Monday, April 30, 2007

bleh!

I have just been informed by my lovely officemate that I am having too much fun. She has no idea. I am currently sitting here, drinking some coke zero and desperately avoiding doing what I'm supposed to be doing. It's horrible. I am having a crap day for motivation. I seem to have got myself into a sleep pattern that is really really bad. It involves me not being able to get out of bed before 9am, and not being able to sleep until late. Late for me that is, midnight or one. Anyway, I have this chapter introduction to write. I know what has to go in it, I know what I have to write, but can I write it and look up the references? Apparently not.

Bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh.

Alright, I shall try and make this coherent. This week should be a busy one for me. There is dancing tonight, tomorrow night, dinner I hope with my cousin on Wednesday (must call her) and then more dancing on Thursday, then pole dancing display night thing on Friday. When I am supposed to eat at home or sleep or get this bloody thing written is beyond me. I really must get onto it.

Thank you blog for reminding me that I have no time to be updating you, I have to get this thing written before Friday or I'm in so much trouble, mostly from myself. I will get right onto it, right now, really.
Bleh!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

all hail ye mighty procrastination

Yes, today is the day of procrastination. I have lab work to do, I have a chapter introduction and outline to write (which is difficult to make happen at the moment) and I'd like to go to the gym. But what am I doing? Watching DVDs with my housemate and writing little bits and pieces of the chapter stuff. I think it's probably because I have been thinking about the chapter I have to write stuff for, and realising what work I have to do yet to prove anything. Bleh, so anyway, what else is news I hear you ask?
Well, I may have a result. A result that may not actually mean much in the long run, but a result at least. I can make some cells change themselves a little. That's kinda cool. I might end up with some interesting results in my thesis. That is also cool. Okay, what else? I've started teaching dancing again. It was a lot of fun, with lots of giggles and silliness. I really enjoy teaching with Chris, we get along really well.
Um, what other news do I have? Not a lot, I have bacterial contamination again in my HeLa cells. But at least this time I know why. I'm finally getting over my cold. I'm going out to Tilley's this afternoon to catch up with some lovely ladies. There is lots of blues in Canberra this week. JJF has a blind date today (I wonder if she'll bring her guide dog with her). Actually the date should be well along it's way by now. I look forward to hearing about it. It has actually rained in Canberra over the last few days, it's a strange experience.
I ended up at the Services Club on Friday night with both my housemates. The funeral of the ACT Chief Police Officer was on Friday and they'd been drinking since midday. I have never seen so many police in one space before, nor so many drunk police officers still in uniform. None on duty I'd like to point out. While there I found another Canberra moment. One of the guys on LJS's team was the best man at a 'friend of the family's' wedding. He's been friends with this guy for about 20 years. Canberra is so like that, everyone knows everyone else somehow.
Anyway, after this disjointed post I'm going to go and get ready for the meeting with the ladies. Then it's onto work to get some serious shit done! Grrrr! I'm going to kick that labwork's arse and then get myself writing something vaguely interesting for the supes. Apologies to all who have found this a rambling post.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Hullabaloo Hangover

Well, I'm now back from Perth. Four days of absoulte madness. I have never coped on so little sleep before. I've never danced so well before. I've never ever had so much fun on a dancing weekend ever. Everything was great. I could go on and on about it, but it may eventually get tedious. I think I'll make sure that I cover all the highlights over the next few posts. This one will be thank yous to all those who need them.

Thanks to (in a vaguely chronological order):
-my mate Jane for dropping me off at the airport
-George from New York for putting up with me on the flight and keeping me, and our fellow traveller Steph, happy with swing clips galore
-Fi for coming to get George and myself and delivering us safely to the afterparty
-Michelle and Kev for looking afer me for the whole weekend and particularly for Kev driving me damn near everywhere and putting up with my constant chatter
-Ant for our very first dance together, and then all the others, and the hugs. We need to catch up properly next time, not enough hours in the day!
-every single person I danced with. Some notables are Kara, Xavier, El, Sam, Dave, Skip, Matt, Francois, George, Dan, Andrew, Peter, Pommy Dan, Bruce and the list goes on (I'm sure I've forgotten half of them because of sleep deprivation)
-my fellow members of team Brunswick.
-my fellow class members for keeping me entertained and joining in the red bull dash on both days of classes
-Jono-bo-bono for trying to get me belle of the ball
-Chez for the lifts and the giggles. 'Swingout, bitch!'
-My fellow Canberrans for representing our scene so well and for all the chats I had with various members of the group over the weekend, some good plans around there
-my Sydney mates, Bruce, Shaz, Kayelle, Michael. Love you lots and lots
-The teachers for the weekend. I had a faboulous time in all the classes I attended. Apologies if I missed a class or was tired on Sunday
-all those folks who were up until dawn bluesing on Saturday night
-Cindy for dropping me home Sunday morning so I could shower before going back to class
-Dad for giving me something to do between landing in Melbourne and flying to Canberra. I had a lovely nap on the couch before I left
-Bing for coming to get me from the airport


