, nature, the Heavy Garbage Collectors or "Glaneurs" will work their magic. Working as a broccoli pollinator for company near my house, I just walk to and from work and go home for lunch. As such, I managed to track the new life of a wicker couch today.

9:30 - Sad looking wicker couch is deposited on the nature strip in front of a suburban house, its cushions are deposited on a pile next to it.

13:00 - Couch has been assembled on the nature strip, cushions in place.

13:40 - Couch and cushions are no longer present infront of the former house.

16:15 - Happier looking couch is in the front yard of another house around the corner and 1 street away, being used by happy looking fob kids.

Everyone is satisfied. :)

New Orleans

Une belle ville ancienne sous l'eau, c'est dommage.

http://content.ytmnd.com/138000/138263/image.jpg

and everything that's coming out as a result...c'est dommage :'(

My Ben is BACK!!!

My room just went up 5 points in SQ (sexy quotient). I'd forgotten how bright and nice colours are on this monitor.

Man, I need a life XP
hehehe
just happy to have it back

I have a cold/virus

I'm sniffly, have a headache, got muscle soreness...yep, i'm sick. And yet I'm still going to uni and spreading the germs. There are many suspects that I could have picked it up from:
1) My brother apparently picked up something from his patients in the hospital. He said he'd been feeling unwell since last Wednesday
2) Jenny was sick when I saw her on Saturday and she'd also been unwell for a while.
3) Laura at uni isnt feeling good and took today off.
I just hope the lil' kids I played with on Sunday don't get sick too :-( Those lil' chub-pots, I want one!

One night in Boxy...

me, pans and spoo felt like getting some bubble tea. Finding our old Happy Cup closed for some reason or another we went to another one where we saw this classic sign on the table and counter...

Yes, a square waffle. Naturally we had to take a photo.

It wasn't enough to make us buy one, though.

Trying to quit

I'm still trying to quit my sushi job. I can't believe how difficult it is! Today my boss kinda laid on the guilt and reminded me of all the concessions he's made in the 6 or so weeks i've been employed there.

Damn it made me feel bad! But it worked and I kinda agreed to work every other Wednesday if I could fit it in.

party!

Last night we had a party for Mandy's going away. The theme was *kiddie*, for all of the great foods you could legitimately eat as a kid and for all the kiddie parties we couldn't attend as kids.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that kiddies foods are very easy to prepare. We had:
chocolate crackles
honey joys
cupcakes (three types)
fairy bread
party pies
mini sausage rolls
chicken chippies, and
frog in the pond

wow, all that sugar! We also made the great discovery of Cinzano Asti Spumante. It's a sparkling white wine made from muscat grapes and tastes like sugar too!
Thanks to everyone who came and made things jolly. cheers!

Star War: Backstroke of the West

My sister brought this to my attention a while ago and I remember absolutely pissing myself when I read it, but only now am I posting the link.

http://winterson.com/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

What's here is another person's blog. They bought a pirated DVD of Revenge of the Sith, and basically the movie has been translated into chinese, but you could get english translations of the chinese translations.

I dont know which one's my favourite screenshot.
There's just too many.
My face hurts from laughing too much.

Project Update

In terms of experimental progress, things have slowed down considerably. I have been trying to get the RCA-I lectin staining to work. And while it did work in the *practice* runs (involving making sure that it did work and to find the right dilution of lectin to use), when it came to the crunch, the staining failed. And it wasn't something that I could just go *Again tomorrow!* because unlike CD3, lectin requires an overnight incubation period. After 3 failing runs, I assessed the number of GM-CSF-/- slides I still have, and decided to just let it go for now. On the plus side, it appears that the knock-outs DO have microglia which is publishable. So I've started the SMI-32 practice runs. Here's to hoping they go well.

Computers remain my enemy. My USB stick died on me today, and I've been doing the stupid thing of having my most recent documents on it and not backed up at home. And the dumb thing is that last night I told myself to back things up on the hard drive.
I've now lost the latest versions of my
CV
Covering letters
Literature review
Methods
Appendices
Example thesis
Biotech companies guide
Grant applications

Dammit. So its a good thing I've asked the Sushi shop that I cease work until November cos I think I'd kill myself I wanted to get all that stuff done....but no $$......

Perverts

If perverts can be considered amusing, today I saw an amusing pervert. In Bordies Carlton, the shelves on the topic *sex* are right near a couch that's in front of the European history section. I was sitting on the couch reading a history of gossip waiting for my sister when some guy distracted me cos he kept walking across my peripheral vision. It turns out he was walking towards the sex shelves, then walking away, towards, away etc. And it had to be sexbooks because the shelf next to it were self-help books. He picked something up, saw me watching, put it down and walked away.

heheheheh

Panda

What is it about pandas that make them so cute and huggable? This is Hua Mei aged 3 months and 9 days (in 1999), born at San Diego Zoo ages ago. But such a cute photo!

I wanted to put up a photo of 2 pandas in the S'mx today that I wanted to put in, but I couldn't find it online.

Most unimpressed

My BenQ FP71E monitor has been playing up, so today I took it back to the store that I bought it from to claim warranty, and demand a few other things. Seeing as I pretty much need my computer to write various things, I as most unimpressed when they said they couldn't tell me approximately how long I would be without BenQ. They then offered to lend me another monitor to tide me over while Ben is in shop....and ok, I think its about 17"....but its a freaking behemoth!!! I had to move out my little screen shelf from the wall so it would fit in!. It looks so ungainly :-( I hope Ben comes back soon cos this monitor adds no appeal. Most unimpressed.

But to cheer everyone up, here's a picture of a baby.