Administration thing

Hi all,

Just something that makes organisation easier: when (and if) you post, remember to put your name in the box in the bottom right hand corner of the posting box.

That way it's easy to determine whose post is whose. Plus, it looks neat. :)

James

It truly begins...

Well, I'm coming up to the end of my first week here. I have been slowly discovering all sorts of things. In the lab, I've been learning RNA isolation and cDNA formation, as well as QPCR and sundry other things. More generally, I have been discovering the British way of doing things. Some things I never realised, like the fact that keyboards here are rather different. Others are just annoying; my pin (without which I can have neither a mobile phone plan nor internet on which I may use skype legitimately) still not having been sent for my card after a week... Or that it being light until 10:30pm really plays havoc with my sleep patterns...

Yesterday evening I went exploring around some of the Homerton grounds, and of course I took my camera:

Field with rabbits (sorry about the bad photo; I need a longer lens):

Some photos of the sunset:

Some interesting creatures I found in the gardens (I can't wait until I buy my macro lens!):

Tomorrow will be another 8-6(:30) day, I think, but at least I will get to relax somewhat on the weekend. Hon is coming to visit on his way to the US of A, and therefore I will have the opportunity to do some more exploration of Cambridge, along with buying a much-needed bike, taking photos, and (fingers crossed) getting my phone/internet sorted out. As always, the weather is highly unpredictable, but it has cooled down a lot; something for which I am very grateful. I do notice how little UV there is here, though. Even at midday on a bright sunny day, my glasses take a good half hour before they are even slightly dark, and never get very dark no matter how long I am in the sun (for reference; on an overcast Melbourne morning they are fairly dark within 10 minutes). No wonder English people end up red and blistered after half a day in Australia! I wonder how anyone here gets vitamin D...

One last thing; for anyone interested, I have posted a very short photo guide to where I am living on facebook. I will go around and take photos of the Great Hall and everything later, but this is just to give an idea of what my accommodation is like. It's apparently the worst accommodation in the college, but it is more spacious than my first-year JCH room, plus someone comes in here and vacuums, washes and changes my bedsheets and towels, and generally tidies up once a week. And there's no college duty! Yay! :D

Of Worms, Dogs and Men

Have I ever mentioned that a number of people in and associated with the lab I'm in have a quirky sense of humour? ...well, now I have.
I will assign the people mentioned in this entry (and henceforth any entry after this)aliases.

Of Worms
Hong: so are we the only Australian group in Coeliac Disease research?
#2: well, there's the worm people up in Queensland that you work with, no?
$: yes. This gastroenterologist infected himself with hookworm when he went to PNG. He just put one on his arm and let it burrow through...
Hong: ...
$: he had them for years. And he purified the his faeces and infected other people. So he's got a research group on worms going now.
Hong: ... WHAT?
#2: and the Americans really couldn't cope with it! When we told them at the conference, they were like,"oh my god!!!" They were so horrified they really couldn't cope with the idea. They were asking,"how on earth did he get ethics?"
Hong: and how on earth DID he get ethics?
$: well, all it takes is someone you know on the committee. Easy.

Of Dogs
Russian: once, after one particular long day at the lab, I got home. And instead of my dog jumping up and down and wagging his tail like he normally does, he was literally crawling to me! At once I freaked out and picked him up. Was he sick? Maybe there was some spine problem? I was just about to ring the vet when I walked into the kitchen and saw this massive amount of poo on the floor. I was so relieved! If that's the only thing wrong then it's easily cured!
Everyone: XD
Russian: then I remembered my high school friend in Russia. He went home one day and said to his parents,'I've got a brain tumour.' And his parents really freaked out. Then he said,'no, actually I don't have a brain tumour. I just wanted to tell you I failed my exams.'
Everyone: ...

Of Men
$: Made a speedy recovery, did you?
#1 (recently underwent major surgery; mind you, he's a consultant himself): Well, I literally conned my way out of the hospital. I said to the nurses on Shift 1,'They told me I'm going home tomorrow.' They said,'ah really, that's great!' then I said to nurses on Shift 2,'I'm going home tomorrow!' They said,'congrats, you're doing well!' then the nurses on Shift 3 said to me,'are you going home today?' and I said,'yes, that's what they've told me.' Then my surgeon came,'so, your discharge is scheduled on Friday.' I said,'no it isn't. They told me I'll be discharged today!' and he said,'oh, really? okay.' I conned my way out by creating a rumour!
Everyone: XP
#2: And how was it at home?
#1: It was great! I did my own heparin injections for 5 days. You know, jabbing at the tummy. My wife wasn't very impressed. 'What're you doing?' she asked. 'Just shooting up some drugs.' I said.
$: Ha. They did give you some real stuff though, didn't they?
#1: Yes. Oxycortin. Nasty stuff. I hate narcotics. I've started doing some email reviews for the past month... er... *grimace* very blunt, not good...
$: XD. Wow, so you were showing your true self, then.
#1: Well, I wouldn't say that. Because normally I'm on alcohol anyway.

