Stuff and Nonsense

New Wave

2009-11-22T11:22:00.001+11:00

I had a new name for this blog, but I forget.

Signalling a Return to Blogging

2008-06-15T00:59:00.002+10:00

...Soon. No, really. There's so much going, so much to celebrate and mourn for the past year - a new Prime Minister, the end of the Howard Era, turning 30 (the horror!), the US Presidential Election. Thoughts on growing old. Reexaming a narrative - and writing a new one. Join me.

Happy Birthday, Bro

2007-06-05T11:08:00.000+10:00

Happy Birthday Little Bro.

And welcome to the newest addition to the family: Jenkins, after his Dad, Possum Jenkins.

Ah, the cuteness.

In Memoriam: Douglas Noel Adams, 1952-2001

2007-05-25T17:27:00.000+10:00

Stuff and Nonsense observes International Towel Day, 2007.

There's still a DNA-shaped hole in the Multiverse.

Yet Another Year, But Slightly Wiser

2007-05-22T00:48:00.000+10:00

What? Is it that time of year already?

Cometh the hour....

2007-04-29T01:16:00.000+10:00

..Cometh the rain

We are here with a gigantic 'screen,' thanks to a huge projector, a perfectly arranged living room, appropriate junk food and rugs, all geared up and ready for the great World Up Final.

And it's raining. In Barbados.

We've had a few teasing live feeds, watched highlights from the great 1992 final - a seminal year for me, at least, in terms of cricket - listened to an hours self-aggrandising commentary on the Aussie team (really, you would think they were the only team playing) and am now watching the highlights of the AUS vs NZ final. We here at Stuff and Nonsense, namely, Me, Myself and I, are fond of McGrath in spite of his nastiness on field - his consistently perfect line and length and subtle variations thereof have won our heart(s). A tribute to talent above looks, as it were - a privilege we do not accord Pointing - Ponting - on any day of the week. Still, we would rather McGrath didn't score today if it were at Lanka's expense.

Oh, the torture. I would rather have the game over with than this!!!

Gripe Water

2007-04-12T09:55:00.000+10:00

There are times when I do not like being micromanaged. I am not a three-year old.

Really. I don't like it.

You BEWDY!

2007-03-29T09:23:00.000+10:00

So close...

iLanka almost snatches an outrageous victory from the jaws of defeat...

Yet so far....

South Africa did better over all, but Malinga!! Holy CRAP!

We ROCK!!!

(Photos from Cricinfo)

Augie March at The Corner Hotel

2007-03-26T19:16:00.000+10:00

There's nothing like Augie March to warm your soul on a chill autumn night. To photograph them in concert was a holy wannabe-rocktographer grail of mine, and at last the opportunity arose.
The set before the journey.

I've been lucky that in all the gigs I've attended so far, I've been able to see Glenn Richards during most of the gig, no small feat for a small girl who is rarely up the front.

The Glenn
Consequently , in spite of pushing my way into a tiny corner int he front, I had the worst angle for photography, as I cou;dn't focus on anyon except Ed. Not that there is anything wrong with Ed, bless him, but it can get monotonous with the one subject and same photo result each time.
The Glenn in full flight.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaning. It was too distracting to take photos, and if anything Augie are marvellous live. I shutdown the camera, wove my way back to my friends and enjoyed the performance with its precious quota of sublime moments.

The Evil Green Light, quoth Adam.
Ed.
The Set List.

At the end of it, thanks to the kindness of strangers, this lucky flygirl got a set list.

Review to follow. For the usual thoughtful, well written review, here's vernoona.

World Cup 2007

2007-03-12T14:09:00.000+11:00

It begins!

Dispatch From the Scientific Frontier, Melbourne Horizon #108 [draft]

2007-03-01T15:37:00.000+11:00

Greetings, O denizens of the Web!

Since my last yet-to-be-published draft blog post, I have quit my sphere as a lady of leisure, stopped sleeping until 11am, obtained full-time employment and am currently working as a Research in a Biomedical research institute. I've been working for two weeks now, for two labs with completely different fields of research. One is Biomaterials, the other is Metabolism. I'm technically part-time in both and full time at uni. If you're wondering how I'm going to manage it, I'd welcome any suggestions, because I don't know either. The only commonalities are that the offices of my supervisors are next to each other, as are the labbenches. I have found that a computer is mandatory, I'm thinking of getting a Blackberry, something I never imagined having to do, and I'm trying to work a day where I am not solely at the computer looking up product specs, writring five Word(TM) files at once or communicating with sups (who are in the offices next door) via email. The work is really interesting though I haven't been on the bench much yet. The Biomaterials work is fascinating, though it shows some of the differences between the different disciplines and their perspectives. The Engineer wants to know about the technical aspects of the generation of the material: the process. The biologist wants to know how the biomaterial can be of use and how it affects living cells.

