Larry

I was just sitting here with my laptop and working on assignments for uni and I suddenly realised that my computer didn't have a name.

I have a habit of naming things like my car or my phone or my plants, but it had never occurred to me before to name my computer. Which is strange considering I know that my brother names all his.

And at the moment with all my assignments I definitely spend enough time with my computer to warrant a name.

So from this day forth my computer will officially be known as "Larry."

I think its a wonderful name- Larry the Laptop works well and Larry and Barry (my car) works even better. And Tori will be please to know its not Bob : )

Yearbook Photos

Well you all know that I have been very busy, but I did manage to find a little time to relax. And what did I do with that time? I spent it playing around on www.yearbookyourself.com. This website allows you to upload a photo of yourself and substite your face into yearbook photos from 1950 to 2000.

Check out the results.

1950- remind you of anyone (Grandma maybe?)

1960- love the glasses : )

1966- the bob!

1967- looks uncannily like one of the girls at uni : )

1968- look its one of the brady bunch!

1990- am I a student of UTas or Degrassi High?

So those were my favourite of the photos- I'd love to see some of you.
It only took me about 30 min so why not give it a go.

Emma and Tori's Grand Tow Truck Adventure

Well, I have had a busy week. A ridiculously busy week.

I have had so much work to do for university that I have been working on assignments until late every night and then starting again the next morning. Hence the lack of blogs.

Yesterday, after handing in my Cell Biology Tissue Culture Prac Report and participating in the Cell Biology debates (my team's topic was "Is embryonic stem cell research positive for person kind," we were the affirmative and we lost- and I'm happy that we did) I decided that it was time to have a little relaxation as Tori and I didn't have any really pressing assignments to work on.

So little Tori and I went along to the Plant Science Honours information session to score the free pizza afterwards, and after filling up on pizza and orange juice (and avoiding questions about what we were thinking about doing for honours) we decided to go and visit Tori's horse, Twistie.

So we got in Barry and drove him back to Tori's house to swap into her car, The Beast (she needs a large vehicle to tow the horse float) and went to visit Twistie in Kingston.

When we got to Twistie's house we noticed that there appeared to be a trail of oil coming from The Beast, but we weren't sure if it was already there before The Beast arrived or not so we ignored it. We then decided to go and get coffee, and when the trail of oil followed us we decided that it must have been coming from The Beast. So we planned on getting some oil at the nearest petrol station and topping it up so we could get home, but the woman at the servo was horrible and wouldn't help us so we left.

A little way out of Kingston Tori's car (an automatic) decided that it could no longer change gears and started getting slower and slower and slower. So we pulled off the Southern Outlet onto a little side road thing and rang the RACT.

Did I mention that it was dark and rainy at this point? And that Tori and I had both drank 1/2 a gallon of orange juice and then had a coffee (well actually I had a chai tea and she had a smoothie, but close enough)- I'm sure you can figure out where this is going, and that we had to go behind a bush in the rain (and I had chosen that day to wear my awesome shoes with the high heels- not the most appropriate footwear for clambering down a slippery bank to find a bush).

After about 40min the RACT man come and called the tow truck. After about an hour the tow truck come and took us back to Kingston. After about 1 minute Tori's friends came to take us back to Toris house and then Barry and I went home. The whole adventure ended up taking us all evening, but never mind. At least there were two girls sitting alone in a broken down car oof the highway on a dark, wet, cold night rather than just one.

As Tori said "The Beast is at the vet" and will be out of action for a few days.

Yearbook Photos

Well you all know that I have been very busy, but I did manage to find a little time to relax. And what did I do with that time? I spent it playing around on www.yearbookyourself.com. This website allows you to upload a photo of yourself and substite your face into yearbook photos from 1950 to 2000.

Check out the results.

1950- remind you of anyone (Grandma maybe?)

1960- love the glasses : )

1966- the bob!

1967- looks uncannily like one of the girls at uni : )

1968- look its one of the brady bunch!

1990- am I a student of UTas or Degrassi High?

So those were my favourite of the photos- I'd love to see some of you.
It only took me about 30 min so why not give it a go.

Just in case anyone is wondering I am working on another post, but it is taking some time and I have a crazy amount of work I need to do for uni at the moment.

So hang in there and be patient. In the mean time have a laugh at this.

POEM written by Eeyore in a Quiet Moment

Christopher Robin is going.
At least I think he is.
Where?
Nobody knows.
But he is going-
I mean he goes
(To rhyme with "knows")
Do we care?
( To rhyme with "where")
We do
very much.
(I haven't got a rhyme for that
"is" in the second line yet.
Bother.)
(Now I haven't got a rhyme for
bother. Bother.)
Those two bothers will have
to rhyme with each other
Buther.
The fact is this is more difficult
than I thought
I ought-
(Very good indeed)
I ought
To begin again,
But it is easier
To stop.
Christopher Robin, good-bye
I
(Good)
I
And all your friends
Sends-
I mean all your friend
Send-
(Very akward this, it keeps
going wrong)
Well, anyhow, we send
Our love.

In which Emma nearly misses the bus, and nearly misses the bus, and nearly misses the bus...

Well, for the weekend I decided to go home to my parent's place.
"Why?" you ask, well because I actually like my parents (and they also have custody of my cat).

That and the fact that I was specifically invited up by my brother to go for a road trip up to Gladstone on Sunday with him, our cousin, Clinton, and our friend, Moose.