...but sometimes it doesn't rain

Sunset over homerton 2
Originally uploaded by enlightened0ne

Thunderstorm

Thunderstorm
Originally uploaded by enlightened0ne

This is what happens at the end of a sunny day in Cambridge. Take a look at my photostream for more pictures of the storm. :)

Bumblebee

Bumblebee
Originally uploaded by enlightened0ne

I never realised how accurate the cartoons of bees were until I saw the bumblebees here, their low drones announcing bodies that seem to comically large to be aerodynamic, and their fuzzy bodies looking ready to be stroked. That is, until I discovered that these bees have no barbs on their stingers, and are capable of stinging more than once, like a wasp.

AMS Begins

Is no-one but me and Hong going to post here? Come on... you can do it!

Anyway... my first (and second) day.

Well, to begin with, Addenbrooke's Hospital is HUGE. Not just large in the way the Austin, with its two sites, is, but imagine taking all the Austin's land, then covering it completely in buildings. This map might give an idea of the size, though not how tall each building is.

View Larger Map

Fortunately for me, after walking down to the hospital (15 mins), I was met by one of the two people in my research group, and he took me up to the lab. I have no idea how I would have been able to find it, otherwise.

The second thing that surprised me is the amount of funding that the multitudes of researchers here have. My group was only founded a year ago, and at the moment it consists of 4 researchers including me, as well as my supervisor, who is a clinician most of the time. Despite this tiny size, we have the funding to buy anything we want, including an expensive new QtPCR machine (much nicer than the one at my old lab), two LCM (laser-capture microdissection) machines, and piles of other stuff. I don't know where this kind of funding comes from, but it's nice to know that I am allowed to "try out" expensive research techniques without money being a barrier. I suppose that being able to get large amounts of funding with relative ease is a benefit of having one's research group in England's largest research hospital... Somewhat daunting, though.

So yesterday was, of course, all about administration. I'm not even allowed to work without a full OH&S induction. Today, I went through said induction, pinching myself to keep awake, and almost falling off my chair when I actually did fall asleep. There was another guy with me, and I almost had to poke him to wake him up once. Ah well, at least now I can work... or could, if they didn't require me to go and have a Hep B booster tomorrow. Not because my immunity is low; I had my vaccination 12 years ago, and antibody levels were nice and high when they were tested 2.5 years ago. They know this. No, it's because here in England they realised that for people in high-risk professions, where HBV immunity is important, it is more cost-effective and equally efficacious to give a booster 5 years post-vaccination than to check serum antibody levels. I love the illustration of the bureaucratic process: since this is policy, it does not matter that I have already done the more expensive option, (twice) verifying the superfluity of this booster. I must have it anyway, wasting half a day of my time. "Half a day?" you say incredulously, "surely a single vaccination wouldn't take that amount of time!" Well, no, it shouldn't. But despite working in an hospital, of all places, I can't get my vaccination there. I have to travel to the centre of Cambridge to have my vaccination done there, since apparently they don't have doctors at the hospital or something. Maybe they just don't want me to associate the hospital with pain and sharp pointy objects or something...

At least now I have my long list of things to do. I will be pretty flat out until next Wednesday, since my supervisor wants me not only to score 9 TMAs, (which is not too bad since I've been doing that all year, and these ones are easy) he also wants me to be competent with tissue culture and QtPCR by the end of the week. This in addition to working on a patient database. I don't know how many hours he thinks I have in a week! Ah well, it will be good to get a lot of learning out of the way in the first week or two, so I can concentrate on getting some good data.

I've been walking into the centre of Cambridge a couple of times. It's a pretty long walk; 2.5 miles, but it's pleasant enough, and saves me the £3.30 return trip on the bus. It's been very warm but also pouring with rain: photos to follow. I'm planning to go punting with my workmates in a week or so, so I shall post photos of that when it occurs. Now I ought to go and make some dinner. Hope everyone's having a good time! Please post something...

AMS: Day 0, anyone?

Officially my first day of AMS today.

Though there's almost nothing new in the level 5 lab of Dept Immuno & Micro, it's still somewhat exciting - and that's not because I'm not getting paid like I was during summer holidays.

I thought day 1 would be full of red-tape. But turned out my supervisor wasn't organised enough for that - swine flu had struck her the previous week so she had been quite behind and stressed out. So in the end the only red-tape I did was to renew my access card. So, a day 0 instead.