Okay, so that's some, if not all, of the thank yous that I can think of at the moment. I had a great, great, great time! I cannot get over how much fun it was. Of course, this tells you nothing of what actually happened but I'm still not completely with it since returning. I've got a sinus infection and am on antibiotics. Tomorrow will be two weeks since I first started feeling sick. YAY! Anyway, I'm going to go and get all my washing done and start to get back to my normal operations. I'm picking up JJF from the airport tomorrow morning and a ridiculous hour and have to get a lot of work done at work. I have prostates to dissect and some cells to transfect and virgins to collect, it's a busy, busy day.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

I still haven't reached X yet

Someone told me about three years ago now, that you have to do an experiment X times before it will work. I am currently onto attempt 15? of the same experiment. The one with the HeLa cells? Not sure if I've mentioned them. They have been (to borrow from Kath and Kim) the bain marie of my life for the last couple of months. I have to do a positive control experiment. That's one where you show that something works to prove that the experiment itself isn't flawed, just whatever you were using it on didn't work. So anyway, I got it to work a while ago, but the cells were unhappy and blobby. So the supes wanted me to just do it again and get happy cells, so the pictures would be nice.
I have been trying to get those nice pictures ever since. Every day is another disappointment with regards to this experiment. It's driving me nuts! I thought I had the solution to the problem on Friday. So Saturday, I looked at the cells. They were on a plastic slide that you can't see through!!! Fark. So then I chucked the little bastards on a glass slide, you can see through those, or so I thought. Turns out that the glass slide is too thick to focus through. So after many tears and frustrations yesterday I hit on the next plan to get it to work, thin coverslips! Today and tomorrow will tell me whether this works. If it doesn't I don't know how I'm going to cope. I think it'll be so ridiculous by then that I'll end up laughing. Then tearing my hair out and going a little more crazy.
Anyway, one day things will work I'm sure. Law of averages etc. But I still haven't reached X yet on this experiment. Cross your fingers and press your thumbs for me.

Friday, April 13, 2007

I hate getting colds

Today I have the scratchy throat, the fuzzy head and the blocked up snot nose of a sick person. Fark! Stupid cold! My plan is to live in tracksuit pants, take copious amounts of cold and flu drugs and have a water bottle permanently attached to my face. This probably means I'm going to end up with a psuedoephadrine high and spend my entire life in the toilet. Huzzah! Don't you love the weather getting colder and the bugs flying about? It's great.
In other news, nothing tragic happened with my scooter yesterday, though I was expecting it. My german relatives came for a visit, we're having lunch today. Lastly, experiments hate me, but still I live in hope.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Ah freak!

So life is hectic, freaking hectic. The stupid flies appear to be, once again, not transgenic. This frustrates the crap out of me. Combine this with sewing needs, visiting Germans and a lab talk next week, we have a very stressed Kate. But it'll be okay, you know why? It has to be. If it doesn't work out, my hair will fall out and I'll be a nervous wreck and I don't need that, so it has to be okay. Right?
I must keep on repeating to myself, you are not your work, you are not your work, you are not your work. Just because it's not working doesn't make you stupid or useless. Best get back to it, living in hope of something working in about 20 mins from now. Cross your fingers for me.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Oh dear, I be drunk, but my neighbours have wireless

Yep, had some red wine, half a bottle. And some homemade 'booze' (not mine, someone elses). I don't know that it's the wisest idea to have got myself a little tiddly on the alcohol and then make use of the fact that I have a laptop and internet connection at home.

Today consisted of sleeping, porridge, bit of TV, movies, more napping, some 'quality time' with the boy and a lovely dinner of Larb and red wine. Yum! Tomorrow I"m going to my aunts house for dinner, something delightful will be on offer. Sunday has me teaching a taster class at the national folk festival and entertaining the public with some swing dancing. I think I'm supposed to be wearing vintage stuff, so no doubt my dress will get an airing. I'll also have to go to work tomorrow and check out my babies (flies) and make sure that are going okay.

What else you say? Well my cousin has gone and bought himself (and his wife) a house. I look forward to visiting them there and eating some food and drinking some vodka. Yum!

