Something else, vaguely interesting

I posted a photo of a mug of Max Brenner's hot chocolate quite some time ago. Turns out that it's a popular photo when getting people to check out this blog. I've been wasting some time checking out via sitemeter where people are coming from when finding their way here. This photo is apparently a big reason:

You dirty bunch of bastards. Trust the thing that brings most people here is a picture that could possibly look like minge. Deary deary me. But what else was the internerd invented for but for pictures of minge. I know, boobs and arses too. And probably cock. Can you tell I'm tired? And procrastinating?

Notes I write myself late at night

This was to remind me to dissect the prostate glands from some developing pupae. It's sad that I have to write these things to myself, but necessary. This was written at about 11pm. So, due to the approximately 5 hours sleep I had last night, I'm off home for a snooze to come back later to do some kick arse microscopy of some different fly prostates from developing pupae. My life is ever the interesting.

Reasons I am turning into my grandma and nanna

So I've realised in the last couple of weeks, I'm turning into my grandma, and her mum, my nanna. I present the following evidence:
Nanna used to like drinking just hot water rather than tea or coffee. She also drank a glass of water with lemon juice in it most mornings. I have taken to drinking hot water with lemon juice in it. Yum!
Grandma was the kind of woman who would read something in a newspaper article or magazine and go with the idea. This usually related to food. She read once that walnuts were good for reducing your blood pressure. So she stopped taking her blood pressure medication and just ate walnuts instead. She loved a food fad. My act of finding something in a magazine/newspaper wasn't a food thing though. I read somewhere that washing your hair only with conditioner was great for it, especially for those people like me with dry skin. Your hair apparently goes through a phase of being desperately greasy and then it rights itself. Today I'm wearing a headscarf to cover over the greasy hair. It's slowly getting there, I'm about a week and half in. If it doesn't improve soon, I think I'll give it a miss. But to be honest, it hasn't been that bad.

Just thought I'd share that. And the following: yesterday I went and saw tap dogs at parliament house and then went to see Kevin Rudd's office. Wheeee!

immortal log update

I'm trying to kill the immortal log in our toilet. It really is living up to the name. There are a couple of bottles of creme developer that live next to the vanity unit in our bathroom. They contain peroxide. I've put some in the bowl and I'm going to leave it there for a while. I'm hoping it'll dissolve whatever it is that has taken up residence in our toilet.

This sort of thing makes me wonder about what my housemate must be eating. I can't imagine it's healthy stuff.

Newspapers

I quite regularly check out the Age website. I like seeing what's making news in my hometown of Melbourne. I like to have a look at the most viewed articles section at the bottom of the page. But there aren't just the most viewed articles from the age, there are also the most viewed articles from the brisbane times and also the sydney morning herald. I've noticed a trend. The articles most viewed in the bris times are inevitably of the more sensational variety. I wonder if that says something about people in Brisbane, or whether it says something about my prejudices. Probably a bit of both. But I do wonder about that. Why do those up north more reguarly click on the articles with the least intellectual content? Like the stuff about Lara Bingle getting engaged, or the latest Britney Spears scandal (like we give a toss).

The thesis work obviously continues apace. Back to it.

Lazy Kate and scooter riding

I always think of things to blog about when I'm riding my scooter into the lab or on the way home. But by the time I get to work or home, I'm too lazy to get organised to post anything. So this'll be a start at trying to get back on track with the blogging.

Today is a rainy day, I keep on checking the www.bom.gov.au website to look at the radar pictures, waiting for a clear patch to head into the lab. There won't be one for hours. So I'm stuck in the house with the crazy dogs, waiting for a clear patch. This isn't so bad, I do have a PhD thesis to write, so I guess that's something to keep myself occupied. But it's also kinda hard to get going with that. But I will have something done by the end of today, something productive towards the thesis. I have already made a few thesis figures, so I guess that is a good start. Photoshop is ruining my brain though. That program is evil.

