UPDATES
When Soph was over for tea evening yesterday, this little creature came to join us <3
I have also become officially addicted to coffee. So many years of study and I've been fine. But now. If I don't get at least one coffee before 3pm, I get a headache which wont go away before I get any. And worst of all. I am spoiled as well! Before my addiction, I even preffered instant coffee. At this stage, I need either nespresso (thanks to Danny who brought a Nespresso machine into our office) with frothed milk OR exclusive Byron bay coffee from Black star. Not at all optimal for a PhD student with my salary. Lucky I got some cash back from my tax return application yesterday so I can be sustained in terms of star coffee.
SOAP
Last week, I went to an acrobatic performance (SOAP), a was a part of the Brisbane river festival that have taken place during whole September. And I only have three words to say...
OH MY GOD
If this show ever comes to your country/city, it is a must to see it! Super entertaining and just incredible!
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It's now Wed morning 9am. I'm waiting for my one and only Swedish friend in this country to collect me and take me to the airport, because once again I have a conference to attend. This time in Adeleide. My poster is packed. Suitcase is packed. Coffee consumed. So all good. Except that I don't really have time for this. But I guess I will have to deal with that on Sunday when I'm back!
It's now Wed morning 9am. I'm waiting for my one and only Swedish friend in this country to collect me and take me to the airport, because once again I have a conference to attend. This time in Adeleide. My poster is packed. Suitcase is packed. Coffee consumed. So all good. Except that I don't really have time for this. But I guess I will have to deal with that on Sunday when I'm back!
Adeleide, here I come again!
JUST AN ORDINARY DAY IN WEST END
En vanlig dag i West End:
Gick ner till byn precis i tid till attb"The pixie-and fairy parade" tågade genom west end under Lördagens festligheter. Inget märkvärdigt alls!
The tambourines (BNE loal band) underhöll på West end block party.
Boundary street var helt avtängd under gårdagen till förmån för mängder av hippie aktiviteter. Man kunde göra fåglar, köpa secon hand, lyssna till mängder av lokala förmågor, köpa svansar, öron, horn etc, titta på akrobatik, dricka öl och massa massa mer. Mycket trevlig och underhållande sommardag!
COOPER'S FIRST
It's been a really funny weekend with birthday celebrations for Cooper who turned one year (yes I made the cupcakes) and a 4 hour hike in Mt Cootha with good friends. Couldn't be better and Cooper was a very happy puppy!
Dr JAMES
STAMPEDE BRISBANE
I could not imagine a better way to spend a Saturday off, than crawling around in the mud and climbing obstucles during a 10km race!
Before and after a mud race...
And this is what happened in between:
2hrs of awesomeness up in Woodford!
Can't wait for next mud race!
CONFIRMATION OF PHD, CHECK! =D
ESA-SRB CONFERENCE GOLD COAST
Just a selection of pictures from the latest conference on the Gold Coast in which I had a poster presentation. Me, James and Reetu from my lab were all thinking we would get some time on the beach but believe it or not, there were so many good talks so we actually didn't want to. It was basically a diabetes and obesity conference so a lot of talks about nutrition, exercise, circadian rythms etc that probably were more relevant from an interest point of view than for my project. Bur as a nutritionist, I really liked it=)
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Between all talks (that lasted for 4 whole days) they served us a bunch of chocolate and cookies, which is a bit ironic saying that every talk was about diabetes and how bad junk food it. Hmmm...
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Also dressed up for scientific dinners on a few of the pictures.
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And you have no idea how hard Reetu and I worked to get those two pinguins! It was so worth it thugh (until I got home and Cooper got overexcited about "his" new toy).
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Last but not least. I won the conference-competition in Carb-Ninja, a pretty decent achievement if you ask me. For those of you who are not familiar with Ninja games. Fruit ninja has been a pretty big thing on iphones and you basically cut fruits. In carb ninja, you had to cut all foods containing more carbs than 10gs and it was a live game so you cut them with your own hands. I kno. I might be a little bit too excited about this but it was awesome fun!
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As for being back in Bris. Work is not giving me enough space to breath. I really don't like it and I cannot wait for September to be over, although it hasn't even started yet. Not that I trust myself when I want to believe it will be better in October. But it can't possibly getting any worse. So that is good at least!
JA HEJA SVENSKA TIDNINGAR!
Vilken tur att de kunde lösa incidenten så snabbt. Det måste ha varit dramatiskt!
WARRIE CIRCUIT SPRINGBROOK NATIONALPARK
Thats it. A wonderful day in Springbrook nationalpark with my two wonderful ladies Laura and Regine and the one snake that decided to scare us on the last km of the in total 17km Warrie curcuit. 4.5 hours in a jungle of beautiful trees and waterfalls. A saturday couldn't be spent in a better way!
LAKE MANCHESTER PICS
With only a km left to become the best women of Lake Manchester 2012 Woot woot!
Someone had time to even pose for the camera huh!
LAKE MANCHESTER 2012
So. Got up at 6am this Sunday morning to do what I did this day 2 years ago. 6km trail run with Beau around lake manchester, western BNE. Actually only came with Beau so he would get his 3-years-in-a-row-premium glass. But I sort of wanted a glass too. Only, I missed the trail last year as I was back in Sweden then. (Or Ireland). So the only chance to get a glass was to win the female competition. So I did!
It was an extremely hilly trail with streams and rocks and a very steep uphill we had to survive twice. I still dont know my finishing time as I didn't really pay attention to it whenever it was read out, but it should be on the website soon!
It was an extremely hilly trail with streams and rocks and a very steep uphill we had to survive twice. I still dont know my finishing time as I didn't really pay attention to it whenever it was read out, but it should be on the website soon!
Poor Beauie was sick but still got a time of 36min.
