Emma's Adventures

New Years resolutions

2012-01-21T15:20:00.000-08:00

Last year, you may remember my new year resolution was to set myself the task of finding, observing, and listing as many different species of Tasmanian birds as I could over 12 months. I diligently kept my list, which grew very quickly over the first few weeks, but slowed down considerably after I had listed the most common birds. Well, in the end I made it to 77 species. Not a bad effort, but not stellar either.
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This year, my new years resolution was made for me by my father - his idea was to spend 12 months photographing as many species of bird as possible. I liked the idea so I have adopted it. It should continue to improve my bird identifying skills as well as drastically improve my wildlife photography skills. My brother tried to add to my resolution by making me have to take a photo of a bird every day, but I wasn't into that :)

A second benefit of this year's resolution is that it will give me something to blog about. I've decided to upload any and all good shots I get over the year here for you all to check out.

So far, the only shot worth sharing is this one (above) of a Wedgetail Eagle being harassed by a Swamp Harrier, but I have a couple of shooting days planned so there should be more soon. Watch this space.

P.S. This post was written a week and a half ago, but I couldn't post it yet so you shouldn't have to wait long for more photos now.

Housesitting

2012-01-20T02:28:00.000-08:00

As most of you know, I spent a week housesitting for my friend in Deloraine, looking after her three dogs, two orphaned baby devils, and a ferret. I quite enjoyed my stay and my time as a dog owner. You really can't feel unloved and unappreciated when you have three dogs enthusiastically welcoming you home every night. I didn't enjoy being a ferret owner very much, though. Here are some photos of my dogs and my devils - I didn't take any photos of the stinky ferret.

My Lucy

My Lucy and my Alley (and her hippo)

My Sidney

My Sidney's closeup

And... my baby devils!

Of Cameras and Camping

2012-01-06T15:58:00.001-08:00

Meet my new, quite expensive Nikon Digital SLR camera. I bought it in mid November, but I hadn't taken a photo with it until Christmas on the beach. I have now taken some photos with it, but it has become apparent that I need a lot more practise and perhaps some lessons before I actually know what I'm doing. Thankfully, the camera seems to know what it is doing so basically so far I've just been using it as a point and shoot, but with quite impressive results (I think, anyhow).
It came with a bag, two lenses, a tripod, and a bag so I'm ready to go forth a photograph. Now just to find the time.

Malcom the Murderer

2011-12-29T00:15:00.000-08:00

A side note to my Barrington Tops trip is the story of Malcom Naden.

As most of you know Malcom Naden has been on the run from police for around 8 years, wanted for 2 murders among other things. What I didn't know is that he was hiding out in the vicinity of Barrington Tops. In the immediate vicinity. So close that the police were camped out in a neighbouring house and nearly ran us off the road when they got news of a sighting. Malcom has since moved on.

I casually mentioned this to my boss a couple of days later when Malcom made news again by breaking into a home about 100km from Barrington Tops, and got quite an interesting story in return - it turns out that my boss has quite an intimate history with Malcom.

Before Malcom went on the run, he lived in Dubbo, where my boss worked for Taronga Western Plains Zoo. When my boss first moved to Dubbo, he lived on site in the zoo keepers house. He occassionally heard noises in his roof and assumed he had possums, and he occassionally noticed that things had been moved in his absence and assumed it was the cleaners. He was wrong. For months, Malcom had been living in his ceiling cavity, coming downstairs when my boss left the house for the day by climbing out of the man hole and down the pantry shelves below it.

The uninvited guest was only found out when one of the cleaners happened to tell my boss that she thought the friend he had staying with him was a bit odd and my boss, armed with his martial arts training and a security guard, walked in to the house to find Malcom in his lounge room. The zoo was shut down for two days while the police searched for him, but he got away.

When the house was fingerprinted, it turned out that Malcom spent his days sitting on the couch, watching tv, going through my boss' belongings, and stealing food out of the fridge.

Creepy, eh?

Barrington Tops Trip

2011-12-28T23:40:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to blog about quite a number of things for a while now and I've decided to start here with my trip up to NSW to deliver some devils.

I flew up from Hobart with a biologist, Judy, and 5 devils. Our first stop was at the Australian Reptile Park in Gosford where our devils were being delivered. The ARP is a bit of a misnomer, having at least as many furry and feathered residents as scaly ones, and not all the scaly ones are very Australian either. The ARP has two devils on display in the park, around 25 in the breeding enclosures behind the park, and another 80 at the off-site series of mini Free Range Enclosures (FREs) at Barrington Tops.

I have lots of photos of both the public area of the park and the behind the scenes parts, but for the sake of that piece of paper I signed a year and a half ago, I've only uploaded the public area photos.

One of the above crocs is real, the other fake - spot the difference.

P.S. my favourite is the Galapagos turtle.

After we left Gosford, we drove for what felt like days and arrived at Scone for the night. We had tea at a local pub and stayed the night in the motel before leaving very early the next morning to drive up to Barrington Tops. On our way up the mountains (believe it or not, Barrington Tops is at the top) we were nearly run of the road by a police car going the other way very fast around a blind corner, but we made it safely to the devil facilities. We were shown round by a very dedicated devil keeper and I got to see a couple of devils that we sent up for last summer's breeding season.

As the whole of the Barrington Tops Facilities is off limits to the public, I'm not uploading any of the photos, so you'll have to take my word for it that it is a lovely patch of bushland.

Then we drove for what felt like days again to get back to Sydney. We stayed the night at a hotel that was practically inside the airport and got up early to catch our plane back to Tassie. Of course, we were then delayed by 4 hours, but we did finally make it home. And we weren't the only ones waiting at the airport, we were sharing the lounge with the Wiggles back up dancers and Jack Vidgen, all headed from the Carols in Sydney to the ones in Hobart.

Sorry

2011-12-13T00:22:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I have been so slack about posting recently. There are a couple of reasons for this - mostly that my computer was with my brother for a few weeks being fixed and secondly that I have been very busy. My life has been complicated by work on my days off, horrible real estate agents, and orphaned baby devils.

Work has been very busy recently for a number of reasons, and hasn't always been that enjoyable. While I still love my job, I don't always like it, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, one of my very favourite devils died last week from old age. The whole work place has been in mourning a little bit because he was special to all of us, but we are all glad that he passed away peacefully. Several other unenjoyable things have happened at work as well, but I'm not going to talk about them.

And I'm not going to start on real estate agents because I could rant about them for hours.

The orphan devil babies have been fun, though. One of my workmates has been raising two baby devils, Molly and Matilda, for the past 3 or 4 weeks and I've been helping her out because they are a lot of work so when she had to go on a field trip the babies came to live with me and my housemates for a week and a half. They get fed every 4 hours so you have to be fairly devoted to them, but they are incredibly cute. I promise to post some photos in a couple of days.

Work should be quite interesting this week because I am accompanying a shipment of devils to one of our insurance population partners on the mainland. We fly to Sydney, then drive to the Australian Reptile Park in Gosford, and then drive to Barrington Tops to deliver our devils to their new homes. Basically, its a work-paid opportunity to get behind the scenes tours of two different facilities so it should be fun. It does mean that I am working the 10 days before Christmas without any time off, though. Oh well, you can't have everything I suppose.

Birthday Weekend

2011-11-08T04:21:00.000-08:00

As most of you know, this weekend was my birthday. As my birthday was on Friday and I was working, I decided to extend my birthday into a birth-weekend.

This weekend was three important things besides from being my birthday, firstly it was a long weekend, secondly it was Deloraine Craft Fair weekend, and thirdly the Agatha Christie play "And Then There Were None" was running in Devonport. As I have a fondness for going to the theatre, especially to watch Agatha Christie plays and I've been waiting for the Deloraine Craft Fair ever since last years, these were the two highlights of my weekend. I had a very enjoyable time both at the Craft Fair and at the play - especially as I didn't even guess who the killer was (in the play not at the Craft Fair).

On the Monday to round off my weekend, I somehow managed to convince my parent's to do something else I've been wanting to do for a long time - go to Seahorse World at Beauty Point. Yes I know, I'm spoiled absolutely rotten - I dragged my parents with me to a play, a craft fair, and by Monday they were still up for Seahorse World. It was fairly expensive to get into when you have 3 adults, but it was worth going to see. Here is the photo tour.

We also went to the Platypus House next door and met several gorgeous platypi and a couple of cute echidnas.

Check out the tongue on that

It is very difficult to get a good photo of these guys so I'm pretty proud of this one.

I also got some awesome presents and lovely birthday cakes - probably the best birthday I've had all year.

A peck of owls

2011-10-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

My owl cushion is finished and its awesome and I love it. See below. He's a Boobook Owl.

As I was taking photos of my cushion, I thought to myself, "why not take photos of all your owls" and as I couldn't give myself a good reason not to, here is my collection of wols. And there is a run-on sentence.

First up, these three guys are my babushka owls. They are carved wood and I bought them in Port Macquarie on our last holiday there.

This necklace was one of my first items of owllery and I still love him.

Believe it or not, this little guy is a lip gloss - chocolate flavour. But I'm going to keep him even after I finish the lipgloss.

This little ring is totally inappropriate for everyday wear (especially in my job), but I love wearing it whenever I can get away with it.

My latest aquisitions in owllery, are these adorable earings purchased in Hobart last month.

This necklace is really my only piece if owllery that is small enough and subtle enough to be worn on any normal day.

This is a cute little ornament I couldn't resist.

And this is the newest piece in my collection - a snowy owl tee from Cafe Press.

The Skull...

2011-10-13T05:23:00.000-07:00

The other day, Christie and I were on a secret mission for work in the region of the Freycinet Peninsula and we (well, mostly Christie) stumbled upon this skull. Because I'm a birdo, Christie tasked me with identifying its erstwhile owner. After being threatened with punishments that Christie would be powerless to enforce, I did my assigned homework tonight and have come up with the answer: it was a White-Headed Petrel. It was a fairly easy id; the magnificent (and rather scary) hook in the beak told me it was a fishing bird, the white feathers gave me a clue about its colouring, and its measurements helped me narrow down the field until I only had one bird left. Of course, I could be entirely wrong, but I maintain that I'm not. So there!

P.S. This is what a White-Headed Petrel looks like when its slightly less deadified.

Vote result...

2011-10-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

Well, you are a particularly indecisive bunch of voters, but I'm grateful that I still have some readers that are willing to vote.

I have decided to use this pattern:

But it will be on a cushion (yes, this example is one a bag not a cushion - well done, Rob), and will have some personal touches.

I'll post a photo when its done.

A work of fiction.

2011-09-23T01:53:00.000-07:00

She lay on the ground, with her head slightly raised on her elbows so she could keep a lookout. The bracken ferns covering her made her almost invisible, but she was still terrified that she would be seen before she could take the shot. A small stone was digging sharply into her hip, but as she moved slightly the dry eucalyptus leaves beneath her cracked and crunched, making her freeze again. She would have to leave the stone were it was. It was a small price to pay considering the job she was here to do. Another mosquito buzzed gently around her, landing on the back of her neck, but she didn’t dare swat it. She was going to be covered in bites by the time she was finished, but it was worth it. One whiff of insect repellent might have given her position away and put the whole mission in jeopardy. She heard a noise in the bush only a few metres from where she lay concealed in the bracken. Her heartbeat quickened as she gently turned her head towards the disturbance, but it was not the quarry that she sought, merely a wallaby grazing obliviously. As she watched the wallaby, completely mesmerized by it, it glanced swiftly behind it and began to hop quickly away. She strained her eyes to see what the wallaby had seen and somewhere overhead the alarm call of a honeyeater rang out. The moment had arrived. She knew she would only have one shot; it would have to be perfect. Her heart began to pound loudly in her ears and she made an effort to calm herself. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, a familiar form stood in the clearing in front of her. She carefully took aim, looking down the barrel, and centring the cross hairs between the yellow eyes.

“Click!”

The thylacine ran, but it didn’t matter – she had the photograph. She had proof; the thylacine lives.

Written in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.

Vote

2011-09-19T03:59:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,
I need your opinion on something. I want to do an owl related craftiness that will result in me having some sort of owlish throw pillow, but I'm a bit stuck. Should I:

A. Have a cushion shaped cushion with an owl appliqued on it. See examples below.

B. Have an owl shaped cushion. See example bellow.

Let me know in the comments.

The unexpected housemate

2011-09-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

Tiani and I are renting a fairly spaceous 3 bedroom home. The thought of having a third housemate had occured to both of us, but as we didn't know anyone that was in need of a place to live (anyone we were prepared to live with, that is), the third bedroom stood almost completely empty and unused. Until a couple of days ago.

Tiani's other best friend, Christine, was in need of short term accomadation in Launny in short notice and asked if she could rent the third bedroom. She moved in on Monday, and now there are three of us. Christine is studying at uni, so she only needs somewhere to live in Launny until the end of the uni semester, but maybe she'll stay on.

Tiani and I were discussing last night how our lives could be turned into a sitcom following the lives of the three young women who lived in the house on Westbury Rd, but we decided that there would probably need to be a love interest for either myself or Christine to make the story line interesting so its not likely to happen. If we did have a sitcom, I would name it "Three's a Crowd" because I think its a very sitcom-y name.

Mad Eye Tawny

2011-09-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

This is Mad Eye Tawny, a Tawny Frogmouth. Its not a great photo of him because I didn't want to use the flash and blind him or disturb him too much, but its better than nothing. Unfortuantely, this little guy was hit by my cousin's car, but, fortunately, he stopped and checked on him. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to fly away by himself, Rob (who was travelling in convoy whith Chris) rang me up for advice. Mum and I then had a short notice road trip to Deloraine to pick him up, and brought him home to Mum and Dad's. There were no obvious major injuries, so I treated him for shock and concussion by giving him a hot water bottle and blanket and leaving him in a dark, quiet room for the night. Fidget didn't even notice that there was an owl in her house, but this morning she did throw a bit of a tantrum because she had been shut out of the room he was in all night and I was going in and out but denying her access.

