heaven avid mountaineer

Surely I'm not the first person to notice the writings on the rust-like metal panels decorating the northern edge of the brand new boardwalk, connecting the Shepherd Street entry into Sydney University to Maze Green. Let me just say that it does look amazing. If anyone has had the opportunity/courage to walk to Redfern Station at night, they would notice the gentle glow emitted from the wooden floor panels below. It gives off a very light, floating feeling, not unlike being abducted by aliens...minus the "unpleasant" anal probe. Together with the metal panels, which has weird writings on some of them, it has an overall zen-y feel.

Speaking of which, CK and I were looking at some of the panels, and with the use of my trusty mobile phone, I was able to read from the first panel with text, from the university end of the walkway, (not from the Redfern end) that it says "HEAVENAVIDMOUNTAINEER". I asked CK what was meant by Heaven Avid Mountaineer and he has no idea either. If anyone has any clue what it is supposed to mean...and if anyone has actually bothered finding out what all the other panels say, let me know :)

Hopefully I'll be posting some images of these panels, and more, soon.

musings of...my sister?

I was talking to my sister...and realised she had a page on the web. Just one of those friend pages. Even though she doesn't want me to see it, a quick search online revealed it in no time. Quite interesting...why do all the youngsters of today's society feel like shortcutting their words? Apparently "pllz" means people..."fds" means friends. I don't know, but I feel that spelling and grammar should generally be used...even on the web. It's just so much easier to read than a bunch of abbreviations.

back from the hunter valley

I'm back from the SCANZ Crystal 25 Conference in the Hunter Valley. My first ever conference and I must say, it was fantastic. It could not have been in a nicer place. The scenery, the wine, the cheese, the food, everything was just great. Even though I was moved from staying at the conference venue to another site for accommodation, it was still pretty good. If CK and I ever decide to go away to the Hunter Valley, I would seriously consider staying at these places.

The conference itself was good. Great talks and not so great talks. No offence, but I have an issue with protein people being at a crystallography conference. It's just wrong! But some of the other talks are great. They tend to be involved with solid state chemistry, which is my field, or molecular frameworks. Other talks which was good were about some of the new facilities opening up here in Australia, such as the new OPAL reactor at ANSTO and the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne. And of course, the best talks were saved for last...Materials Science and Nanotechnology.

The social side of things were great...met a lot of new people, like MC, who is CL's new postdoc out at ANSTO. Nice guy. We were all fed well constantly and the dinners...really extravagant. I felt guilty throughout the whole conference. Here I am, just coming here to present a poster and listen to talks and some new research that's happening, and I'm being fed feasts after feasts. Of course, it was all sponsored by some very generous analytical companies. In the spirit of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" I thought I'd mention one in particular...Panalytical. Why? Free periodic table mouse pad! You can tell I'm a geek, can't you?

cheap music...it's insanity

So here I was, enjoying my Good Friday holiday. Going out every single day of the week for months on end really makes you appreciate any time you get to spend at home doing nothing but sipping cold lemon iced tea. I guess I can do that in the office too, but it's more fun without having to put gel in your hair or having to go to the mirrored wall in the lift to check your hair every so often, while hoping no one opens the lift doors while you're privately in there making sure you don't look like Sideshow Bob. Not that I do that of course...Although I did catch someone who shall remain nameless, popping a zit in there. Let's just say it wasn't pleasant for either of us. Organic chemists...pfffttt

Anyway, being lazy and all, I decided to check out Sanity Digital. I didn't realise how great it was until now. You can buy tracks for only $1.69 which seems to be a bit of a bargain. Finally, I can get music online without having to worry about being sued for copyright infringement...which I never do of course *insert angelic smile here*. I love being able to mix and match and just buy the tracks I want. I'm particular addicted to the Gia Farrell song Hit Me Up from the Happy Feet soundtrack. For someone who hasn't even watched the movie, I can't believe I'm so addicted to the song. Unfortunately I can't say the same thing for the music video. It started off ok with the silhouettes, but after that, it was all a bit downhill. It looks too much like a Jennifer Love Hewitt production.

