Day 84 Everton Park, Brisbane

Another work marathon today, focussing on molecular biology revision and anatomical drawings of frogs. I broke it up a bit with a mammoth booking session for New Zealand - both north and south islands now completely booked!!! Cannot believe it! Other people go to new zealand for 3 weeks, not me!

From Rachel's room (where we booked it, as she just can't cope with my slowcoach laptop :P), we had our very own display of rainbow lorikeets. They are so colourful and noisy! I realised it was these birds waking me up every morning, convinced i had left the window open and the birds were actually sharing my bed - they are that loud! The lorikeets also get drunk off the bottlebrush on the trees, so between all their chirping, they are constantly falling off the branches! We went to go outside to take a photo, tourists that we are, but they flew off of course. I then jumped a mile as Brad appeared out of the shed, asking what we were doing. My feet actually left the ground... and i may have squealed. SO embarassing! Rosemaree even came to the window to see what was going on, asking whether a dog had scared me. She didn't look too shocked though when i said 'no, it was Brad... he growled!'. Further embarassment when i realised darcy had brought my washing in already.... my knickers were just being paraded on the dining table when i managed to rescue them :/

Day 85 - Doomed from the start!

Not a good day, starting with being woken up by pounding on my door (an alarm i had asked for but still.. :P). Brad and Rosemaree's packing had been uncharacteristically left to the last minute so there was mayhem this morning. I had to wait 15 minutes for the Rosemaree and Darcy to shower then leapt into the bathroom, even doing a celebratory jiggle... only to turn and find Brad AT VERY CLOSE PROXIMITY. I retreated, beetroot-faced, as i realised he was still packing up bathroom stuff... so 30 minutes later, i had finally showered and locked up and was heading up the great big hill to the bus stop. Stomach grumbling, hair dripping wet and flipflopped feet slipping everywhere in the rain. I know i come from a country where rain is the expected weather forecast but when it rains here, it reeeaaaally rains and the whole city seems to be depressed. Plus the buses never seem to run in the rain... so 4 buses later, one actually pulls in to take me to Kelvin Grove.

I manage to nab the last computer in the place and set up all my stuff... in a slightly OCD way, ready to tackle this timed online forensics assessment - for which i had spent all day saturday preparing huge A3 coloured sheets, complete with drawings of police hats. I even have to crawl down on my hands and knees amongst god-knows-what to plug the computer in (now realising why this computer had been rejected by all other sane people). Of course, i log in to find i'm too much of an eager beaver, as the quiz will not be available until tomorrow. So I haul myself back to the bus stop, thinking i could come back home, catch up on my missed breakfast and pack all the things i forgot this morning. Still pouring down and not wanting to wait ages for the right bus, i get a 390 to Brookside and decide to walk back through Teralba park. It's completely empty, which is a bit eerie due to the rain.

I'm about 2/3 of the way across the park when it happens. Rosemaree had warned me about it, only last week. I didn't really believe it. But it had happened; I had walked under the one tree in teh whole park which was occupied by a divebombing magpie. It actually pecked my shoulder, making a noise like a whip cracking. It was only when it flew back up to the tree that i had fully realised what had happened, and although shocked, was ok and simply walked a little faster to the edge of the park. But oh no, i have no normal divebombing magpie. It comes again, even though i;m about 15m away from its tree now and so obviously no threat at all, with my grass-covered flipflops, ratty hair and soaked bag. So i dash across teh road, perhaps not paying as much attention to traffic as i should have, remembering that Brad had said walking on the other side of the road would be fine. AND IT COMES AT ME AGAIN. IT ACTUALLY CROSSED THE ROAD ON THE TELEPHONE WIRE TO FOLLOW ME. Now i know it's only doing it because it feels threatened and i am 20 times bigger than this bird but i panic. I actually felt shaken up, my heart doing this weird flutter-thud-flutter-thud thing as i RUN up the road to get home... with an audience of the 3 cars that slowed to let me dash across the road. So obviously English :'( Seriously, i want an ice-cream tub hat!