This morning, I rang the wildlife care coordinator and she gave me the number of a carer that specialises in birds like Mad Eye. The carer, as it turns out, lives in Legana just over the road from the vet clinic I was taking Sophie to, so I packed Mad Eye in my cat's emergency evacuation box and Sophie in her comfy cardboard box into the front seat of my car and dropped of Mad Eye on the way to the vet. Hopefully he doesn't have any broken bones, and he'll be release back into the wild after a couple of days care.

Sophie the Super Chook

2011-09-11T22:47:00.001-07:00

Today, I took Sophie, one of my four chickens, to the vet. Sophie's been limping badly for about 3 weeks now. When she first started limping, I examined her and couldn't find any obvious injuries so I hoped that she would get better by herself. But she didn't get any better and watching her limping about after the other 3 girls was breaking my heart so I decided to take her to the vet. I made an appointment with the closest vet and shortly before it was time to leave, I organised a nice comfy box and went to get Sophie. Unfortunately I'd been silly enough to let the chooks into the whole yard about an hour earlier, but it only took a handfull of seed to get Sophie into a corner, into her box, and into the car.

The vet nurses were very amused by me bringing my chook to the vet clinic at Legana and they probably think that I am some tragic chook fancier, but I don't really mind. While Sophie and I were waiting for our turn to see the vet, a little girl and her brother who were waiting for their dog to have his injection got chatting to Sophie and were quite taken by her. They have 3 chooks themselves, but they aren't very friendly so they were loving being able to stroke Sophie's feathers through the box while she chattered and clucked gently. When their dog came out, the little girl wished Sophie luck, and it was our turn to see the vet. I have pretty high standards when it comes to vets, but this one pleasantly surprised me; she was very thorough, and seemed to be quite comfortable and familiar with chooks despite the reactions of the vet nurses. Sophie was exceptionally well behaved through the whole process. She didn't struggle to get away at all, and when she was put on the floor to walk and demonstrate her limp, she didn't move until the vet gave her a gently tap on the tail to which she responded by pooing. When I knelt down and spoke to her she limped over to me, giving the vet a perfect display of her limp. The vet couldn't feel any fractures or obviously problems but she found the part of her leg that was sore and it was a bit swollen so Sophie was sent home with a week's worth of Metacam and strict instructions for bed rest. I'm not sure that you can explain to a chook that they need to rest and not walk to much, even a chook as well behaved as mine, so I've now settled Sopie into the small rabbit enclosure next to the chook house. I'm hoping that with a week of medication and rest, she'll be able to rejoin her sisters, but I think that Sophie is probably always going to be my little favourite.

Two of my favourite things in one picture...

2011-09-02T05:44:00.001-07:00

I still haven't had a chance to watch the latest Dr Who yet. So sad.

Sherlock :)

2011-08-17T03:40:00.001-07:00

The BBC updated version of Sherlock is coming back for a second season (yay!) and we are getting a sequel for the Rober Downey Jr/Jude Law Sherlock Holmes movie (yay!).

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

2011-08-13T07:13:00.000-07:00

You may or may not have noticed that I have been more absent from cyberspace than usual. I haven't been maintaining my online presence very much recently- not so much because I haven't had time, but more because I haven't made time. Its true that I am working more and longer days than normal again at the moment and it is true that I have been settling in to a new place and a new housemate, but that hasn't stopped me from doing more arts and crafts than I usually manage to fit into my weeks (partly that is probably due to the fact that my art and craft supplies are so much easier to access in my new place because they just sitting in boxes against my bedroom wall rather than hidden away in a cupboard. Mostly this is because I don't have a cupboard in which to hide them.).

I have been settling in to the new house well. I now know where a good percentage of my stuff is and I have explored the contents of all my kitchen cupboards (but I don't have a slotted serving spoon anymore. I'm sure I used to have a slotted serving spoon). I have spent exactly no time in my new garden which may be a problem because there is so much of it and I am going to have to stay on top of it a little, but to be fair most of the time when I am home it has been either dark or raining or both.

Tiani and I are getting on well. We haven't got any sort of schedule for whose turn it is to do what chores or who gets to have the first shower, but we haven't run into any problems yet (except the one time I was nearly late for work because neither Tiani nor I planned on being the first person in the shower). I've got Tiani hooked on How I Met Your Mother which she has watched a lot of over the last few days as she has been in bed sick. Consequently, we both now say "Legend- what for it- dary! Legendary!" a little too often. That's the other reason I haven't been online much recently - Tiani has had Bernard the Laptop in bed with her for the last few days watching stuff. Frequently she has also had me in bed with her watching stuff in between getting home from work and cooking tea. We watched Tangled and Gnomeo and Juliet the other night. I love kid's movies. Speaking of which, I can't wait to see the new Winnie the Pooh.

Anyway, thats about it for now. I've got both tomorrow and the next day off work which is an absolute luxury - its annoyingly rare to have two days off consecutively. I plan to go home tomorrow and soak up some family time, but after that I'm not quite sure what I'll do with it. There's something kinda wonderful about having time off and no definite plans for it :)

Wols!

2011-07-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

A new home.

2011-07-16T03:30:00.000-07:00

Most of you already know this, but for those few of you that only regularly communicate with me through this blog, this is pretty big news: I'm moving house.

Its a complicated story, so I'll try not to make it too confusing. One of my bestest friends, Tiani, usually lives in Hobart with her husband, but applied for a job in Launny because she was looking for work and the job was perfect for her. She got the job, which is great, but made her life quite complicated. Tiani knew that I had been thinking about renting in town for a while so she asked me if I wanted to find a 2 bedroom place with her and split the rent so that she could live in Launny Mon-Fri and go home to Hobart on weekends. That resulted in about 2 weeks of house-hunting in Launny and Tiani making a ridiculous number of trips up and down the midlands before we found, applied for, and were offered our new home.
We signed the lease, got the keys, and delivered our first couple of boxes of stuff yesterday afternoon.

Our new home is actually 3 bedrooms, not 2 so we have a spare room if anyone wants to visit us. Its a 2 storey place with Tiani's room, the kitchen, bathroom, and living spaces all downstairs, and my room and the spare room upstairs. Its almost half-way between my work and Tiani's work so we can both walk to work fairly easily, which will be a nice change from the 30min drive from Mum and Dad's. It also has a bit of garden (in a fairly wild state at the moment) and lawn, as well as plenty of parking space for the two of us.

The power doesn't get connected until Tuesday, but after that we'll be staying there and settling in. So, if you're ever in the area, swing past and come see my new home.

The Eagles Lair

2011-07-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

Last week at work we had an overnight field training trip. We were split into two trips so that there were enough people not away to look after all the devils. I was on the second one and it was awesome. The trip was led by Nick Mooney, who has been a hero of mine since I was a teenager, and he was an absolute legend, happily sharing his incredible wealth of field skills and knowlegde of wildlife with us all. We focused mostly of devils, of course, but the most memorable bit for me was the detour hiking up the side of a mountain to observe a wedge-tailed eagle nest.

The only bad part of the trip was catching my workmate's cold which was pretty unavoidable as we were all confined in a car for several hours each day, but now the cold has really set off my asthma and I've had to take a day off work.

The Owl and the Pussycat...

2011-06-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not as obsessed with owls as this guy is...

2011-06-22T01:04:00.000-07:00

Port Macquarie summed up in photos.

2011-06-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

The resort where we stayed...

The wildlife...

Butterflies

Fruit bats

and Pelicans

The koala hospital...

Me pretending to be a koala...
The scenery...

My job...

2011-05-28T23:37:00.000-07:00

On a bad day, my work looks like this...

Fog...

Ice...

and Frost.

But on a good day, my work looks like this...

Thursday was a good day (I went to Cradle Mountain). Today wasn't so great.

Dr Who craftiness...

2011-05-28T23:25:00.000-07:00

I completed these couple of tardis themed items for Rob's birthday. It kept me occupied for a couple of crafternoons (Christie, my workmate,'s word) and I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. The book (based on River Song's journal) is a blank notebook on the inside.

My new chookies...

2011-05-02T01:23:00.000-07:00

Well, for quite some time I have wanted chooks and to that end (and also as a way to learn building skills from Dad) I have been hasseling Dad into helping me ( = doing all the hard bits) convert our old play house into a super mansion of a chook house. The chook house itself has been completed for weeks now, but the pen was only erected a couple of Saturdays ago. We used only recycled wood and constuction supplies so the project cost us basically nothing and we used as many power tools and building methods as we could so that I would get some experience in all of them.

The awesomest chookhouse ever (formally the awesomest playhouse ever)

The nest box made out of wood recycled from old pallets.

So on Saturday, we checked out the newspaper for chook ads. We found an ad for Isa Browns and headed out to somewhere near Pipers River to go and get 4 chookies. Meet Sophie, Ruby, Sally, and Penny.

Left to Right: Penny, Sophie, Sally, and Ruby

They are only 22 weeks old so they havent started laying yet and they might not lay until spring. I dont really mind if they never start laying - I'm just loving having them around.

So, two projects officially completed: the frog pond and the chook shed.

Photos from the Frog Pond

2011-04-11T02:46:00.001-07:00

The famous frog pond

The famous Green and Golden Frog

Two famous Green and Golden Frogs

Unknown frog species

Of close encounters with snakes...

2011-04-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after leaving the devil compound at Cressy we were driving along when my workmate, Trev, and I both turned to each other and said "Was that a snake?". It turns out it wasnt one snake, but two copperheads mating. Trev is an old hand at snake handling and was concerned that the snakes were absentmindedly moving further and further onto the road while entwined together. We stood watch over the pair for a while to ensure that they weren't run over and when they seperated Trev moved them across safely to opposite ends of the road.

Trev with his makeshift snake handling gear (the bar from across the back of our ute that holds the cover up to prevent puddles).

One snake, two heads.

Camping in Victoria

2011-04-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Mum, Dad, Rob, and I packed up the two four wheel drives and headed over to the mainland to spend a week travelling around Victoria and trying out Dad's new camper trailer.

One of the places we camped was on the coast and, as we took a stroll along the beach after setting up camp we met this guy also strolling along the beach :)

Healsville

2011-04-03T21:30:00.001-07:00

One of the other things we got to do when we were visiting Victoria was spend some time at Healsville Santuary. Working with wildlife, the name Healsville keeps coming up again and again as the santuary has such a good reputation in the industry so I was glad to have a chance to check it out. The thing I noticed most about Healsville is the amount of space given to avaries. Of course, there were the usual amphibians, reptiles, and mammals as well, but I seem to only have taken photos of the birds. I really am turning into a birdbrain.

Brolga

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Black-brested Buzzard

Barn Owl

Lyrebird

The wetlands

Bronzewing

Orange-bellied Parrot

Blake, the gorgeous...

2011-04-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

The other week, my family and I took a week off to spend some time travelling and camping in Victoria. This finally gave me the opportunity to meet Blake, my best friend's 6 month old. Isnt he just gorgeous!

Flinders Island Trip

2011-03-07T15:51:00.000-08:00

I've just gotten off the plane from Flinders Island. I got a phonecall on Friday asking if I was interested in flying to Flinders on Sunday to do some seabird work. As if I wouldn't be. Even with still trying to get over the cold and having had 3 days off, I was keen to go. We flew out on Sunday arvo so we could have a good early start on the boat on Monday. The wildlife biologist I went with is as nutty about birds as I am, so the first thing we did was go around the island a bit to do some twitching. Then it was dinner at the pub at Lady Barren and back off to Whitemark to our pub/hotel for an early night. We started at 6:30 the next morning and I can tell you that climbing from the wharf onto a big cray boat, across it, and then down onto our much smaller fishing boat is not something that should be attempted that early in the morning. I dont know how none of us fell in.

The boat ride from Lady Barren to our first island was an hour and a half and it was beautiful. We surveyed three islands, but half our day was taken up with travelling in the boat. Not that I mind sitting back in the boat watching the scenery speed past and the occassional interesting bird or seal.

Anyway, the actual work itself was surveying Short-tailed Shearwater (mutton bird) chicks to determine stock level and harvesting restrictions for the upcoming season (people eat them, but I have no idea why you'd want to personally). The process involves putting out a transect and checking every burrow along it and 1m either side of it to see if there's a chick in it. This means laying on the ground and putting your entire arm in the burrow and feeling around - sometimes your arm isnt long enough and you have to use your arm plus a long stick. If there's a chick in the burrow it will start pecking you or the stick. If you can reach the chick you then gently pull it out to weigh it. Thankfully, there were no snakes on the islands we surveyed so the only other things down the burrows were penguins. You have to be a lot more careful on the islands inhabited by snakes.

We spent all yesterday out surveying and then it was back to Flinders for dinner and the night at the pub at Whitemark. And then it was back on the plane to Launny this morning. A flying visit, but it was definitely worth it.

Main road at Whitemark - our hotel on the right.

Flinders Island scenery.

The beach at Whitemark.

Sunrise on the boat.

Chappel Island - home of the giant tiger snakes.

Surveying one of the smaller islands.

Me with a mutton bird chick. Notice how dirty I am :)

Weighing some chicks.

Muttonbird Burrow

The landing beach on one of the smaller islands.

In which nothing interesting happens...