What other things are new in the land of Kate you ask? Or you would if you were reading this and gave a crap. The wedding I went to in Perth the other weekend was delightful, though we almost didn't make it in time. I blame cabs in Perth. Sneaky bastards never turning up. We made it in the end though so that was good. It was in Kings Park with the reception at the Old Swan Brewery. Both bride and groom were gorgeous and I'm so pleased they are married now. It's about time though, they've been together for more than 10 years now.

I'm heading back to Perth in a few weeks for some more dancing extravagance. It should also be a delight. I'm making a dress to wear to the ball and I need to sort out a mask. The dress will be pink and navy blue from a 1947 pattern. I need to adjust it a fair bit though, my lack of waist means that it's a bit snug around the middle. According to the measurements on the packet, my bust is a size 12, my hips are also a size 12, my waist is the right size for a size 16. There is something wrong with that. So I've adjusted the pattern accordingly and on the weekend I made up a mock top half of the dress with some fabric I've had sitting around for the best part of a decade. It was never going to be anything that I'd actually wear and now it's made itself useful.

On the easter weekend I did a few things. I performed at the national folk festival, hurting my back in the process. I drank a ridiculous amount of alcohol on Good Friday. I spent all Saturday recovering from that. But I didn't spew and am proud of myself for that. I've evidently learned some restraint in my 27 and a bit years.

Other than these fun things I've been working on my thesis, trying to get some final experiments to work and looking around to find a job to do once I'm finished the PhD. Fingers crossed something good will turn up and I can do some exciting work and get paid again.

More to come, when I'm next procrastinating expect another post. Maybe with photos, but don't hold your breath.

Final note: for those that remember the immortal log blog, it's back and refusing to die. It's definitely not mine this time. Ew!

What I did last night

I did a few things last night, all of which I am proud. I taught two dancing classes at our new venue, Macgregor Hall. Chris and I hit our teaching groove and were really working well together. We got our students dancing like fabulous dancey things and I am hopeful that they all enjoyed themselves. I was moderately smutty, but not too much. Just enough to make it amusing, or so I think anyway.

I picked up my housemate from the airport. I managed to score a free pie from the caltex next to the airport. I think if you turn up later in the evening (around 9pm) they are pretty happy to get rid of the remainders. My stomach is still okay, so I've assumed that there weren't any nasties in the pie.

I taught two friends of mine some basics of tap dancing. I haven't tapped for quite a number of years. I think about 5. But it was definitely all coming back last night. I have organised with the boys to get them to feed me in exchange for lessons. Feed the poor student is the name of the game. It was heaps of fun too.

The final thing I did last night was probably the funniest though. JJF is moving house this weekend and came over to drop off some of my stuff that I'd left in his cupboards. He turned up with the stuff at around midnight. He also brought with him a can of Mr Sheen and a big cloth. There is a park with some play equipment in it, just down the road from my house. Within the equipment is a metal slide. We've used the park for smashed by Kate for the last few weeks and noticed last week that the slide wasn't very slippery. JJF had the solution, Mr Sheen.
So we wandered down there with the Mr Sheen and the big cloth, soon after midnight. He sprayed the slide, and I was the first tester. I sat on the cloth and slid down, spreading out all the Mr Sheen. It was really fast, really, really fast. JJF slid down next and almost hit his head, he was going so fast he came off at an astounding rate and nearly fell onto his noggin. I laughed so hard. I kept thinking of all the kids who will use the slide in the future and will fly off. I think they'll get some pretty good air time. We played around with the slide for a few minutes after that. Then it was pretty much time to go home and get some sleep.

I had a pretty exciting evening last night. Topped off with some fabulous giggles with my best mate. Who, by the way, did pass the fitness test for the AFP and has only the interview left to pass before he can go to police college. The boy now wants him to change his surname, at least on facebook, to Gutenberg. And we have to watch a police academy marathon.