Best be off before I embarrass myself any further with the drunken typing and nonsense I'm coming out with. Catch ya!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

this might be too much information, but fuck it

So, I'm sitting here preparing my talk for tomorrow's cutting edge discussion. I'm listening to a very trashy CD, the pussycat dolls. While thinking about the talk and what needs to go into it, I realise something. I'm choreographing a lap dance to 'buttons'. Dear lord, my brain is strange.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

update

Today my mum, a friend of hers, and the boy are driving up to Canberra for a visit. Tomorrow, my dad, the friend's husband and no-one else are flying up to Canberra. I am a little excited about this I must say. It's kinda crap though because I have work coming out my ears and will have to be in the lab tomorrow at a ridiculous hour of the morning and stay here until at least 3pm or so. We have a 'cutting edge discussion' tomorrow starting at 12. It's is supposed to be an opportunity for us to discuss topics relevant to the work going on in the lab and for us to have interesting and intelligent conversations/discussions about said topics. I've been chosen to present results from a science paper from 1998. It's to do with phosphoinositide signalling. In preparing my presentation, I have come to the conclusion that while it may be a great honour to be published in Science, I don't want to be. Those papers are so short and so dense. Each sentence contains about, as one guy from the lab put it, a years worth of work. It's bloody amazing. But it makes it quite hard to read and to really understand. There are no separate sections for methods, results, discussion. It's all together. Each of the three figures is about 6 experiments all crammed together. Madness I tells ya.

Anyway, we've got this discussion, it's happening at the supervisors house. We're having pizza for lunch. So it's not all bad. It should prove to be interesting, but I can see it dragging on. Particularly because I'll be desperate to get home and have a snuggle with the boy. Fortunately, he's brining his laptop with him and can work from home. The dogs will keep him company.

What else is news? Well, the same experiments keep stuffing me around, the flies aren't surviving like they should. Jo, the woman who does the injections for us, injected 260 embryos, 66 survived and she sent those to me. There have only been 24 flies emerging from those vials. Something about the DNA she is injecting must be killing the little buggers. I have asked her to inject some more, I don't know if any of the injected ones that have survived will actually be able to breed/survive, let alone give me transgenic progeny.

Dancing on a Monday is going pretty well. We've taken a break for Easter etc and will be back on the 23rd April. My students are lots of fun and I'm looking forward to seeing them all again. I hope they come back!

The weather is cooling down rapidly in Canberra (and elsewhere in the country I suspect). It's been chilly most mornings and the heater has definitely been on. Oh yeah, that's the other bit of news, EH, our new housemate has officially moved in. We now have two dogs, two fridges and a whole lot of stuff in the bathroom. She's moved from a place that she lived in on her own and is now living with us. She has a lot of stuff. She's lovely though and I can't wait until she's all settled in and we can start knitting together.

The last thing that I must update everyone on is the road rage incident I was involved in yesterday. But I haven't the time now. The good news from it is that I'm not hurt. The bad news is the stupid woman who road raged me could have killed me, or at least caused me to have another accident. She was so incredibly rude and a dangerous driver. The worst bit was, she had kids in her car! Okay, short version, the flies can wait for a second. She was tailgating, quite badly, so I slowed down. Was in the left lane. She overtook me, on the inside, horn blazing, ciggie in hand and finger extended. Bitch, bitch, bitch. I reported it to the police. We'll see what happens. But to reassure you Mum, I'm okay and I'll be fine, nothing really bad happened, I was more annoyed than anything else.

Monday, April 02, 2007

I'm busy, but took this personality test anyway

So yeah, busy, but took a personality test because it looked amusing. Here's the results, accurate?

Advanced Global Personality Test Results
Extraversion |||||||||||||||||||| 86%
Stability |||||||||||| 50%
Orderliness |||||||||||||||| 63%
Accommodation |||||||||||||| 56%
Interdependence |||||||||||||||| 70%
Intellectual |||||||||||||||| 70%
Mystical || 10%
Artistic |||||| 23%
Religious || 10%
Hedonism |||||| 23%
Materialism |||||| 23%
Narcissism |||||||||| 36%
Adventurousness |||||| 30%
Work ethic |||||||||||| 43%
Self absorbed |||||||||||| 43%
Conflict seeking |||||||||| 36%
Need to dominate |||||||||||| 43%
Romantic |||||||||||||| 56%
Avoidant |||| 16%
Anti-authority |||||| 30%
Wealth |||||||||||| 43%
Dependency |||||||||||| 43%
Change averse |||||||||||||||| 70%
Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 63%
Individuality |||||| 30%
Sexuality |||||||||||||||| 63%
Peter pan complex |||| 16%
Physical security |||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Physical Fitness |||||||||||| 50%
Histrionic |||||||||| 36%
Paranoia |||||| 23%
Vanity |||||||||||| 43%
Hypersensitivity |||||||||| 36%
Female cliche |||||||||||| 50%
Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com


Stability results were medium which suggests you are moderately relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.

Extraversion results were very high which suggests you are overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense too often of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.


trait snapshot:
clean, self revealing, open, organized, outgoing, social, enjoys leadership and managing others, dominant, makes friends easily, does not like to be alone, assertive, hard working, finisher, optimistic, positive, likes to stand out, likes large parties, respects authority, practical, high self esteem, perfectionist, dislikes chaos, busy, not familiar with the dark side of life, controlling, high self control, traditional, tough, likes to fit in, conforming, brutally honest, takes precautions