The institute is housed in a brand-spanking new building. As many new research places are these days, it's all plate glass and steel panels and sails in strange formations. We reckon the central lieft area sails are meant to represent a Golgi stack. There is a cafe with a cute proprieter. The is light and airy but there's nary a window to be opened. It's a world away from the dowdy old university building that many of the labs came from. I'm mildly amused that this much plate glass can immedisately puts a gloss on the work here, it makes you assume that the research in here must be like, really, really cool.

It's alab that's basically in my old neighbourhood, around the corner from where I went to uni, where I worked before and after uni. It's strange to be here, as many of the people I met when I first started out in research have also moved to this shiny new building. This means that I have known some of them for 12 years. Thinking in decades is terrifying. Will I slip back into my old routines, my favorite haunts? I already feel some of the mental processes that affected me in my most recent adventure creeping up on me, though it's easier now to stop them. I am torn between being glad to be back at work in a challenging role and the feeling that perhaps I really haven't moved on that much, just back to the place where I began. To the comfort zone.

Perhaps it's too soon to tell, too early to worry about. I remind myself, though, that many scientists have done the same, gone back to where they began. If anything, I can think of it as wiping the slate clean, making a fresh start, begin all over again.

[] post subject to editing.

Template, Blogging and Internerd Difficulties

2007-01-16T13:12:00.000+11:00

Hear ye, hear ye, O Faithful readers. Having a few problems with adjusting Blogger templates, editing posts and the Internet in general. Net connection, in spite of being Broadband, occaisionally drops out. Template of blog acting up when I try to change the template. Thing appears to be stuffed. Working on problems and old posts.

New Blogger is not all it is cracked up to be. We here at Stuff and Nonsense are doing our darndest to fix things to bring you more neuroses and sad jokes for your edification and entertainment.

And If anyone knows how to put a picture into your header, Please Tell Me!!!!

That is all.

City Hopping

2007-01-10T23:20:00.000+11:00

Back from Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney trip and sweltering in heat. Reports to follow!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2006-12-31T18:52:00.000+11:00

A very Happy New Year to you and yours...may it be filled with joy and adventure (well, nice ones).

Returning Soon!

2006-12-23T09:52:00.000+11:00

Folks...I have been on holiday for some four weeks now...I have been distracted, lazy and just enjoyong the luxury of doing nothing for a while..perhaps a little too long. I am not abandoning this blog and updates are in the wings! May I take this opportunity to wish you all a splendid Christmas and the best for the New Year!

bound and gagged

2006-12-02T11:56:00.000+11:00

And it's away!!!

on the knife's edge

2006-11-20T00:17:00.000+11:00

This marks what was by far the strangest time in my life, the most bittersweet parting thus far. A fine, keen pain, like the knife so sharp you didn't feel it enter you, cut you. Meanwhile, you watch with detached disinterest as you bleed.

What next, now?

...almost...there...almost.........there.....

2006-11-18T21:29:00.000+11:00

*pant, pant* gahhhh!!!! so close...so close! [cue visions of flygirl slowly and painfully clasping bits of rock on her way to the summit, while bits of rock crumble and break off under her feet]

...So it's taking much longer than I expected, and I fell asleep last night to my absolute horror, getting 10 hours where for the past three or so days I had...er...five...and didn't get an early start to work this morning. So I ran late, and now have to rearange all my flights - that is, buy a new one - because Virgin Blue are ...not helpful...

...plenty of cake leftover from farewell afternoon tea yesterday which when all is said and done, made me quite teary, because for all the horrors of this Canberra experience, there is still everything to gain...

..and my supervisor(s) are...well, they are really quite wonderful...

....and I'm missing a very important function tomorrow which makes me very, very unhappy...

But hey, the wages of sin, eh?

PS: Congratulations to scientician on finding a dark eyed virgin. would that we all find one of our own, scientician, would that we all find one of our own ;-p *

* I hereby fulfil the obligatory terrible pun requirement

Tell 'er she's dreaming...

2006-09-25T16:52:00.000+10:00

This blog is suspended....except for this post!...

What are my top five dream jobs?

