Normal Flora

I took a picture of a dandelion outside Building 13 some days ago. Everyone thought I was crazy.



There is a healthy community of birds around the house, mostly made up of what I thought were piebald crows, but as it turns out are Australian magpies. They are very bold, and I'm afraid to get too close to them. They don't seem to like the cold weather too much though.

The nearby lake supports a few kingfishers and in particular a family of ducks. They have duckings, and we sometimes see them walking around, the ducklings in one line behind their parents. I went out for a walk today (alright, I was actually taking out the trash) and I spotted the adult ducks, sleeping by the lake with their heads tucked under their wings. The male lifted his head and eyed me as I passed.

So far these have been the extent of the birdlife around the area, in addition to two night herons which scavenge at the barbecue pit, but perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough because today I spotted a lorikeet in the trees behind the housing block. They tend to travel in flocks so there were probably more around the area.

I haven't seen any lizards, cockatoos or birds of prey, or any rabbits either. I hope to before I leave. Well, maybe not the rabbits.

Of course, the one type of organism I have been seeing a lot of is bacteria. The other day I was handling Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and one of my group-mates had to identify a sample of bacteria which turned out to be Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It's nice to have a change from coliforms or yeasts once in a while.

We don't seem to see a lot of fungus though. At home I'd get blackish spots creeping up the base of my toothbrush and highlighter pink patches on my towels which my classmate informed me was fungus. Here they don't seem to grow at all.

Maybe it's the dry weather. I can't wait for winter.

March 15th

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!

Also, yesterday was Pi Day. Just so you know.

One Week

The first week of school is well over, and although a status quo has not been established yet, I have formed some impressions.

What? Oh, right. Well, all I can say is, this is going to be a tough one. Lectures are a cruel, cruel way to learn, especially when tutorials are unhelpful and especially since we've been thrown into the deep end. After three years in the friendly atmosphere of my polytechnic, university, even in friendly ol' Oz, is a chilling experience.

The weather's somewhat nasty too. You could start off with freezing rain in the morning, and end off with UV-enriched sunshine by afternoon. We've had plenty of days with blazing hot sun which were still cold thanks to strong winds. It's hard to know how to dress. To make it worse, the sun here is nothing like at home - it burns. I swear you can feel the cancer forming.

On the subject of weather, today's forecasted temperature is 32°C. Yikes.

At least domestic affairs are more or less stable, and we've set up a grocery shopping routine. We've even got a surplus of plastic bags, and we no longer need to save everything like we used to. (I still keep disposable lunch boxes though. Those things are useful.) And the university was kind enough to set up a shuttle bus service to a nearby shopping mall (it has three supermarkets!). Yay for free transport.

Stuff here is pretty expensive, but there are plenty of discount stores around. Also, the products at the Asian groceries tend to be cheap. Fresh food is extremely cheap, though it expires quickly. We've had to throw out bread a few times because it turned sour.

And it helps a lot that we're living on campus. While the rent somewhat high, we pay a fixed fee for electricity and water supplies, and our internet connection, while expensive, is still a cheaper rate than from most providers. Being able to go home at any time to retrieve forgotten items is a huge plus.

It's kinda hard to get in touch with the news around here though, since we don't subscribe to a newspaper. So I guess it might be old news to everyone about Netscape closing down or Le Grand K losing weight, but I just read about it.

Also, the escaped criminal. While this is a bad thing short-term, I believe it is a good thing for the security of the country. Crises like this one keep people from getting complacent and missing obvious checks.

But what everyone will want to know is how he escaped in the first place, especially since he was apparently acting alone.

So, anyway... Class is in one hour. Got to go. I have a string of lectures until 2pm, and I need to pack some stuff to eat in between running to the next theatre, lest I faint.

Meme: Favourite Post

From Zhang Yang. Since I've been tagged, I guess I should do it...

Link One must be about family.
Link Two must be about friends.
Link Three must be about yourself.
Link Four must be about something you love.
Link Five can be anything you choose.

Link One: This one mentions them.
Link Two: I don't seem to talk about them at all, so have a look at my blog links page.
Link Three: But...this is a blog! It's all about me!
...Very well. You may have this one.
Link Four: For those not paying attention, I love Bionicle. And cars. And my computers, all of which have names. And Tabasco sauce...
Link Five: ...Anything?
Anything!

I tag... Whoever is reading this and hasn't done it yet. You know who you are.

Wiring in from Down Under!

So I arrived safely, and after several days of shopping (along with a few headaches which were fortunately ironed out) I guess I can call myself settled in at my new residence. When initially stepping in it all looked rather bare, but now it's a homely little place. Check it out:



The good thing about the apartment is that it was already clean when it got to us, barring the odd insect (there was a centipede in my room yesterday). I do wish the plugpoints were not located so close to the radiator, but I guess we live with what we can get. Also, I have known my current room-mates for about a year, and they are good, hardworking people who are willing to cook and don't have horrible habits. So... I guess it's all great.

Next is the orientation week, followed by classes commencing the week after that. Will report on how that goes. Till next time!

Downloading...97%

You know how when you've been downloading that 3GB file for two hours, and the meter is slowly inching towards one-hundred percent, and it's close to finished, and you worry that in the last ten seconds the download will fail, forcing you to start over and wait another two hours?

It's like that. Except that restarting will be more painful that could be possibly imagined. Because I've been downloading for over three years.

I'm at the last ten seconds, and I'm praying my internet connection will not fail me.

The next post will be from Australia. See y'all then.

Always Looking Forward

I can't remember the last day of school. Well, I can remember it, but it didn't register as a last day. It was just a normal day, only with people commenting at odd moments, "This is the last FMT." "This is the last presentation." "This is the last 6P." It didn't really connect, you know? And then when I left the class, people didn't say goodbye, they said "See you on Sunday."

Sunday, right. The day of the Graduation High Tea. We took lots of photographs and binged on the frankly average food and took every opportunity to cheer or applaud. And at the end of it all they said, "See you next Monday."

Monday is the day we fly off to the unknown.

Never back, always forward. There are no goodbyes, only an optimistic au revoir. Because we will meet again, and until then, we move in the only direction we can.

But we can't help glancing back from time to time.

(With thanks to Tern Poh for the link.)