And Moose invited me to keep him awake while he drove back down to Hobart on Sunday evening. Which meant that I had to find a way to get up to Mum and Dad's without taking Barry (my Barina) so I took the bus. I booked in my ticket at uni so I could get a cheap fare a couple of days beforehand, but when it came time for me to leave uni on Friday and get home to pack my bags I nearly forgot to pick up my ticket and had to find somewhere to turn Barry around and then find somewhere to park him for 5 mins (a major feat on the uni campus) while I picked up the ticket. That was the first way in which I nearly missed the bus.

The second way in which I nearly missed the bus was because I had to catch a bus from my house into town to catch the other bus up to Launceston, and it was late. This meant that I didn't have very long at all to get from the bus stop at one end of Hobart to the bus stop at the other end of Hobart. This directly links in with the third way in which I nearly missed the bus- they moved the Redline bus terminal without telling me! Thankfully they only moved it a few doors away from where it was before.

I got there just exactly when the bus was supposed to leave and met reason number 4 that I nearly missed the bus-my name wasn't on the manifest. I would have been extremely offended by this but there were another 6 people who weren't on there either. There were enough seats for us all, and we all had tickets, but for some reason the computer had just decided to cancel us all off the manifest. After several minutes of discussion between the bus driver and the manager they decided they would let us all on the bus and update the manifest in Launceston.

So eventually I made it on to the bus. And about 3 hours later I was finally in Mum's car on the way home.

Friday and Saturday were both normal days at Mum and Dad's- enjoyable but not really anything to write about.

On Sunday, Clinton was being annoying and didn't come with us to Gladstone, but Robert and Moose (who had both arrived at Mum and Dad's the night before) did. Well, actually I came with them- Rob was driving. He is still furry, yuck!

We got up to Gladstone (about 2 hours drive) in time for the beginning of the last ever Southern Presbyterian Church service in Gladstone. We are retiring the preaching station because our preachers have all retired : ) We took some photos of the historic moment and the pretty old church and went on to Tommahawk for a picnic lunch. I forgot to mention that it was ridiculously windy at Gladstone (almost couldn't stand up), but it was a little less ridiculous at Tommahawk (I keep accidentally typing Tommawhak). Then we finished the 2 hour drive back to Mum and Dad's just in time to see them and Uncle Nathan and Auntie Julie (apparently they had been having a party without us) leave in time to be late for the afternoon Church service. Walking in the door we discovered Clinton (the annoying one) spending some quality time with our TV (apparently he had been part of the party as well).

Anywho, Moose and I decided we should pack up and head back down to Hobart. I had been wondering if we were both a little insane volunteering to be stuck in a car together for the long drive down south because we have managed to have arguments in a 5 minute car trip down the road. But we didn't have any fights at all- we were far too busy complaining about the wonderful skills of all the other drivers on the road to complain about each other- that and the uselessness of all the little towns along the way (Campbelltown is not useless for example, but Perth is because you never want to stop there but you have to slow down for the speed limit).

Moose did, however, make the fatal mistake of letting me out of the car at Campbelltown to buy coffee and I don't think the caffeine has worn off yet...

Constant Temperature- or not as the case may be

In Freshwater Ecology we are currently working on group projects- my group is researching freshwater snail habitat preferences. This involved us going down to a creek on Monday afternoon and collecting 200 tiny freshwater snails to put 20 each in 5 replicates of 2 treatments.

The different treatments were temperature differences. One lot of snails we placed in the 5 degree constant temperature room and the other in the 15 degree constant temperature room.

We (foolishly) expected that "5 degree constant temperature room" meant that the temperature would remain constant at 5 degrees, but when we were checking the snails the next morning ice had formed on the surface of the water, and today they had frozen solid.

So unless these snails are able to withstand freezing (we will find out when they have thawed tomorrow) we now have to collect another 100 snails and restart the experiment-this time using a refrigerator instead of the constant temp room.

It also turns out that the 15 degree constant temp room is actually 22 degrees, but that is a little less disasterous for the snails.

Its a very good thing that we are only undergrads working with very common snails, because if some of the postgrad researchers accidently froze their animals there would be huge problems- and very annoyed researchers.

Back to uni.

Well, that's the end of midsemester break. Sigh.

I woke up this morning and I really, really, really didn't want to have to go to uni.

But you should all be proud of me because I did go to uni even though I want to be back at my parent's place with my cat.

Sigh.

My Midsemester Break

Well, its been a while since I last posted.

I am currently at my parent's house for midsemester place.
The plan was to come up here, do some relaxing, and get a truck load of homework done. Unfortunately, I have had tonsillitis and the flu or something the entire time I've been up here so I have been spending a lot of quality time with the couch and my cat and not a lot else.

On Tuesday, Mum and I took a road trip up to Anson's Bay and then had lunch at Tomahawk and went to Launceston to meet up with Dad. We went out for tea and to the Tuesday Biblestudy at Church, but I got a migraine and travelled home curled up in the backseat of Dad's car with my eyes closed. Mum had been driving me around all day, but all Dad had to do was drive me home and I felt car sick- mind you I already felt car sick before the key was in the ignition so it really wasn't his fault.

Then yesterday my cousin Clinton came over for a while to spend some quality time with our couch. He would have spent some quality time with Fidget as well but she wasn't very enthusiastic about that plan.

Home is a pretty good place to be when you're sick, I've decided, but its not very conducive to actually getting any homework done. I know I really should care about my homework, but I really don't at the moment- and apparently neither does Fidget.