2011-03-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

Tori pointed out that I have been very slack at blogging lately, so I thought it was probably time to post a little note. Unfortunately, there really isn't much to write about. The last month or so has been extremely busy at work because we are in the middle of devil breeding season and were a couple of devil keepers down. You wouldn't think that breeding season would make all that much of a difference to the amount of work it takes to care for a population of captive devils, but you would be wrong. On the positive side, if the matings were successful, one of our girls was due to give birth on Tues and another one yesterday. Now we just have to wait a month until we can do a pouch check to find out.

After a ridiculously busy month of working too much, I then managed to get 5 whole days off in a row which I spent split between getting a heap of little errands done at home and spending time relaxing in Devonport with Rob. I finally got to play some Monkey Island (my very favouritist computer game ever) with him after nagging him about it for at least a year and we all had a very delicious afternoon tea at Anvers to celebrate Mum's birthday.

Right now, I am currently having a bit more time off work, but this time its because I've come down with the cold. My boss agreed with me that it would be better if I didn't infect the rest of his work force after I threatened to sneeze on him on Tuesday so I spent all of yesterday in bed. When I woke up on Tuesday morning I had a sore throat and thought I might be coming down with something, but after being at work for less than an hour, I had properly come down with the cold and I probably should have gone home again, but as we were busy I stayed to help (wow, that's a bad run-on sentence). By the time we finished I felt like death and just wanted to go to sleep. Unfortunately, I didn't manage that very well and kept sneezing myself awake all night. So, consequently, I spent all of yesterday nodding off and missing big chunks of the audio book I was listening to. I don't feel much better today, but as I actually slept last night, I decided it was probably time to have a shower and get dressed. So here I am, showered, dressed, and seriously considering going back to bed :)

Roadtripping...

2011-01-26T16:20:00.000-08:00

Last week, I went on a roadtrip to Coles Bay with some of my besties to visit our friend, Rob, who inexplicably and without warning moved there a few months ago. I picked up Hannah and we travelled from Launceston together while Moose and Tiani came up from Hobart together. We all crashed at Rob's surprisingly spacious house for a couple of nights and spent our time swimming, painting toenails, fishing, walking on the beach, playing cards, singing our lungs out to Disney Singstar, and catching up. Here are some selected shots from the trip:

Messing about with my waterproof camera...

2011-01-17T12:43:00.000-08:00

I got a waterproof camera for Christmas, but on its first outing into the water at Anson's Bay, it decided it didnt want to be waterproof afterall and promptly died. So when the replacement arrived I was keen to put it in the water and find out if it would fare any better. It did. These photos were taken just messing around at Hawley on Saturday. I cant wait to go snorkelling and get some proper underwater shots.
Also, wow my feet are white!

Update...

2011-01-04T19:29:00.000-08:00

So, Christmas is over now as is New Year's and I thought I'd better just write a little note so that you all know I'm still around.

I had a good Christmas. The day itself was much quieter than usual as the four of us just stayed home, but things were a little bit rowdier both before and after as we caught up with friends and family. Ben, Bec, "Little(hand action)" Mike, and Gab came down from Victoria and spent a few nights staying at Mum and Dad's. On NYE we had them plus the four Klavers which made for 12 people and a pretty crowded house. Fun, though. In fact, we were having so much fun that midnight almost came and went without anyone noticing - Dad was on the case, though.

I started work again on the 30th after my 4 weeks off recovering from my wrist fracture and worked the following 5 days straight which tested both my arm and my ability to get out of bed on time. Going back to work was good, but the timing could have been better because I missed out on hanging out with the Kerros and going to the New Years Day BBQ. New Years Day wasn't a very good day at work because neither myself or my coworker wanted to be there - (he wanted to be in bed recovering from the Falls Festival and I wanted to be at the BBQ and swimming) so I came home exhausted and grumpy. Despite that and the problems I had at work on Monday (which the confidentiality agreement restricts me from telling you about), I'm happy to be back at work. My wrist still hurts, though. In fact it has just started aching right now and I really don't appreciate it. Ouch. Bothersome. I think I'll go to bed for a while. Bye

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

Great weekend...

2010-12-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

This weekend was the Kingston clan's big family Christmas do, which meant a trip down to Taranna. We all left here on Friday night with a car full of Christmas cooking and arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's a little before midnight. As the Christmas do wasnt until Sunday we were left to fill in Saturday however we wanted. However, in our case Saturday had been planned for as long as Sunday because Dad promised me we would go snorkelling around Shelly Beach. I love snorkelling! Mum stayed on the sand because it wasn't warm enough for her to get in the water, but Rob, Dad, and I all went. The rocky reefs around Shelly are great for snorkeling and are home to a lot of marine life - I saw 5 different species of fish, mussels, limpets, sea snails, a sea spider, anemones, and lots and lots of seaweed. We snorkeled for over an hour - pretty good for Tasmanian temperatures.

Then on Sunday, we went to the morning church service and then up to Charlie and Sabines for the bbq and gift swap. Only 2 of my cousins were missing from the family, so it was a pretty good gathering of the clan. Sabine and Charlie have just put in a rather massive above ground pool and a few of the boys were brave enough to get in and have a swim in their undies despite the cool day. Actually, I'm not sure if Rowan was brave or just still drunk from the night before. His performance as the Christmas elf (including a costume designed for an eight year old) would suggest the later. Unfortunately, I dont have any photos of any of this. In fact, I dont have photos of anything. I am thoroughly dissappointed with myself. I am going to have to get my hands on some of the ones taken of Rowan in his elf costume, and the one of me and Dion with our broken arms (which we broke on the same day and both of us broke our left arm).

Anyway, it was a great weekend and I had a lot of fun. But as I promised that this post would be both interesting and contain pictures I will add this:

The arm all wrapped up under the Christmas tree.

The cast is off...

2010-12-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

So, on Wednesday I went back for a second set of xrays and I got to get rid of my cast :) The fracture, which was only minor to begin with, has healed well and now I finally have my arm back. Its still a bit sore and weak and I have to be very careful with it, but thats better than another 4 weeks in the cast.

Just thought you should know, but I promise the next post will be more interesting and have pictures.

The incident of the homicidal gates...

2010-12-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

Alright, I have been convinced not to stop writing in my blog just yet. So now I have to attempt to explain what happened at work on Saturday that has resulted in me wearing a massive, white plaster cast on my left arm. Its a complicated story so it might be a bit difficult to explain. Typing one handed isnt going to help either.

So, on Saturday morning I was working with my mate, Jason, and we were planning to go down to Bunnings to buy some supplies to build steps so my shorter collegues will be able to see over the fence into the devil enclosures. At headquaters in Launnie there are two sets of massive wrought iron gates that look something like this:

These aren't the actual gates - just a google image search for something similar. Anyway, so Jas and I hooked the trailer up to the ute and set off for Bunnings. Jas was driving so when we got to the main gate I jumped out to open them (they are locked on weekends). I pulled one gate open and put the peg down and then pulled the other gate open and held it. This is where the explaination gets complicated. As Jas drove through, the far gate (the one I wasn't holding) started to swing back, but at that point I knew there was nothing I could do and thought that it would just bounce off the trailer. I thought wrong. As the gate hit the trailer it must have gotten caught just in front of the mudgaurds, which made the trailer jump dramatically and unexpectedly off the road and into the gate which I was holding at great enough force and speed to send me flying onto the footpath. I had enough time while I was in the air to think "I'm going to die... No, but its going to hurt" and then I landed. It was at this point that Jason, having heard and felt the collision, but having no idea what had happened, saw me lying on the ground and thought he'd killed me. Because I'd been holding the gate in my left hand, I was forced sideways rather than straight back when I fell, so I landed on my right side, meaning that instead of breaking my tailbone and jarring my spine and hitting my head on the concrete post that I narrowly missed, I just got bruises and scrapes all down my right side. Poor Jason then came flying around the trailer asking me if I'd hit my head. My initial answer of "I dont know" didn't seem to give him much confidence. I then decided that i hadn't, but he didn't seem sure wether or not he should believe me. My biggest concern was my right wrist which was badly bruised and quite sore so Jas got me an icepack. It wasn't until later that I realised that my left wrist was starting to hurt more than my right one, but by that point I had convinced Jas that I was ok and we were at Bunnings.

I thought I was just bruised and had probably sprained my thumb/wrist when the gate was wrenched out of my hand so I didn't see the need to go to the dr, but my boss insisted that I should go just in case. When I went that afternoon, the dr thought I may have actually broken my scaphoid bone in my wrist and gave me an xray refferal for Monday. But on Sunday morning after a painfull and relatively sleepless night, Mum decided that we weren't waiting and she took me into A&E. The dr there also decided I may have broken my scaphoid and sent me for xrays. Apparently, it is often very hard to tell if the scaphoid is broken in an xray, but they decided it probably was and I was given a plaster cast, some pain killers, and two weeks off work.

So, in 10 days, I get to go back for another xray and then they decide if the cast needs to stay on for the remainder of the 6 weeks, or if it really was just a bad sprain after all. And in the meantime I have to workout how to do everything one handed, but unfortunately driving Barry is out of the question completely and my cast isn't waterproof so I can't go snorkelling until it comes off either. So I'm hoping that the cast comes off sooner rather than later or its going to be quite a boring summer.

Not my xray - just a google image search. my xray is still at the hospital, but I thought the anatomically ignorant among you might like to know where the scaphoid is.

Lately...

2010-11-29T02:55:00.000-08:00

So what have I been up to lately, I hear you ask. Well actually I dont hear you ask - you slackers. I put up a post full of what I believe to be rather fabulous photos and all I get is one comment and even that was from someone I am currently sharing a house with. Shame on you, slackers. Shame on you all. You don't deserve a post.

Good thing I dont just give you what you deserve then, isnt it, slackers? I am prepared to overlook your slackness on the proviso that it does not happen again. Ok?

Actually, I have been seriously considering giving up my blog - if you dont want this to happen then you had better actually show me that there are still people out there who read it other than those who live with me, that is, because technically I could just talk to them rather than write a blog.

Apart from my utter disappointment in my lack of commentors, the second reason I havent blogged lately is that I have been rather ridiculously busy with work. We have been short staffed at work for various reasons so I have been picking up quite a few more shifts than usual and that combined with my trapping trip means that I am working over full time hours this month. I want a break. I want a day when I can go for a road trip to Bicheno to go snorkeling rather than to work in a devil enclosure.

The amount of time spent at work recently has been rather hampering the rest of my life, but I have still managed to make some progress. My frog pond and chicken shed projects are both now complete thanks to a lot of help from Dad, but neither are stocked with frogs or chooks yet. I have also been working on a little bit more of a social life, although this has mostly been with my workmates so it still feels like work is inescapable even when we are at trivia night at the pub. Our trivia team is steadily improving and last week we won a couple of the instant prizes and it has been a lot of fun. I even know some of the answers to the questions which is nice. For instance, I know that the Easter Bunny, Bugs Bunny, and Brer Rabbit are actually all hares and that the country that sold Alaska to the USA was Russia. Unfortunately, I didnt know that "American Pie" in the song "American Pie" is the name of the plane that crashed - if I had, my team would have gotten all three jackpot questions right and we would have won $1000. Oh well, at least we came 3rd overall. Next week we're going to win.

Devil Trapping Trip

2010-11-11T00:57:00.000-08:00

I've just gotten back home from a devil trapping expedition on the Forestier Peninsula. We spent 9 days setting and checking traps and processing the devils we caught (37 in total). The trip was good and I am now much more useful as a Field Officer, having now finally done some proper fieldwork, but instead of boring you with photos and stories about devils, I'm just going to put up some photos of the beautiful scenery I have been immersed in for the last week and a half.

You're welcome.

The Cressy Challenge

2010-10-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

Because the drive to and from the devil compound at Cressy everyday is so boring we have invented many ways of keeping ourselves occupied - the main one being stopping at JJ's every morning for coffee and treats. The otherday, however, when travelling in the vet's car instead of with the other keepers I found out about a brand new one called "The Cressy Challenge".

The rules of The Cressy Challenge are as follows:
The Challenge operates between the 60km/hr signs at each end of Cressy. Between these signs you have to count the number of "Real People" you can see. A Real Person is defined as an adult that takes at least two consecutive steps forward of their own accord (this will make more sense shortly). Any children are termed "Aliens" and do not count, and any people standing still or sitting down are "Cardboard Cutouts" and do not count. An adult that is holding hands with a child while they are walking is actually a Cardboard Cutout being towed along by an Alien and not a Real Person after all (see that bit up there makes sense now). Adults walking dogs, pushing prams, or mowing the lawn are also Cardboard Cutouts being made to look animated so that no one notices that the Aliens are taking over the town. The other day while driving through, although there were heaps of Aliens, we did not see a single Real Person. Obviously, Cressy has now fallen to the Alien invasion.

Bookiness

2010-10-10T20:49:00.000-07:00

So, I've been steadily employed for a while now and earning decent money for the first time since I started uni. You might think that the sudden luxury of having spare money around would send me into a shopping frenzy, but I have been very good and very restrained. I have not bought piles of new clothes or shoes or craft stuff or even bought myself the new mp3 player I want, but it seems that my one weakness has been books.

Today, I collected my new box set of Harry Potter books from the post office, shipped directly from England. I checked around a fair bit before I bought these and managed to get them for just under $80 (including postage)- not bad considering the average price is $130-$150.

But my biggest book blowout has actually been on zoological books. I went into Angus and Robertson in town (which very rudely moved location while I was living in Hobart) to get a book on Tassie Devils because I figured I should know something about them now that I work with them, and walked out with the book I went in for plus one on koalas. A week or two later, I went back into Angus and Robertson in town (which very considerately had stayed put since the last time I was there) to get nothing, and walked out with a rather expensive field guide to Australian mammals. I have now banned myself from Angus and Robertson and would greatly appreciate it if it would move locations again to somewhere I cant find it.