Other songs that I also downloaded includes Silverchair's new one, Straight Lines, Gwen Stefani's The Sweet Escape and KT Tunstall's Suddenly I See from the Ugly Betty theme, so I was told. I also got Elevator Love by Guy Sebastian and Addicted To You by the recently outted/came out Anthony Callea. I swear I don't like Australian Idol, but those two songs aren't too bad. I can see myself visiting and shopping a lot more on sanitydigital.com.au now.

brought to you by...westfield

For those of you in the know, I travel 5 days a week from Burwood station to go to uni. It's not particularly fun or noteworthy...until now. It seems recently they've decided to whore the station out to Westfield. You don't really notice the giant advertisements when you're departing from the station. However, it is very obvious when you arrive. For instance, they have this enormous billboard-like poster covering over a whole wall in the tunnel leading to platforms 4 to 6, which you don't generally see, since it doesn't face the commuters going up the stairs. But when you arrive, you just can't help but see it. Also the large posters hung up over the stairs, perfect for when you walk down the stairs so you can see them.

It won't be long before they pay Gretel Killeen another 50 bucks to say the words "brought to you by Westfield" so CityRail can tag it along on their PA systems.

"The next train to arrive on platform 18 goes to Hornsby, first stop Redfern, then Burwood, brought to you by Westfield, then Strathfield, then all stations to Epping, then all stations to Hornsby."

oh look, he's human after all

Well here we are again, another 4 years of Labor government in NSW. I happen to catch a little of Peter Debnam's concession speech. Although there was no audio, the fact that his stage was darkly lit with a tint of blue and also the fact that he never smiled gave the impression that he lost the State Election. However when I got home and re-watched the speech online, I noticed a little something. Peter Debnam may actually be human. That's right boys and girls! An actual human being. Throughout the whole campaign, it has been well known that he was unpopular, not unlike some of his policies. The way he portray himself borders on robotic, which probably explains why the voters haven't really warmed up or accepted him.

But while he was giving his concession speech, one of the lines he said was "the people of New South Wales has given Labor one last chance to fix the problems in this state." The first time he said that, it looked like he started saying "more" instead of "last", which I found quite interesting. By saying "last", he made it sound like the Coalition will win in 2011. By saying "more", it would seem like Labor would have the possibility of winning next time around...again. I think his little stumble actually make him seem human. It almost gives him a "one of the people" kind of quality, a good quality. But if he was to accidentally say "more", it probably wouldn't make him a good politician, at least, not to the political analysts. Then again, who said good people make good politicians?

are you in the right class?

As soon as you start honours, you are given the privilege of teaching a first year laboratory class, commonly referred to as a demonstrating class. Depending on which time slot you choose/happen to have, you may have a class of about 18 to 20 first year chemistry students, ranging from zero chemistry experience, to those who topped chemistry in their school and to those doing chemistry only as a requirement to biology or pharmacy or even veterinary science. Once again, this semester, I have a class with students with zero or limited experience in chemistry. Having taught both these students and students in the advanced class, the differences between the two groups are very distinctive.

As a comparison, the students in the advanced class tends to ask questions related to the theoretical and practical side of the experiment, whereas students in the fundamental class ask questions more akin to *stuffs a micro-test tube in your face* "Does this look like 0.5 grams to you?" Unfortunately for me, not being blessed to measure the weight of a sample just by looking at it, I often refer the students to the top-loading balances to help them.

I absolutely do not mind them asking me questions like that. Sure, I cannot specifically answer them with either a "yes" or a "no", but at least I can help and show them how to find out. After all, assuming no chemistry experiences whatsoever for the whole class, how can I criticise them for not knowing how to do something, since they've never done it before. That is the reason why I am there, is it not? What annoys me the most, is having students who just sit there and mentally wonder off. They don't pay attention and they don't do the experiments. When you ask them if everything is fine, they reply with the affirmative, but with an angry tone as if I had just disturbed them from their Winter Wonderland daydream. To confirm my suspicions that they are in fact daydreaming rather than doing their work, I would ask a follow up question, relating to the experiment, to which the most common reply so far would be "I don't know".

Other ways to know first year students are not paying attention is when they insist you do the experiment with them. Before the actual practical experiments start, we are required to give them a quick run down on what the experiment is about and what it is they have to do. Even before the lab session, they are required to read the whole experiment and to also submit answers to an online quiz. Having done all that, and telling them specifically what they have to do, some students would refuse to do it unless you are there, right by their side, doing the experiment separately with them. In case they haven't realised yet, university is very focused on individual learning. We demonstrators, unlike high school teachers, will not spoon-feed you and perform the experiment with you to get "perfect" answers. We help and support the students by telling them what to do and showing them how to do it, as opposed to doing the experiment with them, which is basically doing it for them.

So if you are one of those kind of students who can only pass by sucking up to your teachers and getting them to do your work for you, then I must ask...are you in the right class?