delightful

bwahahahahahaha!!! sooo many colours!!

it was so long ago, but it's all coming back to me now.... NOT.

mierda! i don't remember how to use this bloody thing!
...i thought i'd at least update some LINKS.... but... no.

distraction

why am i so easily distracted? especially so easily distracted from SLEEP. musings on my toxic workplace (...mentally and emotionally; not chemically) were superceded by checking out facebookery, then past costumery, and finally long past bloggery. and then, yet again, i fail to learn that sleeping is necessary in order to wake up again ...in a non-late, non-brain-dead, non-lose your job kinda way... when? when will i learn?

i like badges

and badgers... though Mr Badger in Wind in the Willows always slighlty scared me.

but anyway, back to badgES. as aforementioned, i like em... only the limits of my jacket-front keep their numbers down... but now i have been acquainted with a type of badge that is NOT so easily circumscribed: VIRTUAL BADGES! i KNOW. that inter-world. crazy.

so amyD introduced me to the hugely acronym-ed:

ORDER OF THE SCIENCE SCOUTS OF EXEMPLARY REPUTE AND ABOVE AVERAGE PHYSIQUE

also known as:









now i have to say that i am hugely competitive but sadly bad at all competitive sports, so i'll see if i can cover myself with glory (and badges) in the arena of science... as i am (clearly) girt by geeks - working scientists at that - i don't hold out a lot of hope that a lowly scientician like myself can beat their numbers, but hey, i can kid myself.

let's see:


i have worked with acid. i accidently almost drank acetic acid. never complacently go to drink from your water bottle without looking, if it has been sitting on a table along with a bottle of acid. especially not when children are present - such a bad example.



i blog about science. clearly.







i do arts&crafts with science. working in an environment of scientific experiments and children makes this badge easy to earn:) cobalt chloride christmas decoration humidity detectors are a popular choice.




i am comfortable working with an open flame. indeed, an open blow torch and a variety of interesting things to try to burn and/or explode:)





i've frozen things just to see what would happen - level 3 badge due to the use of liquid nitrogen, rather than just a freezer, or dry ice.





i've burnt things while fully aware of the combustion principles at work. remember kids! this burns better because of the presence of... what...? that's right! oxygen!




i've given myself an electric shock. i'm not sure if this really counts as it was an accident, but i say true scientists learn from accidents, therefore it must count as an experiment retrospectively. lesson: don't mess around with bare wires at home.



i may look like a scientist (well, actually, the kids tell me that i don't... stupid stereotyping children!), but i am also a pirate. but you should've realised that from my profile picture, fool.




i've scored a tv gig doing science. TWO! well, talking about science. AND i've used my fame for evil! well... getting out of a library fine - but i saved ~$20!! hey, the librarian recognized me and offered to waive the overdue fine without any encouragement from myself!



i know what a tadpole is. for those not au fait with OOTSSOERAAAP, this badge is for those who aren't experienced with collecting sperm from at least two species (not including humans), but would like a badge that looks similar. i am familiar with tadpole guts also, as i was a little rough with my tadpole-catching as a five-year-old.


i have used a telescope to look at celestial objects. unavoidable with my father being a total space nut.






i've done science with no conceivable practical application. seriously, here' s my honours thesis title: The Nuccaleena: A shallow- to deep-shelf isotopic transect of a late Marinoan (pre-Proterozoic) cap carbonate. It's aim was to study (question) the feasability of the Snowball Earth Hypothesis. Which, if it occurred, took place ~600 million years ago. My, how relevant.


i've used a dentists' drill and have never been a dentist. those dolospar veins aren't just going to powder themselves and jump out of the rock into an eppendorf tube, y'know.




i've worked with faeces. hmm. that sounds a little more "official" than the reality - i've handled faeces - wait; yuck - i've tweezer-ed faeces. sorting stick insect eggs from their poo is not the most glamorous aspect of my job, but it has to be done...


poo (ha!), only 14:(
i'm going to go drown my sorrows in tea and mint slices.

trick or treat!

halloween came by not so long ago, and while it's not really a big thing here in oz, as compared to the US, we at alphageek HQ do so enjoy any opportunity to dress up, so we got cracking on our costumes (happy coincidental visitors from interstate were told to bring it, or be unwelcome on our couch; they brought it)

kudos for the extra preparation by bloody claire...