Then, of course, I had to go into Koorong to investigate rumours of a new Francine Rivers and walked out with a copy of it to add to my collection. I personally own 18 of her Christian novels.

And then, just to make sure I had enough reading material to get me through a nuclear winter, I went to all the second hand book shops in Launnie to try and find the missing book in Laurie R King's Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russel series. Unfortunately, none of them had it at the time so I had to go home and buy it on ebay.

So, if you need to borrow a book you know where to come.

Craftiness

2010-10-10T20:43:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to post these photos for a couple of weeks now. This is a hand stitched baby blanket I made for my friend's baby boy, Blake. I made a similar one for a friend's baby girl a couple of years ago, but this one has several improvements. I thought the blogosphere might like some photos.

Some random wombatness

2010-10-09T00:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged much lately so I thought I should, but as I haven't got anything interesting to say I decided to post a little bit of random wombatness. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting a lady at work who looks like a wombat. I immediately saw the resemblance and was quite pleased to discover that so did my workmates. This little piece of fiction was born out of that meeting and will eventually make its way into a story I am slowly writing.

"As Mrs Brown walked into the classroom, Tess was instantly reminded of a wombat. Mrs Brown was very short, and, although Tess was only 12 years old, she was already at least a head taller than her newest teacher. Mrs Brown's arms and legs were short and stumpy, but the dark maroon polished nails on each of her stumpy fingers were long and sharp, giving Tess the impression of claws. The teacher was quite a plump woman, and her neck was so thick and short that it looked as if her large head came straight out of her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and very small in contrast with her broad, flattened nose. Tess couldn't help but think that if Mrs Brown's nose was painted black and shiny, she would make the perfect wombat for a play or school production. Mrs Brown's short, spiky brown hair only added to her wombat-likeness, as did her slightly furry looking brown woolen cardigan. Tess had to stifle a giggle as Mrs Brown squinted at the sunlight, increasing her resemblance to the nocturnal marsupial even more..."

Timey Wimey

2010-09-22T01:23:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been rewatching some episodes of Dr Who from the past few seasons. At the moment I'm just at the begining of David Tennant's version of The Doctor travelling with Donna Nobel. So last night when I couldn't sleep I watched 'The Fires of Pompeii' and was surprised to see a very familiar face playing one of the soothsayers.

Its Karen Gillian (aka the current companion of Matt Smith's Doctor, Amy Pond).

This probably shouldn't be surprising as Martha Jones appeared in one episode as her cousin the season before she actually became Martha Jones. Donna also appeared in a single episode (although actually as herself and with a much bigger part) before she too became a companion. So perhaps in order to become a regular companion you have to go through a sort of interview process by appearing in a single episode to make sure that the cast and crew can all cope with you? I'm sure people would be willing to do pretty much anything in order to score a gig as a companion :)

Oooo, I just had a thought. Wouldn't it be cool if they wrote a storyline in which the Doctor crosses his own timeline at Pompeii and it actually is Amy Pond there pretending to be a soothsayer. How awesome would it be to have David Tennant's Doctor accompanied by Donna and Matt Smith's Doctor accompanied by Amy in the same place at the same time, trying not to bump into each other. Awesome! Timey wimey!

Pretty flowers :)

2010-09-20T04:17:00.000-07:00

Orchids at City Park on Sunday.

Why I love the internet...

2010-09-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

Some mornings, there is just nothing better than sitting down at the computer with a cup of coffee and spend an hour or two surfing the net :)

"Learn From my Fail" made me giggle with these couple of gems this morning:
Be certain to fully explain what manure is, lest your five year old proudly tells your neighbor that she and Daddy spent the morning pooping in the garden. #LFMF

Remember a mouse trap cannot tell the difference between your toes and a mouse. #LFMF

Pay attention when you’re pouring yourself a cup of coffee at 3am. You may realize too late that the cup is upside down. #LFMF

When holding a surprise party, remember to actually invite the person you’re surprising. #LFMF

If you never learned how to ride a bike and you’re attempting to learn in the middle of a Target store, try not to fall on top of a child. #LFMF

Never try clapping twice while doing pushups. You might end up with a broken nose. #LFMF

It is possible to inadvertently slice your finger open with a chocolate chip cookie. #LFMF

And these are from "It Made my Day"
My three year old daughter tried passing the phone to my four year old daugher but dropped it instead. My four year old started crying, picked up the phone and said into it “Daddy! Are you OK?” IMMD.

While we were eating supper, my brother asked if he was adopted. Without missing a beat, Dad said, “Yes, but they brought you back.” IMMD!

I have a confession to make...

2010-09-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I'm wrong. I admit that. Sometimes I am prejudiced and judge things before I have all the facts and this leads me to false conclusions. Sometimes I am stubborn and won't admit it when this happens, but today, in this instance, I am going to admit that I was wrong. I was wrong about Harry Potter.

When the first book in the Harry Potter series was published in 1997 I was 11, the same age as the main characters of the book. So much controversy and confusion was around at the time about whether or not parent's should let their kids read Harry Potter, though, that I never bothered with it. As the following books came out and the Harry Potter obsession increased, I started quietly scoffing all those ridiculous people who would line up at bookshops for hours to get their hands on a copy of the latest book. What I had heard about the books and from reading the blurbs on the back, confirmed in my mind that Harry Potter was really nothing to get excited about. It was like pop music - immensely popular, but without any real talent behind it. Basically, I had judged a book by its cover. And we've all be told not to do that, haven't we?

It wasn't until last summer that I finally joined the hordes of Harry fans. While I was traveling up and down the east coast all summer, I was desperate for audio books to keep me awake while I was driving. Along with all the Sherlock that Rob got me, he also got me the audio book of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. And once I had listened to everything else, I finally gave up and conceded to listening to it.

From the first chapter I was amazed - J.K. Rowling actually had talent. The quality of the writing itself really surprised me, and soon I was engrossed in the world of Hogwarts. But it wasn't until almost the end of the book that I realised just how wrong I had been. Even while listening to the book, I had mistaken it for simply another predictable children's story where only the main character is able to see the villain for who they really are and put a stop to them. But yet again I was wrong, it wasn't the predictable villain at all. And that's when I knew that I would have to get the audio books for all the rest as well. By about the 4th book, I was a fully fledged Harry Potter fan.

And while the movies have been dismally bad in comparison to the books (especially the 2nd and 3rd ones), I now find myself impatiently waiting, almost counting down the weeks, until the first installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (less than two months to go now) and about to buy my own set of all 7 books.

So, now I have learnt my lesson and I decided to gather more information before judging Twilight in the same way as I judged Harry, and I can safely say that, unlike J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Myer has very little talent at writing but has simply stumbled over a storyline almost perfectly designed to make 12 year old girls weak at the knees. But I have have reviewed Twilight before so there's no point going over it all again.

But the question still remains: if we aren't meant to judge a book by its cover, why do they put the blurb there?

photos from work

2010-08-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

Graduation

2010-08-22T01:42:00.000-07:00

My official honours graduation was yesterday. Mum, Dad, Rob, and I all made the trip to Hobart for the day to collect my degree testamur and have a shopping spree in Anaconda on the way.

Here are some photos to commemorate the event (the graduation not the shopping spree)

1st day on the Job...

2010-08-17T04:49:00.001-07:00

So, I have finally started my new job as a field officer with the Save the Tasmanian Devil Project. I am now an employee of the Tas Government > DPIPWE (Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water, and the Environment. Pronounced Dee-pip-wee)> Resource Management and Conservation Section> Wildlife Management Branch.

I am one of 5 new field officers based between the department headquarters in Launnie and the Devil enclosures at Cressy. There is also a brand new Senior Keeper to boss us all around. Its a bit strange that our boss started the same day we did and doesn't really know much more about whats meant to be going on than we do. He does seem like he is going to be a great boss once he gets his head around the intricacies of working in the Tas government, though (his background is working for mainland zoos).

I have signed a confidentiality agreement so technically I'm not allowed to tell you anything about what I do at work. What I can tell you is that I work with Tassie Devils (Sarcophilus harrisii), that, yes, I have actually seen them, that, no, I haven't been bitten yet (although apparently this is an inevitability) and that, yes, I think I am going to enjoy it very much.

I turns out that over 60 people applied for the position of field officer, over 20 were interviewed and they employed the 5 of us. Proud of me for beating those odds? The other 4 newbies, my new boss, my other bosses, and the existing 3 keepers and field officers are all really great so I should be able to settle in and make friends. Even the secretaries and admin ladies at headquaters all seem really nice.

I have been given keys to the various buildings and gates that I need to get into and should get my security swipe card tomorrow or the next day so I am feeling very grown up and important at the moment. My car key and house key were getting lonely without all the other keys I had while I was at uni so its nice to have some more. Today we also got to go and spend ridiculous amounts of the department's money getting kitted out in all our work gear. We all got 1 pair of steel-capped boots, 2 pairs of steel-capped gummies, 2 pairs of king gee work pants, 2 king gee shirts, and a polar fleece jacket. Later on we also get a full set of waterproofs, a couple of tassie devil shirts, and some assorted other stuff. Its pretty awesome.

Anyhow, seeing as I'm not meant to be telling you anything and as I have to get up and go to work tomorrow morning (no more unemployed bum getting to sleep in) I should go.

Port Macquarie

2010-08-01T19:48:00.001-07:00

Some randomly selected shots of the lovely tropical sunshine of Port Macquarie. I had a wonderful week up there. The highlights included the koala hospital, whale watching (no photos, just video which I havent gotten off the camera yet), retail therapy, the beautiful scenery, and simply having some time to relax before I start work.

Famous faces...

2010-07-28T02:22:00.000-07:00

On our journey north for winter, we ran into the following famous faces in the airports. This is the order in which we saw them, but also in the amount of excitement each sighting caused.

Wilbur Wilde (Hey Hey its Saturday)

Frankie J Holden

Jon English (aka the Pirate King)

On the way home we are hoping for a sighting of Eric Bana or Hugh Jackman.

I have a job!

2010-07-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

For those of you who dont already know (there cant be many of you because I seem to have told hundreds of people already) I got a phone call a couple of days ago to offer me the awesome position with the Tas Devil team. I still dont have a lot of information about the job itself and when I will be starting, but I am now no longer an unemployed bum. It seems that I didnt move out of Hobart for no reason after all :)

Boxes, boxes everywhere

2010-07-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

So, yes, I have now moved. Actually I moved on Saturday, but somehow I haven't managed to unpack many of the boxes yet and they are currently stacked up in the corridor. By the end of today I hope to have most of them unpacked, or at least in my room so that they aren't under Mum and Dad's feet while I am in Melbourne.

I leave for Melbourne tomorrow morning (wednesday) to spend a few days with Dienece (my very bestest friend) and her husband and the bump in her tummy. On Saturday morning I am meeting the rest of my family back at the airport as they get off the plane from Launny and we all board one to Sydney. From there we have a hire car to take us to Port Macquarie where we will be spending a week on holiday.

So the challenge now is to finish sorting out my stuff enough so that I can pack for ten days away.

I had a lovely good bye dinner in Hobart on Thursday with a collection of some of my favourite people. I refuse to really see it as good bye, though, because I plan to come visit so often that they will all get sick of me. Perhaps that's why I managed to get through the entire night without having a teary. Or it could have been the fact that the entire night was really one long hug from Tiani (my other very bestest friend). I even managed to get through the entire move on Saturday without feeling the need to turn into a puddle of tears. So perhaps I am just stoic, a sure sign that I have royal blood flowing in my veins. Or perhaps I am just saving it all up to have a big melt down later. Who knows.

Well, anyway, I just wanted to let you all officially know that I've moved.

Moving house...

2010-07-14T04:33:00.000-07:00

Ok, so most of you already know this, but just incase you havent heard yet - I'm moving house. I'm going to be leaving the sunny suburbs of Hobart (well occassionally sunny) to go back up the Tamar and move back in with Mum and Dad and my cat for a while. It was decided last Saturday that I will be moving and the moving date is set for this Saturday, leaving exactly one week to get everything packed and organised for the move and tell all my friends. The sorting and packing process has been slowed by the fact that I am currently doing my best to die from a cold, but apart from that is going well.

On Monday, before I started packing, I decided to take some photos of what my house looked like while I lived here for the past three years. So for those of you who were slack enough not to come and visit me over the last three years, take a look around the comfy little shoebox that has been my home.

Woohoo!!!

2010-07-08T06:16:00.000-07:00

The festival of voices rocks! Firstly, my choir was absolutely amazingly awesome tonight. Then most of the choir headed down to the Festival Club at Salamanca to listen to some other groups sing and the open mic hour at the end was absolutely spectacular.

We started with final rehearsals and warmed up at the Wesley Church (btw, if I ever get married this is where its happening - acoustics are phenomenal) then headed across the road to the Playhouse theatre. Once all 97 of us were on the stage we started with the hauntingly beautiful 'Lingmara' then rocked into 'I Shall not be Moved' then quietly and very emotionally went into 'Sister my Sister' which was dedicated to Dennis (a lovely man from the bass section that passed away this week) and then stormed into 'Everytime I Hear the Spirit'. Of course, the audience begged for an encore so we gave them 'One Morning Soon'. We were tremendous! And down at the festival club everyone else was tremendous too!