When you are out and about sometimes you see things that make you laugh

This is one of the things that made me laugh recently while out and about. I'd just been to Questacon with friends. We had dropped off JJF's girlfriend at her house and were heading home, stopping on the way in Manuka to get dusted jelly babies. We passed a cafe and we saw the following:



I was amused. That is all. I'd write more about how touched I was about the sorry speech Kevin Rudd made today, but I have flies that desperately need my attention downstairs.

Smashed by Kate

For the last little while I've been running what we've termed 'Smashed By Kate'. It's a boot camp/personal training effort. It's rather fun. I get to be quite a nasty bitch and tell people what to do. After one session last week, I sent a text message to a friend, asking if he was in pain at all. His response was a one word text message: Bitch. I think he may have been suffering somewhat. Hehehehehehe. That does amuse me.
I have to admit, I was in a fair amount of pain too. Last week had 7 participants including myself. We did, amongst other things, walking lunges in a line from the park down the road, most of the way home. It also included lots of push ups, lots of sit ups and the beep test. Next week JJF is going to do the physical entrance test to the AFP again. He's been working pretty hard, so I anticipate that he'll get in this time.
I gave him a good copper haircut last night. About a number 2 or 3 all over. He obliged me also, by cutting my hair. It needed a bit of going over later, to make some adjustments to stop it kicking out all over the shop. But it was my favourite kind of haircut, free!
Oh yeah, so back to the SBK. This week will be a bit of a test run for the AFP entrance test. We'll all see if we can get into the police, well at least physically. I'm not sure we'd all past the psych test. Fingers crossed we'll also see Princess Kate (PK) there this time. It'll help the gender balance, and help with the Kate quotient.

Dogs!

Well this weekend saw the whole household, including dogs and my housemate's boyfriend traveling to Captain's Flat to have a look at Huskies. My housemate LJS had decided that when E moves out, her dog Tikka will need a companion. So it was off to look at dogs who might fit into our happy little home.
The drive down saw the BF and LJS and Tikka in one car and E, myself and Toren in the other. Toren was rather excited at the trip and licked my ear on numerous occasions from his position in the backseat. It was very affectionate, but at the same time kinda gross as I know what he does with that tongue and it's not pleasant.
We arrived to have a look at three different dogs, all in need of a home. A male dog, Beau, who was white, very friendly, but a lot bigger than we were looking for. Teaka, a 3 year old white husky, with different coloured eyes. The last dog was Coco, a dog who while only a year old had already had a litter of pups. She was brown/red, probably a cross with another breed and very sweet. In the end, the different coloured eyes of Teaka won the day. But having a name like Teaka, so close to Tikka, LJS changed her name to Ava.
So now at home there are three dogs. Two kelpie/husky crosses and a purebred Husky. She has already shown that she will be an interesting dog to live with. She's escaped once, more on that later, and she and Tikka are sorting out the pecking order. It'll be a little while before we know who the new boss of the dogs is, but my bet is on Ava. She's very sweet though, and submissive to humans and loves a belly rub, so she'll no doubt fit in well in the long term.

Stories for me to tell you tomorrow: Smashed by Kate, my new boot camp thing that I'm running with some friends on Sundays and dinner at the day to day supervisor's house, who is no longer my day to day supervisor, she has a job in the public service so we have to eat dinner to talk science. But it's rather nice having a sciencey meeting with wine, we should have done that earlier! But now I'm off to get ready to teach the first of the ANU dancing classes for this year. And the penultimate class at the ANU refectory.

Two things

My scooter got to 20,000kms today. I have booked it in for a service tomorrow. Fingers crossed it won't be too expensive.