Altough my trophe got stolen by a stupid little kid, I still got my Lake Manchester glass and got awarded best female of the 6km run. I never won anything like that before so I have to admit I am a bit proud. Maybe I should practice for my next run and I'll beat the guys as well!
SGI SUMMIT AND BABIES
Last weekend, I went to a conference (SGI summit) which (conviniently) was organized in Brisbane this year. (Last year I think it was in San Fransisco!). Good or bad luck? I don't know. But I had a poster presentation for my second conference. And afterwards, my lab got invited for lab dinner, which we hadn't registered for and which cost 125AUD per person. We must have been a charming bunch of people as the 9 of us got it all for free!
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Secont. You might have noticed that I haven't been writing much (again). But this time, I have something to blame. Many, small, pink, naked pups which now have reached a number of 70+.
I have got babies!
The top ones are 2 days old and the bottom ones are 7 days old. A bit of colour change going on there but they are so adorable! However, 7 rats have an average of 15 babies each and another 8 have just got pregnant. Imagine, if all of those pups need to be weighed once daily, in addition to making diets etc etc. That takes a bit of time...
At the moment, I love them too much to care though. But I know that once the other 8 litter down, my life is gonna turn in to even less of a lie. How now this could be possible!
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My confirmation date has been set as well. Only have a few weeks left till I have to go through the first and most important milestone of an australian PhD. Huh Im nervous! Trying not to think too much about it just yet. And I know I keep saying it. After that. My life should be a little bit less hectic. However I have said this for as long as I can remember so I don't trust myself anymore!
GRATTIS ÄLSKADE FARMOR PÅ 90-ÅRS DAGEN!
PICNIC I DET GRÖNA
Helgen som var:
Picnic med tjejerna på toppen av Mt Cootha.
Jag, Pil (Regines nya danska housemate) och Regine,
Och min yoga kompis Laura.
Tyvärr fick jag ingen foto på den sista gästen. En liten råtta som rusade rakt över våran picnic filt, sicksackade mellan mat och tallrikar och hade sprungit rakt på lilla trötta mig om jag inte studsat upp som en boll sekunden innan och kastat iväg min tallrik som en fresbee (vet inte varför jag gjorde det, men den landade snyggt några meter åt sidan med all mat kvar). Bra reaktion för nåon som snart har mer än 300 labbråttor att leka med annars!
Och antagligen bra underhållning för alla turister som höll på att fotografera Brisbane från ovan=)
END OF AN ERA, GOODBYE AMRISH!
The story goes all the way back to my first week in Australia, when I arrived and the only person who's accent I understood was Rish's. This amazing friend of mine is now about to leave Aussie for good after 8 long years.
It's gonna be empty but still have a lot of good memories and I wish you all the best starting up your new buissness back in Kenya. I'm sure I will come and visit one day!
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It's gonna be empty but still have a lot of good memories and I wish you all the best starting up your new buissness back in Kenya. I'm sure I will come and visit one day!
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Hence this (as well as Haiku's going away), there was a big party yesterday. The best cure for a hangover has to be a pool on an aussie winter day when the night before only held 3 degrees.
Sober again!
Even Coopie fell into the pool. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera just then but he made the most funny facial expression ever!
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Now, its time for some picnic on the top of Mt Cootha with Laura and Regine!
FIND FIVE ERRORS
Just trying out the new function of blogg.se with a little picture collage which you have not been able to do before:
SCHEDULE
I thought that if I would tell you my schedule for the coming few weeks, you could maybe forgive me for being so bad at updating my blog...
Let's start with this week:
- 25-27th July: Cobas mira (my very beloved new multi thousand dollar machine at work) training
- 26th July: 12 new rats to put on diets
- 27th July: Deadline BNE abstract that we found out about today
- 3-5th Aug: Placenta conference Brisbane - poster presentation
- 12th Aug: LAKE MANCHESTER TRAIL RUN 6KM
- 17th Aug: Deadline confirmation proposal
- 26-29th Aug: Glucose conference at the Gold coast - poster presentation
- 30th Aug: XAVIER RUDD concert in Newfarm
- Sometime here until the first week of Sept: MY CONFIRMATION
- 2nd Sept: BRIDGE TO BRISBANE CITY RUN for canteen 10KM
- 8th of Sept: STAMPEDE BRISBANE MUD RUN 10KM
- 24-26th of Sept: UQ symposium conference - poster presentation
- 26-29th of Sept: Fetal programming conference in Adelaide - poster presentation
You can add to this about 20 hrs of tutoring and tutor training, deadlines for poster and abstract submission, practicing talks and write a proposal document. Plus ofcourse shake bottles, bleed rats and take care of 300 babies that are due during those weeks as well and that all needs to be weighed 3 times a week and looked after daily until weaning.
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So please. Forgive me for not updating my blog as much as I normally do!
MT WARNING
Last time I climbed mt warning. It was 4am in the morning and pitch black. We arrived at the top just in time for the sun to rise and had a beautiful breakie on the top, watching the spectacular scenery....
Soph, Beau, me, Ro and Karsten at the top of Mt Warning last year.
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This time. We started the hike just after sunrise. (Actually, the sun never rose). It was foggy, misty and miserable rain falling down on us. The rocks were slippy and the track muddy. Still great exercise and good company:
Slippy wet and cold.
Just to get a pic with this wonderful view in the background=) (Dont get me wrong, I always enjoy a good work out and the foggyness sort of put the nature in a new dimension)
Ross and Haiku on the way down.
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Spend the weekend in Ross's family's house at the gold coast, dog sitting his two dogs, enjoying a very nice curry dinner (that myself and Haiku made), watching the reds in rugby union is Ross's dad's mancave on a projector, walking dogs and chilling out. Good times!