I really wish I had an audience plant to video us on stage, but I might be able to get a DVD of it if I'm patient enough to wait. I also wish I had taken some video of the open mic hour tonight so I could share some musical genius in the form of 'Jeremiah Bullfrog', 'Angelare', Walking in Memphis', and an original song called 'Prenuptial Apology' which was hilarious.

Its going to take a while for the adrenaline to wear off tonight (Just got home and still very hyped up). I can't wait for Saturdays performance now :)

Job Interview (2)

2010-07-04T23:51:00.000-07:00

So today is Monday the 5th which means that I had my job interview this afternoon. Because so many of you wished me "good luck" and "all the best" and such like things I thought I should just write a note to say that it went pretty well.

I did my best to sound intelligent and give a good impression. I even almost succeeded in taming my mad scientist hair (Note: I put my hair up despite the fact that a certain person asked me to rather than because they did.) The panel conducting the interview were all very nice and it was actually quite relaxed which I wasn't expecting because government departments are usually known for giving quite unrelaxed interviews (at least the people at uni said they were). Hopefully, I should know in a week or two whether I got the job.

Interview!!!!

2010-06-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

Guess what! I have a job interview! Monday the 5th at 1pm.
Very exciting!!!

Update: 5 mins after the phone call for the interview I got my honours results!!! I didnt fail! Yay!!!
Whoop Whoop *dancing around the room*

Ah, somedays life is brutal and heartless and then you get a day like today and you feel like walking on the moon and dancing among the stars :)

Almost a social life...

2010-06-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

After all the chaos of honours and then most of my friends having quite a lot of chaos of their own with exams and things, I haven't really had a lot of time with my friends lately. Thankfully, that's finally beginning to change. Finally, over the last few days I've gotten to spend some time with some of my favourite people.

Anyway, I was planning to tell about a couple of things in particular. While spending time with my friends I have recently been to see 'Black Coffee' and 'Shrek: Happily Ever After'.

I don't usually enjoy black coffee, but I did enjoy 'Black Coffee' - its a Poirot mystery written by Agatha Christie performed by the Hobart Rep Theatre Society. It was a lot of fun. The set was good, the casting was good, the acting was decent. Unfortunately it was too easy to solve the mystery, but it was still very enjoyable. I especially thought both Poirot and Hastings were well cast and well acted. Hastings was gorgeous- so funny!

Then yesterday I went to see Shrek 4 in 3D. I really only went because I was desperate to see something in 3D. If I had been a little more patient I could have just waited till next week and gone to see Toy Story in 3D instead. That probably would have been a better idea. I think I would have been rewarded for my patience. It wasn't that Shrek was especially bad, it just wasn't especially good either. Not really surprising since the Shrek series has been on a decline with each new movie. But the 3D was fun. Really fun. And I got to hang out with my friends. Maybe we'll go to see Toy Story in 3D as well.

The Venetian Mask

2010-06-17T00:25:00.000-07:00

Well, the tattoo being performed on my roof has finally ended and the scaffolding outside my window has been taken down (see previous post) so I will return to the planned post for today. Since I have now had several requests for photos of my venetian mask craft project your wish is my command.

Before you get to see the photo, though, I'm going to have to write some more boring words for you to read to explain a little bit about it all. I decided back when Rob and I were in Venice last year that I would like to attempt to make a traditional mask. Well not entirely traditional. Of course, the first Venetian masks were fairly simple, usually made out of molded leather, and designed to be worn, but I wanted to make a "traditional" decorative mask instead. The decorative masks are usually either ceramic or paper mache, usually full face rather than the half face designs that are common in masks designed to be worn, and usually include a jester's hat. While we saw hundreds, or perhaps even thousands, of masks while we were in Venice we didn't take many photos of them. I'm not sure why we didn't - probably a combination of the fact that the guys selling the masks were a little bit scary most of the time and the fact that we were too busy taking photos of the Venetian glass instead. Anyway, the only photo we seem to have is this one:

That meant that when I was designing my mask I did so partly from memory of the one's I'd seen and partly from the results of a google image search. Then it was off to Spotlight to figure out how I was going to do it. I bought a flimsy plastic mask mold to start with and decided to reinforce it with paper mache. Several layers later, I got to start painting and decorating and the fun began. The jester's hat was the most challenging part because I haven't done anything like that before but it was fun and I got to make rather a lot of mess with glue and scraps of material everywhere. Anyway, this is the finished project on my wall.

what a crazy random happenstance...

2010-06-16T20:53:00.000-07:00

I was awoken today at the unpleasantly early hour of 7:30am by the sound of someone's boots stomping on the roof directly over my head. Rather a strange sound to wake up to. It took me a couple of moments to figure out what was going on. Apparently today is the day that the gutters around my apartment block get replaced. It would have been nice to get some warning. It would have been nice if they hadn't started quite so early in the morning. But perhaps they needed to start this early to make the most of the rather stingy amount of sunlight available these days. They are still stomping around up there now almost 6 hours later and a rather large pile of discarded guttering is appearing on my lawn. I hope they finish soon - its rather a headaching noise they are making up there.

Anyway, that wasn't the news that I was planning to share with you, but as I haven't yet had a chance to complain to anyone else about it yet you will have to do. I will get around to the other blogging duties later.

Ciao

Quite a boring post, actually

2010-06-07T21:12:00.000-07:00

I thought some of you might be wondering what I am up to at the moment. The answer is not much actually. At least not much of interest. Whenever anyone asks me I reply, "looking for work" - which is, of course, the truth, but it doesnt actually take up all that much of my time to browse the employment websites. So in my spare time I have been finishing off a couple of little craft projects (I finished the Venetian mask. Does anyone want me to stick up photos?) and reading and stuff. I have also been spending several days in bed sick, but that's not much fun.

I have only applied for two jobs so far and as both of these applications were very recent I wouldn't expect any exciting news yet. As soon as I have any news you will all know immediately as I expect I will be too excited to keep it to myself even if I wanted to.

In the meantime, I'll keep occupying my spare time with working on some of the many unfinished projects I've got on the go. I'm also planning to have a bit of a spring clean of my apartment and get rid of some of the unnecessary accumulation of clutter that has somehow filled my cupboards over the last few years living here. This should be very useful if it turns out that I get a job in another part of the state and have to move, but wont exactly be a bad thing if I stay here either. I'm afraid my genetics makes me quite prone to accumulating clutter and its good for me to have to wage war against it all occasionally.

I'll let you know if I manage to think of anything actually interesting to say, but I wouldn't hold my breath because obviously I haven't managed to think of anything interesting today so I will stop boring you all now and get back to what I was meant to be doing today instead.

Doctor's companions

2010-05-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

The poll has closed and the results are in:

In all 6 people voted (not bad considering). In last place is .... Rose Tyler.
Rose got no votes. No surprise there.

In 3rd place is .... Martha Jones.
Martha got 1 vote (16%). Not bad, but Martha unfortunately made the same mistake as Rose - she fell in love with the Doctor.

In 2nd place is .... Amy Pond.
Amy got 2 votes (33%). A very good result considering that she is so new. I didn't vote for Amy but she is quickly growing on me. She has shown some inclination towards falling for the Doctor, but as long as she avoids that I think she is going to be a great companion.

In 1st place is .... Donna Nobel.
Donna got 3 votes (50%). I think the reason that Donna is so liked is two fold. Firstly, she didnt fall for the Doctor which makes for a more interesting companion because she got to think for herself a bit more. And secondly she has an awesome Grandad.

Thanks for voting.

African sleeping sickness

2010-05-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hiya faithful readers.

Not much news in my world at the moment, but I thought that I might as well post anyway. I'm currently in Devonport staying with Rob and doing nothing (which is pretty much what everyone does when they stay with Rob). I am doing even less than usual though because I am experiencing quite a lot of difficulty in staying awake at present. The complete crash and burn I was expecting to hit me two weeks ago after I finished my thesis was considerably delayed but has now finally hit me. And its hit me hard.

I came up on Tuesday to spend the evening with Rob and spent the night on his couch rather than in the spare room because it was nice and warm there and that way I would have to wake up when Rob was getting ready to go to work and I could say goodbye. That was the plan anyway. In reality Rob got up and came out and had breakfast and made lunch and talked to me and I slept right through the whole thing. When I did wake up I was completely disoriented and had no idea where I was for a few seconds. It was quite a strange feeling.

Today is Rob's birthday so when I woke up this morning when his alarm went off at some unearthly hour I deliberately made myself stay awake until he made it out into the loungeroom so that I could wish him happy birthday. Mind you it was three episodes of Black Books before he did finally make it out and left. I then promptly went back to sleep.

In other news, Rob and I played Portal last night so I have now finally played it. Some bits I actually played (all the tests at the beginning) and some bits Rob took the controls and I gave instructions (I dont have quick enough game reflexes because I hardly ever play). It was quite good, but I still like the Monkey Island series better.

It looks like I have a pretty full couple of days ahead of me so I am going to try to stay awake for them. We'll see how that goes.

For all the Dr Who fans...

2010-05-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

Also check out his others on YouTube. Some of them are brilliant. I quite liked his Britain's Got Talent/Dr Who crossover as well.

I submitted my thesis....

2010-05-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know that some of you expected me to post this earlier, but sitting at a computer and typing was not something I felt like doing up until now.

I handed my thesis in on Monday a bit before 4pm (it was due at 5pm). I could have handed it in earlier, but I took an hour off for lunch with my friend Bec while I waited for one of the other honours students to finish printing out her thesis so that we could all hand them in together. I handed in 3 copies to go to the examining panel to be (hopefully) approved, and a further 4 copies to uniprint to get bound. In the end, I wasn't too unhappy with the quality of my thesis. It isn't as good as it could have been if I had somehow managed to find a bit of extra time to polish it, but it wasnt as bad as I thought it was going to be. Considering I have been averaging about 4-5 hours broken sleep a night and I can barely form verbal sentences, I'm surprised that my writing is still fairly coherent. I only got 2.5-3 hours sleep Sunday night, but I managed to survive the day without even having any caffeine until after I handed my thesis in. Every other day for the past two weeks, caffeine has been my constant companion.

Mum came down to Hobart and met me at my place when I got home from uni and then we went and partied with Tiani, Andrew, Moose, Alysha, Han, Dot, Colin, and Robear to celebrate. Moose and Tiani both just had birthdays so it was kinda a shared celebration for everyone. They decided that I wasn't caffeinated enough at this point so they took me out for a walk down to Maccas to get frozen cokes. So after a coffee, three glasses of normal coke, and a frozen coke I was feeling pretty excitable while we played twister, celebrity heads, and cards. Eventually Mum and I went home to bed, but surprisingly I spent the night waking up from thesis nightmares the same as I had all week - I thought I would go back to being good at sleeping after I submitted my thesis, but apparently I was wrong. I was awake by 7am, and gave up and got out of bed around 8am which was a very disappointing effort at a sleep in.

Anyway, now I am up north at Mum and Dad's relaxing, rejuvenating, and recovering. I still didn't sleep properly last night and was up at 8am again, but I think its slowly going back to normal. Fidget and I are home alone and spending the day doing nothing, but she is much better at doing nothing than I am so I built Dad's new DVD tower (flat pack) while I was trying to do nothing and watch Midsommer Murders.

Here's some photos of my office at uni where I spent the last few weeks almost entirely. I packed everything up and took it home yesterday, but I thought you might like to see what it used to look like. Remember you can click on them to enlarge if you need to.

4 days

2010-05-05T21:35:00.000-07:00

I'm in for a really long 4 days to finish my thesis. Prayers, caffeinated beverages, and help celebrating at the end would all be very greatly appreciated.

A funny thing happened the other day...

2010-04-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've been spending all my time writing my stupid thesis and I havent been able to have enough conversations with people. Usually I get this out of my system when I hang out with my friends on Sunday, but I havent been able to recently so I have a couple of funny stories that I need to tell. You have to imagine that I'm telling them in my comedy voice.

Story number 1
So, the other day I was demonstrating in the first year zoology prac the same as I do every week. This week, though, the firsties were dissecting cockroaches. There was the usual range of enthusiasm - some couldnt wait to pick them up and start playing around with them, and others wouldn't even touch them with their forceps unless they were wearing gloves. A group of four boys that sit at the back bench (and usually behave like boys sitting in the back row always behave) were ready to start the rather fiddly task of removing the mouth parts from their cockroaches so I was showing them how. I had them all holding their cockroaches in one hand and using their fine forceps to locate each of the different mouth parts with the other when suddenly there was a highpitched scream from the big, tough looking guy closest to me as he threw his cockroach back in the dissecting dish. The whole class had turned around and he very sheepishly said "I thought I felt it move" and went bright red. It made my day.

Story number 2
I told the last story to my dad on the phone the other night, but this next story has yet to have made a public appearance anywhere so you are they very first people to enjoy it.
I was getting ready to go to uni the other day, putting my shoes and socks on while I drank my coffee and watched Sunrise on the tv. Whatever they were talking about on tv must have been quite interesting because it took me a while to put on my shoes and socks. I had one foot shoed and socked and was about to sock the other one, but I couldn't find my sock. I looked around. I looked in the shoe. I looked under the cushion on the couch. I checked to make sure I wasn't sitting on it. But I couldn't find it.

I was pacing up and down around the room trying to figure out where on earth my sock had gone when I realised that the shoe that I was wearing felt a bit tighter than usual. Somehow I had managed to put both socks on one foot without realising. It made me LOL.

So there you are, dead cockroaches and missing socks. I lead an interesting life : )

Illogical Physiology

2010-04-30T01:40:00.000-07:00

The way the human body responds to stress is illogical. At least when you put it in the context of writing a thesis, it is illogical. When you put it in the context of an immediate danger like being chased by a grizzly bear, it is actually perfectly logical. But I am not being chased by a grizzly bear, I am trying to write a thesis.