Later made it back in to my clinical microbiology lectorial, with no further trauma but a missing earring. I still haven;t worked out whether it's in the house, at the bus stop or whether the magpie took it???! But it's my favourite pair - silver lizard studs bought at the EKKA festival :'( The lectorial is great, with Mark recapping the whole module in preparation for our lab exam in thursday. It's our last lecture with him this semester and the end of the bacteriology unit - of course, i choose all the most inappropriate answers to volunteer to the discussion, embarassing Rachel by declaring GENITAL TRACT and MID STREAM URINE SAMPLE quite proudly to the lecture hall :D

I then had to explain the 'mid stream part' to Rachel... which resulted in physical shaking from rachel as she tried to control her laughing... and an unlady-like snort from me... which got more of a look from the class than my anatomical tourettes :D

However, the lab exam has now been increased to account for 30% of the unit assessment - scary! So- and i can't believe i'm saying this, jetsetter that i am - but i traded in a day at movie world on the gold coast for a revision day on faecal collection (known only too well from experience), primary isolation media and antimcrobial discs. Although my knowledge of anatomical sites has been well demonstrated, i somehow don't think a genital tract is going to be laid out for me on my lab desk. No, Mark will have planned something much scarier! Thankfully, sea world planned this saturday for Rachel's 20th birthday and the sun will be shining again by then!

Day 86 Ghastly gecko and a very lazy day

If yesterday wasn't scary enough with the magpie attack, I walked into Rachel's room to see a gecko, perched on the tope of her blind, staring at me defiantly and absolutely terrifying us both. Yes, it was a baby gecko, as Brad later repeated to us, yes, they cannot poison us but it was there. In her room. Refusing to move.Two hours, we sat in the doorway just staring at it in absolute horror. It was now 1 in the morning and if Brad has been here, we would have crossed that no go zone into their bedroom for help. But, no, we were all alone and now very tired.

Our action plan was this: Rachel would use the long paintbrush found from Brad's desk to flick the gecko into her bin. Rachel would then run out across the back room to the screen door, which I would kindly open, allowing her to fling her bin out onto the deck to be rescued in daylight, preferably by Brad. My contribution to this plan was the paintbrush and flicking a door handle - a great friend, I know. Well after a 5 minute dash across the back room, screaming, Rachel flung her bin out onto the deck, forgetting that she had quite a lot of rubbish in there. The deck was now littered with empty mascara wands, shampoo bottles, paper, orange peel - anyone alerted by the screams would now think we were being burgled but there was no way we were venturing outside, in case a possum joined the sleepover.

Going back into Rachel's room, my feet never touching the ground, I saw something dark on the blind. Going as close as I dared, I realised it was a head and started accusing Rachel of decapitating the creature. However, when I pulled the blind up, I could very clearly see the rest of its body as it scurried further along the wall. Rachel had successfully flicked the gecko of the top post but it had fell down into a groove at the top of the blind. Now, it was my turn! Paintbrush at the ready, and trying really hard not to flick it at Rachel, who was still on bin holding duty - this time with my (emptied) wicker one. More screaming (and possibly some swearing from me) and it was out on the deck. It was still 40 minutes later though before we went to bed, as we had to check every inch of both rooms for any forgotten friends.

When telling Brad this story later on, he actually went red with laughter; Rosemaree was slightly kinder and sprayed all our walls to try and put off further invasions. Still, every time I hear a gecko now, the lamp goes on and I have to search every inch of the room before returning to bed, only to do the same thing in 10 minutes time :/

So.... Tuesday started off as a late one, greeting the 11 o'clock morning by picking up Rachel's litter from the deck and checking and re-checking my bin before taking it back inside. For the rest of the day, I am ashamed to say I did absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Curled up on the corner chair in the back room, I found it surprisingly comfy - so comfy that I moved my pillows out there, plugged my mp3 in and fell asleep. Only to be woken up by Rachel fighting with the kitchen blinds and sending physical looks of disbelief at me. Hopefully, I'll feel more with it tomorrow and may even get round to doing some prep for my lab exam :S

Day 87 TV Marathon

Rachel and I are ever so slightly obsessed with glee, more specifically Mr Schuester <3 AND GLEE SEASON 2 HAS BEEN FASTRACKED TO AUSTRALIA! Every spare minute of our practical, which involved hybridising a DIG-labeled probe to our southern blot from last week, was spent planning our evening TV session. This isn't to say the lab wasn't exciting - I think my two favourite moments were when, eager to use this funky plastic sealing machine, I sealed up the bag before adding in the pre-hybridisation mix - which is kind of the whole point... so that was an interesting conversation with the demonstrator, when he saw me looking at my blot sitting in a (very neatly sealed) bag, wondering what magic properties the bag must have to make this worthwhile. I think the demonstrator's beginning to laugh with me now though, rather than at me.... I hope so, anyway :P