Day 0 turned out to be "educational". In addition to about 20 more papers to read, I strolled across Royal Parade to WEHI, catching sight of Geoff McColl jaywalking towards RMH on my way XD, and fell asleep half way through the Autoimmunity Postdoc seminar so lost track of what the Professor's new findings were... *sigh*

The only useful thing was having a talk with the supervisor regarding the project. What I had found out, much to my surprise, was that I would be required to be absolutely write down everything, and date and get my supervisor to sign every single page of the book... Unfortunately my project will be part of the contracted work our lab does to an external company... hence the extreme pedanticness. If only I am OCD enough...

The rest of the talk was all within my expectations, since I have been in the lab before. Things like "you know you will proabably be working more than 9-5, right?"; "when we have experiments going, you'll be expected to come in on weekends..."; "our internet should not be used for purposes other than work-related... of course, that is not to say you can't game or whatever at all, if you're the only person in the lab at 8 or 9 at night and running a very long experiment." Ah well, such is lab, and I have been expecting the worst anyway since learning that the phD students often come in at 6am and leave at 9pm...

So that's about all for my 1st day. Somewhat sluggish, but then again, the momentum will probably only pick up 1 month into AMS, if I'm lucky.

And now I want to hear everyone else's AMS Day 1 (or Day 0, if you've got a worse than red-tape day like me)... Post away!

A Man from Mukinupin

Saw this MTC play at Sumner Theatre in the playhouse yesterday, by Dorothy Hewitt.

Despite being heralded as a great Australian theatrical creation, the play felt rather like a conjured up pieces of information - of course, all of them relating to this little country town, but seemed rather random between themselves. This resulted in me wondering where the story is leading to at the half-time. During the 2nd half, the play did tie its loose ends together, however it seems rather contrived, and the result was both puzzling and comical. Perhaps, had the play trimmed itself a little to allow more character and plot development, had it actually been a book where people can read and absorb rather than feeling being "rushed" to the conclusion, would have made this a truly deep, meaningful and great work. I wonder how much of its failure to captivate the audience can be attributed to the playwright, and how much to the director and his/her interpretation and presentation.

The bright side of the play, though, was the excellent sets. White sand, a real fire, a "magic" caravan that all characters can mysteriously appear and disappear from, and a rainy scene, all on stage, are but a few. Not to mention the 2 main female and male casts were playing 2 different characters each - which, one wonders at the speed of their clothes change, behind the magic caravan. The use of curtains as a prop was a clever design, for it allowed artistic use of the shadows and created the right atmosphere for the many of the settings in the play.

Overall, an experimental piece of work... but it would seem to me that the effort in making the technological marvel on stage has perhaps compromised the depth of the story... and for any play, no flashy settings can replace a strong plot and good character development...

A hailing Melbourne morning

Yesterday morning's rain and hail was slightly annoying...

95% of the time, I actually like the rain: the thunderstorms that is spectacular for the ear, the downpours that pleases the eye, the gentle drizzles that clears a heat wave, which comforts the senses. But the neverending rain that was too much to be a sprinkle and too little to be a shower, that was heavy enough to soak me but not heavy enough for me to bother opening my umbrella, that slants in stochastic directions with winds that pierces through my clothes, all while I was hurriedly walking/jogging towards the bus stops from home, slightly stressed that I would miss the bus then miss the train then miss the time for my grandfather's appointment at the Eye&Ear Hospital, which I was to accompany and interpret for him and would incur the wraths of several female members of the family if I had failed to do what I promised... - was a tad bit frustrating. Not to mention it then haphazardly turned into fine needle-like hail which reminded me of the mini messager the hand therapists used on my wrist except this hail was messaging on the wrong places. But this is enough whining already, especially since I did manage to evaporate all the rain that landed on me with my body heat during the train trip.

We ended up waiting until 12:30 for the 15 mins appointment, despite having arrived at 9:35. It was not that all appointments were running behind schedule so much, but the fact that the mandarin interpreter that the hospital has booked for my grandfather was running late for 2 hours. Despite my request for the interpreter to be cancelled and I do the interpretation instead, the nurses still managed to shove my grandfather's file to the bottom of the pile, and pushed it behind time after time, much to our puzzlement. Then the interpreter finally arrived, and the file finally surfaced to the top of the pile, but all opthalmologists were still seeing patients, and the we waited for another 20 mins and the interpreter decided that she couldn't wait any longer. So I ended up interpreting anyway, which was fine because I also told my grandfather what the consultant said to the registrar who was taking his final exams soon, so he was satisfied with the additional information. The amusing thing was that after I told the registrar I will be interpreting his instructions, he kept on saying things like "look here", or "look that way" and pointed his hands which, because of the way I was standing, and the machine between my grandfather and him, I couldn't actually see... Ah well, he had better wished that in he won't be getting a non-English-speaking patient in his exam.

And I'll finish my rant here. Off to see Dali now!