Stress causes the body to do all sorts of strange things like dramatically increase the production of adrenaline to facilitate either escaping from the stressor or defeating it (flight or fight response). Adrenaline is pretty incredible stuff and can make the average human body faster and stronger than most elite athletes, but only for a short amount of time. Its like a NOS injection system for the body. When the stressor is acute (like being chased by a grizzly bear) the physiological stress reaction is short-lived and harmless (although usually results in shock when its wearing off) and saves lives.

But when the stressor is chronic and prolonged (such as writing a thesis) the whole system goes wonky. Prolonged stress can result in a plethora of different physiological responses which in turn produce quite a number of different physical and mental symptoms. The most common of which are probably having problems sleeping, headaches, and stomach aches. And that's where things start to get illogical. You have a deadline to meet and your body's solution to the problem is to deprive you of the sleep you need in order to think clearly enough to meet that deadline, and also throws in a headache and stomach just to distract you that little bit more. So the more stressed you get, the less work you can manage to get done, and the less progress you make, the more stressed you get. How does that make sense?

I have only had one good nights sleep in the last week and its starting to get very, very annoying.

Good News

2010-04-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

I just found out that I dont actually have to do first year prac demonstrating the week after next because the little firsties have their prac exam that week.

That means that instead of having to go to uni and work the day after I submit my thesis, I can spend all day doing whatever I feel like (I'm guessing mostly sleep). Yay!

We're moving...

2010-04-24T00:05:00.001-07:00

Randomness and chaos is going to get a makeover, and a change of address. Why? Because I feel like it. Plus www.randomness-and-chaos.blogspot.com is just too long and complicated. Half the time, I can't even remember the address to give it to people.

Of course, none of this is going to happen until at least May 11 - I'm just announcing it now so that I can stop dwelling on it and focus on my thesis and so that you have an opportunity to get used to the idea.

So if there are any suggestions on things that you would like to see in the new look version get commenting.

The 101 most annoying things about writing a thesis...

2010-04-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

Number 46: Having to wear glasses.

Normally I don't have to wear my glasses very often, but when I spend a lot of time reading or staring at a computer screen (like say when I'm writing a thesis) my eyes get tired and I can't see without them. Problem is that when I'm wearing my glasses I can't see any further away than my computer screen. This means that I spend a lot of time putting my glasses on and taking them off again.

It goes something like this:
Getting up from my desk to get myself a cup of tea and wondering why I cant see, taking off my glasses, getting a cup of tea, sitting back at my desk, wondering why I cant see, putting my glasses on .... getting up from my desk to go downstairs and retrieve something from the printer and wondering why I cant see, taking off my glasses, retrieving printing, sitting back at my desk, wondering why I cant see, putting my glasses on...

The problem is mostly that I actually have to stop and wonder why I cant see every time, and there is always that momentary panic that I'm going blind, followed by the momentary relief that if I go blind, I would get an extension on my thesis.

Update

2010-04-13T01:36:00.000-07:00

Two posts tonight because the first one got a bit too full of thesis related nonsense to fit in a bit more general update of how everything is going.

My life is currently full of many little ups and downs as it always is, but the pressure of the upcoming very important deadline turns these into a rather dramatic emotional rollercoaster. Speaking of which, in case you haven't noticed, look to the right of the screen - thats the deadline. If you look a bit further down the right of the screen you will also see another new gadget I found on the weekend. For some reason, when you are looking for a countdown gadget for your blog its much easier to find a fish tank gadget. I liked it, so it stayed.

One of the "little" downs that I had this week was finding out that my supervisor had (again) left the state without warning. This time he is at a conference in Paris and won't be back until the end of next week. Have another look at the deadline on the right of the screen. That's a big chunk of the remaining time without a supervisor. I had a bit of a meltdown last night. After taking some time today to calmly evaluate whether or not I could get enough done without him to survive, I have decided that its going to be ok (but only just).

To cheer myself up after my meltdown last night I had some fun giving Bernard (my laptop) a bit of a makeover. To cheer myself up tonight after yesterday's meltdown, I blogged :) (twice, even). Check out the photos of Bernard (I'm wondering if maybe I should have called him Penny after all? Oh well, Bernard likes flowers - remember his summer girlfriend).

Before

After :)

P.S. Don't forget there is a second post tonight - read that one too.

Thesis Writing

2010-04-13T01:02:00.000-07:00

Thesis writing is horribly, tremendously boring. Everything in the world is more exciting than thesis writing. Everything.

Consequently, I have really been struggling to knuckle down and actually write my thesis. That's not to say that I haven't been writing, but every word that I type is an effort. A big effort.

I have had to clear my life from distractions. But because everything in the world is more exciting than thesis writing, everything is a distraction. So I have only been able to get rid of the biggest distractors. These are (in order of time that I would spend doing them if I wasn't so self controlled):

TV shows (including what's on my computer, on iview, and what's actually on tv)
Games
Facebook
Checking my email constantly
The Cheeseburger network websites
All the other websites I regularly entertain myself with (mostly blogs and webcomics)
Texting (hmm...maybe technology really is evil)
Finding that song that I've got stuck in my head
Wondering what to cook for tea
Doing my nails
Everything else in the world.

So, the solutions to these problems. Setting (and sticking to) some ground rules, and physically removing as many of the distractions as possible.

I have had to get rid of all the tv shows on my computer (yes, even the episode of House that I have seen roughly 32 times is still more interesting than writing my thesis) and put them on my portable hardrive for safe keeping. I have also baned myself from watching tv between the hours of 8am and 6pm (because even Oprah is more interesting than writing my thesis!). I am also only allowing myself a modest amount of all the other technology related distractions: email - maximum of once per hour, facebook - maximum of twice per day, all other websites - maximum of once per day, texting - only if I'm actually communicating important information that can't wait until later (See how boring my life is becoming). I am only allowing myself instrumental music to listen to while I work so I don't get distracted with lyrics, I plan a week's worth of meals in advance, and I only do my nails on the weekend (as if they would ever need to be done any more often than that any, but apparently I currently have a bit of an obsession about it).

All these rather stupid sounding rules and regulations have helped quite a bit. However, if you catch me breaking any of these rules, you aren't allowed to tell me off because they are my rules and only I am allowed to punish myself. So if I text you meaningless nonsense when I should be working, just ignore me.

Easter

2010-04-09T18:11:00.000-07:00

Well, Easter was great. A really nice long weekend with my family. I'll just give you a quick overview of the highlights because I don't have the time to go into all the details (and you probably don't have the patience to read it anyways).

Friday~
Dad and I were the only ones around on Friday (Rob in Devonport, Mum at work) so we had a bit of Daddy-daughter time on the wharf at Beauty Point watching the start of the three peaks race. That night, with Mum and Clinton (cousin whose family is up in outback Qld so we adopt him when we are having family outings) we went to Rob's place in Devonport for the night. We hung out, watched Black Books and The Big Bang Theory, played cards, and, of course, were diligent Catholics and had fish for dinner :)

Saturday~
Once the whole house was finally up, showered, and dressed (except Neptune) we got going, all piled into Dad's Big Blue Car (except Neptune) to go to Cradle Mountain. At this point I should probably explain something. When we were growing up, Rob and I were taken all over Tasmania, and later mainland Australia by our parents. We got to experience all the tourist spots as well as plenty of places off the beaten track, but the one place we never went to was Cradle Mountain. It was always somewhere we were saving for later. So finally it was decided that this was enough later and we went. Even with the very upsetting episode with the leech I really enjoyed it. Cradle Mountain is glorious and I'm definitely going back one day.

Sunday~
By this point we were all back at Mum and Dad's place, so the five of us (and Fidget) had a pretty typical Sunday. Sleep in. Church. Sunday roast. All the usual stuff.

Monday~
Clinton left us on Sunday afternoon, but Rob was still at Mum and Dads. Another sleep in, and a day spent doing nothing in particular. Rob left us in the afternoon to go back to Devonport, so then it was just the three of us. After tea that night, the power went out and Mum and Dad and I played cards by candlelight until it came back on.

Tuesday~
I spent the day at Mum and Dad's doing honour's work, then hung out with Mum for a bit in between her shifts. Then hung out with Dad for a bit. Also hung out with Fidget for a bit.

Wednesday~
I came home :(

Photo Gallery

6 weeks

2010-03-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say that my Final Seminar went fairly well yesterday. I don't yet know my marks from it, but I stuck to the time limit and seem to have made sense so it was better than I was expecting. After spending all weekend at uni (yes, unfortunately even most of Sunday) it is quite a relief to have that deadline taken care of.

Now it is just under 6 weeks until my thesis is due. With practically no words yet written and a large proportion of my analysis still to go, I think its going to be a pretty intense month and a half.

I was a bit of a sad sack when I'd finished my seminar last night from just from so much stress, too little sleep, and not having eaten all day because I was too nervous. But after a good Dvd, chinese takeaway, and being looked after by my wonderfull friends (not to mention a sleep in this morning) I feel much better now and I'm ready to go play with my little first years while we study locomotion in earthworms.

See ya.

The Scam Artists Attack

2010-03-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I got a rather interesting text message and this is what it said:
"Congratulations! You have just won 290,000,00 pounds in the ongoing UK NOKIA PROMO. Email us at nokiaworld.uk@live.com & call +447045744545 for claims info."

Straight away I thought it had to be a con so I Google-d it to see what would come up. Turns out hundreds of other people have been getting the same message since at least 2008, but the email address and phone number keeps changing. Frequently the email address is @gmail or @hotmail. Its definately a scam.

From the few gullible people who where stupid enough to give these criminals their details, it turns out that the con comes in when you claim delivery of your prize money. In one version, you have to pay 500 pounds to set up a bank account for the money to go into with the bank that Nokia is affiliated with, and in the other version you have to pay for the courier company to come and deliver the cash to you in person (again around 500 pounds). I haven't found anyone who actually paid the money, because the emails they had been receiving with all these directions looked so dodgy and were written with such bad grammar that you would definitely be suspicious that the person writing them did not live in the UK.

So no 290,000,00 pounds for me. Which, by the way, isnt a real amount of money - it should either be 29,000,000 or they have missed a 0 off the end. Clue number one that the whole thing is a fraud.

The Verdict

2010-03-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here are some photos of the play that Tiani and I were working on for so long. They aren't brilliant photo's, but they are the only ones I have access to at the moment. Shortly, I will get around to putting together a DVD of the play for anyone who wasn't there and is really interested in seeing what it was like (but be warned that it is an hour long).

I should explain that the play, "The Verdict", is a court room drama of a similar style to "The Accused". The cast members are the lawyers, the defendant, the witnesses, the bailiff, and the judge. The audience plays the role of the jury and decides on the final verdict, and thus, the final scene of the play. The case being tried in "The Verdict" is a murder trial. Jael the Kenite stands accused of the murder of Sisera the Cananite in a story taken straight from Old Testament Jewish history (Judges chapter 4). As three seperate nations are involved in the case (the Kenites, the Cananites, and the Israelites), it is tried in a international court that does not necessarily follow the rules of any of the courts you may be familiar with in real life.

The lawyer for the defense, Charlotte de Haviland (Tiani Pilgrim) and Barak the Israelite (Jen Ashby)

The lawyer for the prosecution, Jacqueline Richardson (me), Sergant Beau Thompson (Jen Ashby), The Honourable Amanda Montreal (Dot Pilgrim), and the Bailiff (Martin Pilgrim)

The defendant, Jael the Kenite (Martha Klaver), looking a little distressed.

Busy, busy, busy...

2010-03-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

Well, the last week has been insanely busy and I really can't imagine it getting any less busy for a little while. Partly, the business has come from honours work and partly from rehearsing for the play we are performing this Saturday night. At least, rehearsing the play is fun so I don't really mind that I have been this busy. The plot of the play is meant to remain a little bit of a secret so I can't tell you much about it yet.

Honours work, on the other hand, I can tell you anything you would like to know (and probably quite a bit more). I have started data exploration and statistical analysis and now have a few (quite interesting, I think) results that I can share with you.

Hooded plovers and Red-capped plovers have different diets. While they live on the same beach, are approximately the same size, and have the same kinds of food available to them, they actually choose different prey items and have different diets. We zoologists would call this resource partitioning and find it highly interesting.
Not only does the kind of creepy crawlies in the sand (the kinds of things my birdies like to eat) change across the beach from the wet sand to the dunes (which was completely to be expected), but it also changes along the beach (also not terribly surprising). The surprise comes in when you add the 'territory' factor. Red-capps and Hoodies choose different parts of the beach for their territories and Red-capp territories are characterised by a different bunch of creepy crawlies to Hoodie territories. Now I just have to match up the difference in diet to the difference in territory. Are they choosing their territories because they are looking for a place with certain food sources or are they eating what they are eating because it just happens to be what is in their territory which they have chosen for some other reason?

If you are still awake after reading that, you have done well. And if you didn't stay awake in that then you really dont want to read my thesis when I finish. Only 7.5 weeks to go now.

Comic

2010-03-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

I may been reading too much of the archive of xkcd.com lately because I seem to have started thinking in comics. Probably doesnt help that I also keep up with PhD comics and zoologycomic.com.

You'll probably have to click on the comic to enlarge it so you can actually read it.

Haven't you ever been to a party (or listening to some of the boys in the undergrad class you are working with) and just wanted to do this?

Such a fun way to waste half an hour that I might even do some more.

Little first years...