My second highlight was provided my lab partner Rachel. The pre-hybridisation mix must be collected from these heated waterbaths and must be added to our sample quickly, without allowing for cooling. So Rachel goes and pipettes up the ridiculously tiny amount needed and then panics as she doesn't have the sample with her. I'm bringing it up, just as people working opposite the heat baths start to watch her, saying 'you can't let it cool. What are you going to do with it?!'. Thankfully, I got the sample there just in time as she contemplated pipetting the solution straight back into the water bath. She didn't find it so funny though :P

Before this funny practical, we had even come in early to pick up goodies from Coles (a little bit of fruit and a whole lot of chocolate!) which, being me, I left in the locker. I realised as soon as I walked into the lift - a lift that another molecular student had stalled so we could make it in - so I ended up doing a mad twisting dance as I debated collecting the chocolate or riding down the 6 floors out of pure politeness only to return back up. In the end, I rescued the goodies, red-faced and to the soundtrack of Rachel's giggles.

So after an eventful day, as usual, we started cooking dinner, timed so it will be ready exactly for 6.30 - the start of Rachel's addiction Neighbour's. I sit there politely whilst eating but that's as long as I can last so start washing up early, while she's in there gasping at the storyline :P AND THEN IT WAS GLEE. AMAZING. And made even more amazing by garlic bread, 1 mandarin and a whole tonne of chocolate. My plan to be more active today didn't really work when I mastered the remote to see the TV guide announcing FAST TRACKED HOUSE SEASON 7 followed by Lie To Me... Rachel left me to it, only coming through when she became really alarmed by me laughing aloud to myself, sitting along in a dark room, except for a pill-popping Hugh Laurie :D PERFECT EVENING!

Day 88 Clinical Microbiology Lab Exam

Australians are such geeks - Even as Mark was calling us in for the exam, people were cramming last bits of revision in... one girl looked like she was actually contemplating swallowing her notes! Of course, I sat down to read the test and discovered I'm quite a geek as well, as it all looked so interesting! We had 10 minutes at each station and there were 8 stations, with different activities at each, for example reading and interpreting antimicrobial susceptibility assays, performing rapid indole and oxidase tests and coming up with a possible ID for the pathogen. It was difficult but so well organised - I'm really going to miss Australian practicals back in England.

Day 89 Fish Dissection and Smuggling

An early start for me, as I make my way onto campus for my vertebrate practical, identifying and dissecting fish. I don't know how this girl does it, but she seems to know every single species of every single animal just by looking at it?! All the other plebs, including me, had to do things the hard way lol. Apart from coming our reeking of fish and not feeling quite up to lunch, it was really good. The gills looked amazing under the microscope and the operculum (gill covering) is so rigid, you actually need to be really forceful in cutting it off! After the lab, I stayed in the city for a bit and, despite my tiny budget, finally brought some sunglasses that didn't look like they were right out of the set for grease - I can just not pull that look off :P There was a huge queue all along queen street, but nothing at the end of it. I stood there for a good 10 minutes and nobody moved, there was no one performing, no free soup today... nothing?!

I got back home to see Rosemaree, Brad, Darcy and the new homestay student were back from the Gold Coast. Leaving the huge photo frame, needed for Rachel's bday present outside on the deck, I go to introduce myself to find the Ziyang has already renamed himself Tom (which is a bit of a pain as the last student was Tommie), he's wearing what looks like girl's pyjama trousers, he speaks no English (not even hello) and his mum must have paid a huge amount for extra luggage, as he comes with 3 badminton rackets, 20 shuttlecocks, 2 suitcases, 7 pairs of shoes, 1 rice cooker and 1 playstation. Mmmm, not too sure about this guy :P

Rosemaree and Brad show me some pics from the gold coast - cloudy but their apartment looks amazing! They tell me Rachel's down at the library so I bring my photo frame into the house, glad I don't have to smuggle it in the dark, only to set it down in my room for Rachel to spring up in my doorway. Thankfully, she didn't see it and Rosemaree came through, looking just as shocked at me at Rachel's quite return to the house.

That evening, needing to stick all the pictures and text together for the collage, I tell Rachel I'm getting in my pyjamas ridiculously early and try to stress that she shouldn't knock on my door. It left her confused and rejected but I couldn't think of any other way to ensure she wouldn't pop round and catch me. I finally finish the collage, slip a pre-paid go card into her birthday card and tried to get 6 hours sleep before going to Seaworld in the morning! EXCITED :D