This is a really interesting topic for me, as I'm currently at a bit of a crossroads. For the longest time, science has been my be all and end all. At the same time, there has been a strong streak of a desire to perform some sort of social service - at 12 I had fantasies about founding an organisation dedicated to environmentalism, medical care and world peace. At 16, I decided that I wanted to be a doctor (one of two deviations from the research path decided upon when I was 7) and work for MSF. Oh, go ahead, laugh at my youthful naivete! We all want to change the world when we are that age. Later I discovered that the UN apprently fulfilled these functions, and I knew that I was too much in love with genetic engineering and protein structure to want to pursue medicine. Also, I am stupid. Now at 28, I find myself less interested in the minutiae of amino acid sequences and signal transduction (and stupid), trying to find another course to take in life. After all, what applicable skills can a biochemistry graduate transfer? Here, let me, ah...ah...checkout the segmentation on that? So here are some of the possible strands I would follow if I had the brains and resourcefulness....

In an Ideal WorldI would be a doctor-humanitaritan-academic. Okay, you can stop laughing now. I like medicine, it intrigues me, I am fixated on the notion that it is one of the best forms of service to my fellow human beings. I have a very strong belief that it is a human right to have access to complete health care. I see it as a function of humanitarian work. And yes, I would work for MSF and the like! I'd love to work in community development programs. Top down and grassroots up are what we need to elicit change, and the grassroots level is vital: change has to come from within wach individual or else it won't last. I love teaching, and I love teaching science. Science is as much about appreciating a kind of aesthetic as it about solving problems and doing so creatively. I say academic because I'd really prefer to teach people who care about the subject, but in that role I would look at teaching sessions from kinder to high school. Get kids to love learning early on, if I can. I'd love to develop programs that bring the skills, resources and knowledge of universities to the mainstream and the people who need it most, forge community relations.

Conveniently, this would also fulfil my dire wanderlust :-) I love travel, and I would explore every remote and populated corner of the earth if I could. Six months on, six months in some far flung plain or mountain village!

In another ideal world, I would be a writer! Doesn't everyone want that kind of immortality?

In the third alternate universe, I would work for Getaway or be a travel writer!

Reality Land
Retrain, I suppose, and do humanitarian work! At this stage what area is the big question. And can I do it? Plus, I don't compeltely want to leave science, I think it is something I will always go back to.

I think I could also happily work in a bookshop like Readings, help organise literary functions, generally mess about with books.

And I can always travel, whether in the arm chair or boat, plane and train.

This Blog is Suspended

2006-09-15T23:09:00.000+10:00

..temporarily....

Sorry for the lack of posting here of late. I've been snowed under with work as I race towards the lab work finish line and thesis work. It will all be over in October, which as far as I am concerned is Far Too Soon. Though I've hard nary a time to write more than two proper emails a week, I've looked at many a post draft and unfinished meme waiting publication with despair, saw TV for the first time in two weeks last night and actually ate dinner, a real, non-museli dinner at home for the first time all week last night. And I even got to send out some emails this week, which means that there is some joy in doing an in situ on Drosophila embryos - frequent wash breaks. Speaking of which, mine did not work, so there's a week's worth of work down the drain. My control, twist, on the other hand, is exquisite. Really. It is beautiful.

So humblest and sincerest apologies for the silence via email, web, and other media, and I hope to catch up with you all soon come mid-October, and let us pray that I will see some of my last Floriade before it shuts down for another year. Take of yournselves, and do drop me the odd line, I really miss hearing from non-lab people! Needless to say, when I need a breather I will still be roaming my favourite blogs!

Lotsa Love,

flygirl.

Where's my idli?! [drafty prelim notes]

2006-08-11T11:18:00.000+10:00

[or, Can I go back India now?]

Before me is my lunch, a plastic container of pre-packaged museli. I missed breakfast. I'm craving the slightly soured, crisp edging of appa/hoppers (Tamil,appam) that my father used to make on Sunday mornings. "Do you want an egg hopper," he asks inevitably, though he knows I no longer eat eggs on their own like that. Dad is currently onthe other side of the world. We're a little concerned that he's stuck at Heathrow with the chaos that's hit it suddenly. Though I suspect he will be happy to be in London for a while longer. When I was little I would plaster the hopper with jam, eating the crispy outside layer first and then the thick spongy middle. When I grew up, I ate it with pol sambol, a coconut chutney drier than its South Indian cousin, or lunu miris, a freshly pounded lemon-onion-chilli chutney. The key to all these dishes was the correct amount of fermentation of the batter and the freshness of the chutneys pounded in a mortar and pestle, eaten immediately.

But more than those rice flour pancakes, I'm craving the thin, crackle-edged dosas of South India with their rust-brown undersides, pillow-soft steamed idli cakes with the inevitable, scrumptious coconut chutney made from freshly grated coconut, some times churned with a sesame paste and mustard seeds. Or the slightly slurpy upma, ultimate in comfort food. When made by the South Indian canteen, it has the texture of runny polenta, hiding fried curry leaves, mustard seeds, a hint of tumeric in the faint yellow colouring. It's utterly delicious. On Sundays the canteen serves hot puri aloo, rows and rows of women roll out the puris before out eyes. The aloo is terrific, if slightly, but not unbearably, salty, offsetting the fried puri perfectly. There's a little gravy to mop up with crips-soft puri pieces. Afterwards, small espresso sized serves of the best masala chai in the ashram - the only masala chai left in the ashram. You eat with your hands, there is no cutlery in this canteen.