2010-03-09T20:44:00.000-08:00

By the way, just for anyone who doesnt know yet, I'm now working with the first year zoology class on Tuesday afternoons 2-6pm. I'm one of three demonstrators working with the class of 70 undergrads helping with their pracs. The other 300 firsties have their pracs on different days and I dont have to see them. I've had two afternoons with them so far and I've actually quite enjoyed it. I even have a couple of favourite students already. I dont actually mind being asked the same queston 40 times when I'm being paid for it :)

Pretty Pictures...

2010-03-02T00:38:00.000-08:00

I promised you some pretty pictures and here they are. As of 5pm, March the 1st (yesterday) I have officially finished the field work and lab work part of my honours degree so I have put together a commerative photo album of my summer spent on the beach. Enjoy this collection of my favourite shots. As always, clicking on a photo will enlarge it if you want a closer look.

Aaaah, how I'm going to miss the beach while I spend endless hours at the computer over the next couple of months.

2010-02-25T18:10:00.000-08:00

Emma has a virus so you'd better stay away. Its a particularly unpleasant version that makes your joints very painful so you really dont want to catch it.

I can barely walk, but I limped to uni anyway because I had a compulsary tutorial on data handling this morning. I think I'll spend all weekend watching dvds and hopefully I'll be able to get rid of it before next week.

We're all going on a summer holiday....

2010-02-23T14:28:00.000-08:00

Summer - a time for holidays.

Unfortunately, the more grown-up you get, the less holidays you're allowed. Except, of course, for uni students. Undergrads get more holidays than even school kids. Unfortunately, I'm no longer an undergrad. This summer my holidays were only just a week long over Christmas. And Christmas seems a long time ago now.

So I've had to fit all my holidaying around my uni work and try to get as much of the important summer holiday activities in as possible. Summer holidays should involve some of each of these activities: swimming, fishing, boating, camping, snorkeling, beach combing, roadtrips, and bbqs. I am now happy to say that I have managed to fit in some of each.

I have been well over the required amount of beach combing for quite some time now, as that is all I have spent my summer doing - walking along beaches, sitting down and watching birds. The others have all been a bit more of a problem to fit in. I am still not satisfied with the amount of snorkeling, but everything else I am very proud to say I have managed to achieve (although, I would most definitely not complain if I got to do more of any of them). Roadtripping has also not been hard to fit in as I have been carting various friends and relations all around the east coast to go beaching with me, and, of course, I have had plenty of bbqs as well, so its really swimming, fishing, boating, and camping that have been the challenge.

The last two weekends have been fabulous for crossing off my list of summer activities. The weekend before last, I joined my family down the peninsula visiting my extended family. My Uncle Charlie had already taken Dad fishing in Fortescue that morning which was apparently spectacular with dolphins and seals, but they decided to go out again a bit closer to home and try for some flathead. So I tagged along (surprising Uncle Charlie slightly as he was expecting Rob to want to come instead) and went with them and my cousin Dain (Uncle Charlie's youngest son). Uncle Charlie's boat is exactly the sort of boat I like - not huge, but big enough that you can stand up and move around easily. I always love just being out on the water in any sort of boat so I enjoyed it immensely. Uncle Charlie even slowed down as we went past the Cormorants so I could have a look (we were going quite fast. I like going fast). Uncle Charlie caught the first fish and it was an absolutely tiny little white bait, but they got much bigger after that. I caught 11 flathead and Dad and Dion and caught some each as well. Uncle Charlie spent most of his time cleaning the fish we caught so we didn't have to stop and do it on the way home. The sunset was really beautiful as we went back to the jetty, too.

Last weekend, I saw my family again. This time we went camping at Lagoons Beach north of Bicheno. I was already up the coast doing fieldwork so I spent the Friday on the beach at Swansea and then went up to meet Mum and Dad and set up camp. Rob and Clinton came too, but they didn't get there until bedtime. We went for a walk on the beach on Friday night while we were waiting for the boys to arrive and found (much to my delight) that the microbes in the sand were luminescing (glowing in the dark). Bioluminescence is a natural phenomena that I have now been lucky enough to see twice, although the first time was much more impressive because there was much more. The microbes luminesce when they are disturbed so at the edge of the swash where the waves are hitting the shore it glows. You can also get them to glow by disturbing the wet sand by running along it and jumping and dancing. That was the highlight of our walk along the beach. The lowlight (for me, Mum has a different lowlight) was when I dropped my phone in the water. Thankfully, my wonderful Daddy was on hand to help dry it out and it survived the ordeal.

On Saturday we went for a drive into Bicheno to go for a swim at the beach where I have wanted to swim all summer (Mum and I had gone swimming there a couple of days before when she was beaching with me, but it wasn't enough). The waves were awesome for body surfing and we all had an amazing time. Rob, Clinton, and I went back on Sunday after we had packed up camp.

(picture of the beach we went swimming at stolen from Rob)

Unfortunately, the waves that were so awesome for bodysurfing in the sheltered bay, were not very cooperative for surf fishing in the much more exposed Lagoons Beach where we were camping, but we still had a go. The waves also meant it was too rough to snorkel around the rocks between Diamond Island and Denison Beach :(

The only other uncooperative things were the fire nazis who wouldn't let us have a campfire and the possum who decided to piddle on Clinton's tent and Mum's leg because it was sick of me shining my torch in its eyes.

So, there you are - my summer holidays. I promise my next post will have lots of lovely pictures to look at and not so many pesky words to read.

Update - the big news of the week

2010-02-11T16:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, here is the big news in my life at the moment.

My research proposal is finally completed and submitted. Yay! All that stress, late nights, and Saturdays spent at uni are now over. At least for now. I don't even want to consider whats going to happen when I'm trying to finish my thesis. At least with my thesis, though, I can devote my time fully to it rather than trying to fit it in around spending most of time doing fieldwork up the coast. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

With the stress of the research proposal now gone, field work has returned to being quite enjoyable. Apart from the weather, that is. The weather has been ridiculous. It hasn't been really hot, but it has been so humid that it is stifling anyhow. Look, this is Denison beach. See the mist? That's been almost constant for the past two weeks. Its not quite so bad at Swansea, but its still insane.

Last Friday, Moose and I finally managed to get our hands on the night vision binoculars and see what my little birdies do at night. The cloud cover was initially a problem, but that eventually cleared and the NVBs were awesome. Turns out my little birdies do exactly the same thing at night as they do during the day which is pretty awesome (especially considering that its a brand new scientific discovery never before published). It also turns out that Moose and I can manage to spend an entire night without trying to kill each other which I personally think is the more surprising discovery out of the two. Apart from the cloudiness and it getting rather cold, the only problem we had was a car load of drunken idiots going skinny dipping, but they didn't even notice we were there so it wasn't actually a problem.

Also big news, I have a new favourite word- "smef". Smef is a creation of Douglas Adams and should probably actually be written as S.M.E.F., but I like it better as smef. Smef stands for spontaneous massive existence failure, and describes perfectly that Friday I had two weeks ago that I don't want to talk about. Its also useful for such sentences as:
"I think it's smeffed!" which means "I think its suffered a spontaneous massive existence failure" or in the colloquial - "Its stuffed."
also "What in the smef is going on here?"
and simply "Smef!"

Unfortunately, 'smef' was the best part of Starship Titanic if you ask me (which you didn't). It definitely doesn't display Douglas Adams' genius in the same way as Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy does. It was still very useful as something to listen to while I was driving up and down the coast this week, though, as I have very sadly now run out of the Sherlock Holmes audio books Rob burnt me. Its quite disappointing really, but I guess all good things must come to an end. As has now, this post.

New Neighbour...

2010-02-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

Most of you would remember a woman at uni that, during the final year of my degree, latched on to myself and my friend Megan, made our time at uni almost unbearable, and almost completely ruined our reputations and our relationships with both our colleagues and the faculty. It eventually got so bad that Megan and I would actually hide from her during lunch to avoid having to deal with her.

When this woman graduated (without flying colors, I feel compelled to add) and went up to Launceston to do her honours on something boring about squid, Megan and I were overjoyed that we would never have to deal with her again. Of course, I hadn't thought about the fact that I still have family and friends in Launceston and that they might have to deal with her instead. She then proceeded to embed herself into the life of one of them, and did her best to completely ruin it. At this point, I completely ran out of all Christian love and compassion towards this woman, and really, really hoped that it would be the last I ever heard of her.

But, alas, it was not to be. On Saturday I went in to my office at uni to work on my research proposal and there, in the office next to mine that had been empty since Malcom finished his thesis, was the woman herself. I nearly screamed. I said 'hi', but then immediately got to work and put my headphones on to discourage any conversation with her - I know from personal experience that if you show this woman the tiniest bit of friendliness, she can completely take over your life.

I assumed that she must have returned to do her PhD, but found out later from one of my friends that she had never finished her honours in Launceston and had come back down here to have another go. This made me feel a little better - I would finish my honours before she could finish hers. There is something about her that just makes me want to be better than her at everything and take her down a peg. Megan and I had both felt this way and it gave us a reason to work extra hard on all our assignments, and whenever we got a chance to compare results with her all the extra hard work paid off.

Competitiveness had worked as a coping strategy with her before, so I decided that I would use it again. Rather than despair that she had come straight back into my life, I decided to use it to my advantage. Everyday that I sit in that desk next to her will become a competition - who gets to uni first, who makes the most productive typing-like noises, who stays longer etc. I have the immediate advantage for two reasons: I actually know that we're competing and she doesn't (although it is in her nature to be competitive about everything anyway) and she has to take a smoke break every hour or so (or at least she used to and I'm assuming she wont have quit). It probably isn't the best strategy for dealing with anyone, but its going to have to do until I can muster any feeling of kindness, compassion, or brotherly love towards her and deal with her in a more Christian way.

Tomato!

2010-02-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

My cherry tomatoes are finally ripening! And they're really yummy :)

Rejection

2010-02-05T20:16:00.000-08:00

The other day I was at uni when I overheard a conversation between two of my colleagues that share the office with me. One of the two had recently submitted a paper for publication in a scientific journal and had just received a rejection letter. The other apparently has more experience in having papers rejected than anyone in the building and so had been the natural choice for the first to come to for some sympathy and commiseration. The conversation ran in such a way that it reminded me of this piece of pure awesomeness and I thought I should share it with you all in case you have yet to see it.

Dirty, stinky smoker, but comic genius.

"Here have this basket of stuff and stay for the weekend."

Photo album

2010-01-31T15:55:00.000-08:00

Here are the photos that belong with the last post :)

Rob continually getting soaked while filling up the bucket.

Rob and me doing science

More science

Martin doing science

Martin not doing science :)

Quicksand: the very definition of aventure.

2010-01-29T23:30:00.000-08:00

Educational Services (Schools) General Staff Award 2010

I dont want to talk about the last couple of days, but I will tell you about the days before that. As you all know, I spent two days doing intensive invertebrate sampling over the last week. The operative word in that sentence being 'intensive'. I'm sure that all of my volunteer helpers would say that it was a pretty intense couple of days.

On Tuesday, it was, of course, Australia Day and my parents had the day off and decided to devote it to helping me out with prey sampling (aren't they lovely). Mum and Dad went camping the night before so that they wouldnt be too far away from Bicheno in the morning and we could get started nice and early. Unfortunately, their lilo let them down (literally) and they didnt have the best nights sleep, but they managed to be pleasant company anyway. I left Hobart a little after 6am and Mum and Dad joined me on the beach at 9am.

The way intensive prey sampling works is that at 6 locations along the beach (at 2 Hoodie territories, 2 Red-cap territories, and 2 sections of the beach between territories that is unused by either species) 40 sand cores are taken, seived through a very fine mesh sieve that lets most of the sand through but keeps all the tiny little creepy crawlies, and then the bugs are picked from the sieve using forcepts and put in a sample bag labeled with the date, territory and location. 40 samples are taken at each of the six sites; 10 in the swash (where the waves are lapping on the shore), 10 in the lower beach, 10 in the hight tide mark, and 10 in the upper beach. All in all, I took 440 samples over 2 days.

Here, have some photos.

These are taken at Denison beach just north of Bicheno when Mum and Dad were helping me.

On Tuesday night I returned to Hobart after hanging out with Mum and Dad for a while (and having a very nice BBQ, seeing an Orca, and having a very much appreciated cup of coffee or two). We didnt finish sampling until after 6pm, but I dont remember how much after that it was. I dont know if Mum and Dad enjoyed themselves, but I actually did. I like being able to share my wonderful beaches with people - they are far more enjoyable that way. Unfortunately, it took so long doing the sampling that it was cold and windy by the time we finished and Dad and I didnt get to go snorkeling around the awesome rocks near Diamond Island.

On Wednesday I had to repeat the whole process on Friendly Beaches in the Frecynet National Park with two of my friends for volunteers. With only just over 4 hours sleep, I was very glad that Moose was doing all the driving and all I had to do was talk enough dribble to keep him awake. Rob was completely useless in this regard and snoozed in the backseat on the way up and back down. We stopped at Macca's in Sorell for breaky on the way and got to the beach around 10:30 and set to work.

We sampled all day (well, I did - the boys had a bit of break in the middle), but still had time to have a slight adventure and get eaten by quicksand on the edge of the lagoon. I knew there was quicksand at the lagoon from a previous experience getting my foot eaten, but I thought that it was only at that one place on the edge of the lagoon so I was telling the boys all about it, standing at the edge of the lagoon when suddenly I disappeared up to my waist - I really wish Moose had been quick enough to get some photos, but I was pretty quick to get out incase I got eaten completely. Then Rob decided it was his turn but he only disappeared up to his shins. The awesome thing about quicksand is the fact that you can stand there for a few minutes before you overcome the surface tension and then *slurp* you're gone. If you struggle you'll just break the surface tension more and sink further so you have to stay calm and try to increase your surface area in contact with the surface of the sand (eg you lie down and crawl/wiggle gently away until you're safe again). It was awesome, though, because, as you know, quicksand is the very definition of adventure.