...and kat, kat, the pumpkin king (who was immensely frustrated at the party when she realised she'd forgotten to bring her straw)







feeling rather proud, we then drove to the party, hoping that claire's bloody appearance would catch the eye of any passing police. 'twas not to be. we did get attention from several pedestrians as well as small children in adjacent cars at some traffic lights "...but halloween's on tuesday," protested the children (this was a saturday) "oh, we just wanted to get ready early" replied jess, which is probably a better answer than my "boozing up isn't so good mid-week" explanation

there were some gorgeous outfits at the party (though i secretly thought: pah! hired costumes! where's the fun in that?!), which you can see on claire's blog.

i also got to carve my first pumpkin -very exciting!- and was gloatful to win a box of choccies for my efforts (my jack-o-lantern is the one on the left)

i come from the salt water people

those of you who frequent miss claire's blogosphere will already know that we had a FANTASTIC trip to Fraser Island a couple o weekends ago, but if you'd had enough of the photos and reminiscing, well TOO BAD, cos i want to write about it too :)

while the long weekend itself was just lovely, the 'getting there' part was rather fraught... and i'm not talking about the getting up at 4am on saturday morn to drive from Coolum to Rainbow Beach (the ferry "stop"), oh no! -i mean the driving up to Coolum friday night, not filling up the petrol tank first, realising there were a lot less petrol stations adjacent to the Bruce Hwy than we had thought (ie, none by the time we looked), becoming frantic, making random panicked turnoffs at 9:30pm in search of petrol while mentally planning what to wear as it was cold outside, in the dark, and wondering how fast we could run while carrying a jerrycan of petrol, and getting lost in the backstreets of some weird industrial complex in Kunda Park (or wherever we were)...
...before finally making it to a blessed BP, telling our tale of woe to the attendant in a rush of relief, and then looking even more like stupid girls by admitting we hadn't brought a street directory, and could he please give us directions to Elly Street?

but we made it in the end, and didn't break down somewhere in the bush, in the dark, all alone until John Jarratt came to our aid. and that's what's important.

but how about Fraser?

BEAAUUTIFUL!!!



gorgeous sunny hot weather every day we were there, sparkling blue seas, a convivial group with which to share the fun, food, and digging out of bogged 4WDs...
...swimming every day, lying on the beach gazing at the stars every night = BLISS.

...well.
i have a good half dozen MORE photos i want to post, but the bastard lying blogger page won't let me do it. or rather it says: done! picture added. but nothing appears. lies. i hate it. so until i can get someone with more technical nous than me to help, you'll just have to make do. that was claire at indian heads. gah! i can't enjoy the serenity - i'm too cranky now!

(several days and ubertechnogeek intervention later)
oh bless hashi! he is my HERO. welcome mozilla firefox to my laptop (finally) and hooray, for now my photos upload. yay!

accommodation generously provided by mine host ken



driving through the gorgeous scenery



getting bogged in the gorgeous scenery
("sugarbabe" is not OUR car, by the way... no, it belongs to a couple of german tourists we were giving a hand [but not more underwear] to)



my favourite part of the island, the westide, with its mangroves, white sand and clear blue water... stunning



my other favourite spot ;-) elii creek. a clear cold creek you wade up, then slowly float back down, while gazing at the foliage and sky overhead and getting a freezy headache. i love swimming in freshwater!



so what did we think of the weekend on fraser?
FANTASTIC!!!

hmmm...

sometimes i wonder about my job.

like yesterday, when i spent 2 hours sorting through a bucket of stick insect poo (not with a fine tooth comb, but with tweezers) collecting eggs.

but, you know, it was actually quite relaxing to do something so completely mentally undemanding. i just switched my brain off, switched the radio on, and felt the aromatherapeutic effects of eucalyptus oil that has passed through a stick insect's digestive system.

how's the serenity!

........beep........beep........beep........

ah, anonymous. my blog is AWOL cos my mind is AWOL.

i like to (ok, am forced by my own inactivity to) think of my blog as a long term coma patient: it shows a profound state of unconsciousness, showing no response to external stimuli and exhibiting no voluntary actions.

on rare occasions, slight signs of activity DO appear, probably stimulated by the ministrations of the attending nurse, who turns my blog to prevent bedsores, perhaps, and whose cool efficiency masks a tender heart ;)