Ah, so much to try, and every day a little something extra to nibble. But at the very least the idli and chutney for breakfast every morning and God's in His heaven, and all's right with the world.

Upwardly Mobile: John Butler

2006-08-08T18:08:00.000+10:00

Until I get some notes on India up, or writer a longer piece about Weasel Words and coorporate-speak gone mad, please enjoy this excerpt from last night's Enough Rope interview with John Butler of the John Butler Trio.

ANDREW DENTON: You have, however, put your body and your wallet where your heart is. You've given plenty of money to the Wilderness Society, to Greenpeace, to others. We've got some footage of you here at a protest in the Styx Valley in Tasmania. John performing at a very high altitude.

(FOOTAGE PLAYS)

ANDREW DENTON: I bet your grandfather never expected his guitar to get up to the top of one of those.

JOHN BUTLER: No, that was a good day.

ANDREW DENTON: What's it like to be in the middle of that incredible old forest?

JOHN BUTLER: It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful. It makes you wonder why anybody would want to cut it, burn it, woodchip it.

ANDREW DENTON: Well I can explain that, you see...

JOHN BUTLER: Oh, money?

ANDREW DENTON: No, no. You see, this is giving trees an opportunity to travel.

JOHN BUTLER: Thank you.

ANDREW DENTON: That's alright.

JOHN BUTLER: I've been wondering all this time.

ANDREW DENTON: Yes. You're not thinking, John.

JOHN BUTLER: I'm not.

ANDREW DENTON: No.

JOHN BUTLER: Man. I've just had a revelation, folks. I've got to go.

ANDREW DENTON: Yes. You know, they could end up as a toothpick in a boardroom of a big company. Most trees don't get to do that.

JOHN BUTLER: I mean that's exciting stuff.

ANDREW DENTON: Yes, that is.

JOHN BUTLER: See the world, travel.

ANDREW DENTON: That's right.

JOHN BUTLER: Yes.

ANDREW DENTON: Upwardly mobile.

JOHN BUTLER: Be all you can be as a tree.[Full Transcript]

Ah, yes.

PS: Thanks for the yummy roulade and covnersation, phdstudent.

Returned!

2006-08-04T12:24:00.000+10:00

Greetings, Blogosphere! I have returned from India and am back in Canberra. Spent a few days recovering in Melbourne. I feel as if I've just come from another planet, from heaven, from paradise. I am struggling - reluctant - to return to normal life. I've had little desire to go near the web, let alone read email and am only just getting back into it. I am well, just - happy, and adjusting :-). Here are wishes that you are all well, and more communication soon.

Bombay Attacked

2006-07-12T21:01:00.000+10:00

Bombay has been rocked by a series of seven explosions on the Western Railway Line at rush hour.

I got nothing. I have nothing I can really say. I've never been to this city, though I have read and seen plenty about it. I read the blogs of residents and a few friends who are going over there soon. Yet I've wanted to blog about this but really, there's nothing to say. It is simply appalling, saddening. My heart goes out to the victims and their families and all Bombayites. To all those on the coal face. To the strength of these amazing people.

[begin temp rant]I have to say that MSM here in Oz has been pretty crap at covering the disaster. To be sure I've depended on The Age and SMH websites for updates along with other sources. Even the ABC has been pretty ordinary, and allocated a small slot on the 7.30 Report. Perhaps Lateline will be better. I don't know why I expect more.[end temp rant]

The Indian Blogosphere has linked to and is one of the bet sources of information. And it has reacted splendidly. Mumbaihelp is a starting point for assistance, especially if you're trying to get through. They're doing an exceptional job of linking people with their families. They can't be praised enough. Ultrabrown.com is on the ground along with India Uncut which also links to other resources and springboards to more resources. Sepia Mutiny also provides updates and forums. Dilip d'Souza is also on the ground and has written some moving posts about the situation. Again and again we hear amazing stories about the response of people to these situations. It's still confounds me that these two extremes of humanity can be expressed in a short space of time.

God Bless.

London, London

2006-07-07T00:54:00.000+10:00

One year.

London is

The other eternal city Entering the House of Commons to the sound of a choir echoing to the rafters Hyde Park on a summer's day Your first ride in a double decker past the LSE and Trfalgar Square while in the back seat German kids sing:

"...I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now

...There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
I don't know how

Because maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall..."