I noticed about ten minutes after arriving today that I should have worn a belt. I have evidently lost weight since last summer and these shorts are on the roomy side. Question is: go home and get belt, tough it out, or buy a new belt at lunchtime?

update

I saw the movie Atonement on Saturday afternoon. It was going to be a solitary 'get out of the heat' event. It turned into quite the social occasion. I'm teaching a jazz routine next week (do a youtube search for hotpockets and jojo to find it) and have been practicing the teaching of it with Princess Kate (PK), as she won't be able to make the actual class. We were having a go Saturday morning and then sitting around chatting afterwards. My housemate and her boy were thinking of what to do for the day and I said I had plans to go see a movie to get out of the heat. They decided to come with and PK thought that perhaps she and her boy M would also join us.
So, cut to later in the day and housemate, boy and myself were at the mall ready to go to the film. PK and M had phoned to say they were on their way. Housemate's parents were coincidentally going to the same session, we run into friends of housemate's boy. In the end there were 9 of us seeing the same film in the same session. Crazy.
I absolutely adored the movie. It was sad, it was funny, it was shot exceptionally well. My only gripe is that James McAvoy didn't have his shirt off enough. Other than that, I give it two thumbs up. The costuming in particular was great.
What else is news you ask? Tomorrow night we are hosting a dancing birthday party at my house. We have bought 10m of lino (dark grey marble) and we are having any number of people come over to dance and play sing star. I predict it will be the party that we'll all talk about in the weeks to come. Until such time as there is another one like it. It's a genius idea. Lino + talcum powder = an excellent dance space. We tested it out on Sunday afternoon and found it to be great. Can't wait to try it out for real with a whole party of people. I'll be DJing half of the event. Wish me luck.

Two things

Kevin Rudd is PM, yay! We have a deputy PM (who is currently acting PM) who is a woman. Woo woo! That is all. Please return to your usual daily activities. I will update when I am not sick and not running around doing endless experiments and waiting for science to treat me better.

back home again

I'm back in Canberra. After 7 weeks away, I'm back. It's much warmer and sunnier here than it was back in August. The lab is much the same. My house is much the same, though currently covered in dirt and dust. Everything is pretty much the way I left it. My brain, however, is not. It is fuzzled and useless. I hate jet lag. So because my brain is addled and I couldn't possibly update you on all that has been going on. I present, some of my favourite pictures of my trip. The ones with the funny names and the one with me drinking an exceptionally large beer.

This is from Gothenburg. It's a chinese restaurant.



Spunk wine gums in Copenhagen.



The call button for a lift in Copenhagen.



Chocolate in Sweden.



Beer drinking Kate

Oslo

Hello all. I've made my way from Germany and Austria to Norway. I'm currently sitting in the living/bed room of friend's of the boy's. We are drinking Henkell Trocken and chatting etc. We spent the whole of today travelling. We left my relatives in Delmenhorst, near Bremen, at about 9.40am and made it to Oslo at about 6pm. Our plane was delayed at Hamburg airport for about an hour. So we sat around and made really bad jokes and bought some duty free.
What else is news? My German cousins are the cutest bunch of kids I've met in a long time. Berlin is awesome. My great aunt isn't well, but living in a rather pleasant old people's home. It was rather sad to see her how limited her movement is these days (she's unable to walk) and to see that she doesn't recognise me anymore. But we only met a few times in the last 10 years or so and she is very old.
Hmmmm what else? Not a lot really. We've been having a great time away and I'm really looking forward to seeing a bit of Scandinavia. Then we're off to Munich and Oktoberfest before we come home. Better be sociable now and stop all this internerd nonsense.

Hannover

Welcome to my journey accross Germany. Today is Hannover day. We are really only here for today, we have to leave ridiculously early tomorrow morning to drive to Cologne. It should be fun and scary and all those things that Germany should be, efficient! My English is suffering a great deal from being here. I said something monumentally stupid this morning, something along the lines of 'all of a sudden the sunshine goes'. Very correct grammatically, if I were German perhaps! But not exactly idiomatically English. Bleh! So long as it doesn't continue on my return home then I'm okay.
The boy has picked up some more of these German-English-isms and has said that he has much pleasure in Hannover. So there's his contribution to the blog today. What else? We had curry wurst today, we're debating whether my Australian friend's housemate is German or American. When she speaks English it's with a very American accent. I maintain she's German, the boy thinks she's American. I intend to find out tonight.
Bleh, my brain isn't working, will post more later. I'm off to have a post lunch nanna nap and then take the dog here for a walk. His name is whisky and he still has his nads, as do most of the dogs we've seen here. Weird!