Moose took some photos of us working and playing around and stuff, but I dont have them at the moment. I will, however, put some up if he sends them to me.

We got off the beach at around 7:30 (I think) and headed back down to Swansea for a BBQ, followed by chocolate biscuits and junkfood all the whole way home. We eventually got back to Hobart at 10:30ish, but it felt more like 2am. I was very glad to have a bit of extra sleep that night, I can tell you.

Anyways, I had a good couple of days and am very grateful to all four of my volunteers (Mum, Dad, Moose, and Rob) for coming and helping me and being good company despite long days, early starts, not enough sleep, quicksand, wet shoes, and marsh flies. Cheers guys, let me know when you need me to return the favour. I hope it wasnt too horrible for any of you, and I'm glad we're all still talking to each other.

The week ahead.

2010-01-24T18:29:00.001-08:00

Its lunch time, so I'm taking a short break from my gruelling mental gymnastics for a few minutes to update you on how everything is going at the moment.

I was really looking forward to this week. All last week, I just couldn't wait for it to be Friday so that I could go home to my little shoebox of a flat in Hobart and not have to leave again for an entire week. Well, I would have to leave everyday, but the point is I could come back again every night. I was really looking forward to having a nice relaxing weekend, too. While Sunday was nice and relaxing despite being overtired and having a headache all day, Saturday really wasn't. I spent over 10 hours of my Saturday in my office at uni working on the research proposal, which, despite my best efforts, has been taking a ridiculous amount of time to finish. I just keep hitting road block after road block with it. Thankfully, all that remains to be done now is to put all the scattered sections into one coherent document and email it to my supervisors for their feedback. I fully expected to have it emailed off by the end of the day today.

Once that is done, I have to organise field equipment and do some paperwork so that I can spend the rest of the week doing far more interesting stuff. This week, I'm taking a break from my usual observations and focusing on some slightly different areas of my research project. One of these areas is a block of intensive invertebrate sampling covering two of my study beaches. Due to the intensiveness of this sampling, its not something I can do by myself so it is given me a great excuse to have some fun with my family and friends while working. Tomorrow, Mum and Dad are helping me in Bicheno and on Wednesday I'm bringing a car load of friends for a road trip up to Freycinet National Park to help me sample there. While there is quite a bit of work to be done, I'm really hoping that we manage to get it done quickly enough to fit in some fun on the beach as well. Hopefully, there will be some photos of said fun on the beach that I can upload later in the week.

Thursday will be spent in Hobart at uni, staring down a microscope all day to sort the samples that we've collected (not fun but at least its something different and I get to stay in Hobart another day).

Then on Friday, if everything falls into place, I get to sleep all day and work all night. I've been having a bit of trouble getting my hands on one of the pairs of night vision binoculars owned by the school, but I should be able to get them soon. Once I know whether I can have the binoculars on Friday night, I'll know for sure what I'm doing on Friday. I'm quite excited about doing nocturnal observation because no one actually knows what my birds do at night. There is a general consensus that they expect them to forage at night as well as during the day, but no one has actually seen them do it. Plus (and this is a very big plus) I can get a full nights observations and not have to worry about sunscreen or a hat or anything. I like it! The problem will be trying to figure when to eat and what to eat and how much coffee we have to take with us to be able to drive back home from Orford on Saturday morning.

I suppose I should get back to work now.

Gotta love House...

2010-01-16T04:21:00.001-08:00

I'm just about to jet back up the coast for the rest of the week. I would much rather spend another night here in my own bed (actually, for that matter, I'd like to spend the entire day in bed), but the birds need observing.

Just wanted to say that yesterday at uni went fairly well - could have been slightly better, but I was very proud of myself working all day from just after 8 to a bit after 6 without getting too distracted by facebook or checking my email or anything, but managed to limit it to a 5 minute break every couple of hours. Everything isnt quite sorted yet, but it is all going much better now.

Honours (sigh)...

2010-01-15T00:31:00.000-08:00

Yes, honours is hard. People have been telling me for months that sooner or later I'm going to figure out just how hard it is to do all the fieldwork, lab work, analysis, and writing in the the short amount of time allowed and have a meltdown. I have had three fairly minor, but quite distinct meltdowns over the last couple of weeks. The last one of these meltdowns was by far the worst, but still not bad at all compared to what I know some of my friends at uni have recently gone through.

I now have only 6 weeks left to finish all my fieldwork and lab analysis of the prey and scat samples. That's not long when you consider how much I have to do in that time.

Here's how everything is going at the moment:
I have been getting a good number of observation hours so far, but Orford is still over-represented because it is so much closer than my other sites and the birds are all packed into a small space so I preferred to go to it rather than my other sites when I first started fieldwork. Recently, I have found a method of rather drastically improving my scat sample collection (no I'm not doing anything cruel to the birds - just getting smarter about how to locate the 'jobbies' they are already leaving behind) so that's going well at the moment too. Unfortunately, two of my sites are very heavily Hooded Plover dominated so my observations are skewed in favour of the Hoodies at the moment and the Red-cap observations are falling behind at these sites. There isn't much I can do about that so I'm just focusing on observing the Red-caps at those sites as much as I can and will tailor the statistical stuff to fix the problem later when I've finished fieldwork.

All that sounded fairly positive, didn't it? Nothing to have any meltdowns about so far, right?
Here's the problem:
That's only one aspect of my fieldwork. There are still two other projects that I haven't even been able to start yet! I still need to start (and hopefully complete) a round of nocturnal observations and prey sampling. Both of these have created problems for me as there is some field equipment that I need for each of these projects that I have so far been unable to get. The problem is that with Christmas and New Years and everything eating into all my weeks I have only had time to do my fieldwork and not spend my usual 1 day a week in my office at uni sorting these kinds of things out. My one day this week was spent typing my observation results into my rather massive spreadsheet and trying to find five minutes when Mark was in his office without being on the phone or with one of his post grads to talk things over with him. I didn't manage to find this five minutes until almost 5pm (after I spent 6 hours typing gibberish codes into my spreadsheet and then another couple of hours researching some stuff) by which time the tech staff had left for the night so I couldn't organise anything with them. I'm glad I talked things over with Mark before organising field equipment, though, because he wants me to do things slightly differently to I had planned (and actually for a good, sensible reason for once). Unfortunately, this means that my hands are still tied with regard to starting these other projects until I can get my hands on the required equipment. I hope to resolve this problem on Monday, however.

While things are starting to look a little darker, I'm sure you still cant see any reasons for a meltdown, can you? That's because there isn't one yet.

The problem:
I have been so flat out spending more of my time (by far) away from home doing fieldwork than at home doing other important aspects of my honours degree. Zoology honours degrees require that you submit a Research Proposal. This is a strange document in which you invent a one-year zoological research project on whatever you like (it can be anything at all - doesn't even remotely have to resemble the area your honours project is in) and write a proposal to a funding body for it. Its not easy. Its quite complex and a lot of time and energy goes into it. Its very important for your overall mark at the end of honours. Its due in 3 weeks. I've barely managed to start it. Mark is going away in 2 weeks. Mark wants an almost complete draft early next week.

Panic time!

That's why I had a minor meltdown the other day. I'm surprised it wasn't a more major meltdown considering everything. I'm a little jealous of my counterparts with projects that allow them to live in Hobart full-time and have a little more free-time to work on their research proposals (and got to have the full 2 weeks of Christmas holidays). Anyway, there's not much I can do tonight as I need to go back to uni in the morning (yes Saturday morning at uni) to get some things from my desk so I'll probably work on it at uni for a while. I think now I'll just watch Midsommer Murders for a while, unpack my stuff from being up the coast all week, put on the washing, and get an early night.

Ciao

Not such a good day.

2010-01-07T23:06:00.000-08:00

It looks like a beautiful, serene stretch of road along the coast, doesn't it. This morning it was anything but. This is Kelvedon beach, one of my four study sites. This is where I was this morning.

I had just settled in to watch a Hooded plover foraging when I heard the sound of horns blasting, and cars colliding. I ran up the beach to the entrance of the car park and was the 3rd person on the scene of the accident. A Mazda 323 had collided with a large hired campervan. Apparently, the Mazda had been in the carpark and had driven out straight into the path of the oncoming campervan. The family of four in the campervan were on the last day of their holiday from Sydney. They were uninjured but shaken. The 7 year old girl who was a passenger in the Mazda was bruised and distressed and the P-plate female driver was badly injured and trapped in the car. Thankfully, the first person on the scene was an off-duty fireman and he immediately took control and gave first aid to the trapped driver. An older lady and myself spent our time trying to calm and comfort the young girl who turned out to be the driver's niece. More people pulled up to help and soon we had both a nurse and a doctor helping the trapped driver. Eventually, the ambulance, SES, and a firetruck all arrived. Another passerby managed to make contact with the young girl's mother who was working only a few minutes up the road and was quickly at the scene. Eventually, a second ambulance and the police arrived as well.

I was in shock, as were most others at the scene (the site of blood and broken glass does that to people), but I kept it together while I watched the SES use the jaws of life to free the woman and the ambos do their work. Eventually, both the young girl (who needed to be checked for internal injuries and was in quite bad shock) and the driver (who had suffered head injuries from hitting the steering wheel, suspected spinal injuries, and a suspected broken collar bone amongst other things) were taken to hospital a full hour after the crash happened. Once the two ambulances left I went back down onto the beach and fell apart for a while. It took a good half an hour for me to stop shaking. And another hour after that before I felt capable of driving anywhere. But I'm home now, and I couldn't be more relieved. The strange thing is that even now, 7 hours after the accident, as I write this I start to shake again. I always wondered when I was doing first aid courses how I would cope on the scene of a serious accident, now I know.

Here's the news item about the crash. According to this one of the family of four in the campervan was also injured and taken to the Swansea medical centre, probably the young girl (about 7 years old) who also had a seatbelt bruise.

2009-12-31T16:03:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Farewell to the Noughties (stupid name for a decade anyhow).

Elementary, my dear Watson.

2009-12-31T00:03:00.000-08:00

So, lets talk about Mr Sherlock Holmes.

Photo taken at 221b Baker St whilst in London

Lately, I have been very much infatuated with Sherlock Holmes, the famous creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (as my family is all very well aware of). I have always liked the Sherlock Holmes stories and read a good deal of them in my mid teens. I quite like the fact that you can never quite solve a Sherlock Holmes mystery because Sir Arthur always wrote from the point of view of Sherlock's faithful companion, Dr Watson, and Dr Watson was only of just above average intelligence and never noticed the pivotal clues. This always gave Sherlock the opportunity of remarking, "Elementary, my dear Watson" and explaining the mystery with the inclusion of the clues that Watson had not noticed. Although Sherlock, as I said, often had the opportunity to say this, he never actually said it (much like, "Beam me up, Scotty" was apparently never said in Star Trek).

My interest in Sherlock was reawakened when my Aunt Bec came to Tassie for a visit a few months ago. Bec stopped at a second hand shop to buy a book to read while she was holidaying down here on the island. She didn't much care what book it was so she picked up one called "The Beekeepers Apprentice" by Laurie R King. She thoroughly enjoyed the book and left it for me to read and send back up to her (notice she liked it so much that she wanted it back). I read the book and loved it and went on eBay to buy my own copy. "The Beekeepers Apprentice" is the first in a series of books (of which I have now collected four, unfortunately not 1,2,3,and 4 but 1,2, 4,and 6 so I've only read 1 and 2) in which Holmes, after retiring to the country and raising bees, meets a young woman with a gift for detective work almost equal to his own. The two then of course have adventures and solve cases together.

After patiently listening to me bubble on about how wonderful these new Sherlock Holmes adventures were my very thoughtful brother gave me a very large amount of audio books on Cd for Christmas to listen to while I am travelling up and down the coast all summer (I often like to listen to audio books as they hold my concentration better than music and keep me awake). Amongst these are many of the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle masterpieces and I have already listened to "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Sign of the Four" whilst travelling around the state in the last week.

Then, as I'm sure you are all aware, the new Sherlock Holmes movie just came out and, of course, I wanted to see it so Mum, Dad, Rob, and I all went through to Devonport to see it on Monday. I actually really liked it. I have some issues with it such as the casting of Robert Downey Jnr as Sherlock (Sherlock is described as being very tall and lean with sharp eagle like features - I think Hugh Laurie should play him personally), the fact that Dr Watson was much smarter and more useful than portrayed by Sir Arthur, and the fact that Dr Watson's fiancee was completely different - the same name, but a completely different person to the one in the originals. Despite of all these flaws, I really liked it. The case was one in which no logical solution seemed possible until Sherlock himself explained it to you - exactly the way Sir Arthur always intended it to be. The music by Hans Zimmer (the guy that did Pirates of the Caribbean and a heap of other movies with awesome scores) was very good and really added to the movie. Despite my objections to the casting, Robert Downey Jnr did a reasonable job, and despite his being far too useful, so did Jude Law in his role of Dr Watson. Even Rachel McAdams (not one of my favourite actresses) didn't manage to murder the role of Irene Adler too badly. The villain of the story, Lord Blackwood, was brilliant. Just look at him - isn't he simply dripping with evil?

Even Professor Moriarty made an appearance of sorts, and they seemed to very deliberately leave the door open for a sequel with Professor Moriarty taking over the role of lead villain.

All in all, its been a very Sherlock-y summer so far. And that's just fine with me :)