Germanermany

Hello there peoples. I'm currently sitting in the living room of a friend from Australia. But we're in Hannover. I've ended up here instead of in Bavaria, because my host parents are still in China. Danielle is working here as a postdoc and has graciously allowed us to stay with her for a couple of days. I'm looking forward to doing some washing and speaking English with someone other than the boy. We drove today from Dresden to Hannover and didn't get killed. It was an amazing adventure. Scary, scary, scary shit. So many trucks. The fastest we went was about 160km/h. Wheee!

What else? I gave a seminar at the Max Plank Institute, I got taken out for dinner at a fancy restaurant where there was a full sized poodle in the restaurant at the table next to ours. We drank a lot of cheap beer and city itself was delightful. Lovely lovely place. The conference I went to was interesting and really full on science. I'll write more when I can be arsed.

So auf wiedersehen meine Leute, bis bald.

Hi Mum, I'm not dead, just distracted

Well hello there. Today I am feeling a little overwhelmed. Whenever I think of what I have to do, I get a little headspin. I have a lot planned over the next few days and weeks. I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to do it all. But I'll die trying, or something like that. I'm mostly posting this to let my Mum know that I'm safe and sound, just busy and distracted with things like facebook and the boy (who's staying at the moment, yay!) and work and the impending doom that is Canberrang. Well, not doom, but the impending event that is Canberrang.
I have one houseguest coming to stay. He'll be sleeping in the living room, with the dogs. I'm sure they'll get along great. Other than that, I may have a couple of other stay, depending on organisation and the like. I'm going to all the events and also trying to get as much labwork done as I can. I expect to be very tired on Monday. But hopefully, pleased that Canberrang was so much fun. And I'm determined not to get a cold this year.
Okay, so Mum, I'm okay, I'll talk to you next week sometime. Everyone else who has decided to read this, send me and email and tell me what you've been up to. I have been working and gyming and spending far too much time on facebook. Tell you all about Canberrang later.

going to the gym, yay!

I'm off to the gym in a minute. I haven't been in about a month. I am rather excited. I will no doubt be in agony on Saturday. But I don't care, because I'm going to have super scary strong muscles. Fingers crossed the absence from the gym won't mean that I'm completely useless at lifting weights, but there are no guarantees.
In other news, I might be going to the reception of a wedding this weekend, specifically to dance. No eating, no drinking, no knowing the couple getting married. Just dancing with a guy from Tassie to a jazz band. I hope it works out, I have a lovely outfit I can wear.
I'll also be dancing tonight at the regular social dancing gig here in Canberra. I'm quite looking forward to that one too. Man I hope the music is good.

erm, stuff

So the cold is finally retreating, not quite gone, but mostly. Other than that, there's not much going on that I care to share. I've been a little bundle of stress and worry in the last few weeks. But I think that I've got myself a resolution that works for me and I'm happy about. More details to come later, if they become relevant to people other than me.
Canberrang is coming up very soon. I have a few potential house guests during that time. Should make for a fun weekend. JJF is hosting our dear friend chelle at his place. It should be a blast. I'm getting a little excited about all the fabulous dances that I intend on getting over the weekend. Some of my favourite dancers are coming to the event and I will have to stalk them and get myself some dancing goodness.
What else? The virgins have started emerging that will give me the babies that should be the right thing to finish off the thesis. That's pretty exciting. Other than that, woa, I have three bags full. I stole/borrowed it from Mum on Sunday. I'll have it back to yourself or your lovely daughter soon. That's the book I mentioned a while ago that my cousin got for her birthday. It's a detective novel, with sheep.
Right, those virgins will turn into hussies if I don't get there soon, so I'd best be off. Talk later and stuff.