Day 11

On Friday, we ran the umu assay and got to use the robot! It follows a program and fills up the wells on the mircoplates. At lunch time, we went out to eat to celebrate Haipu’s birthday. The mall we went to was full of Asian influence; more signs were written in foreign characters than in English. We ate at the Cube Hot Pot. It was a meal unlike any other I’ve had before. You ordered certain ingredients to put in a gigantic pot split into a section with vegetable broth and one for meat with a spicy broth. The water boiled while we dumped in mushrooms, tofu, potatoes, corn, chicken, octopi, and more. I thought it was really good and picking out pieces of food actually led to a filling meal. They set the tables with chopsticks, but luckily they brought out forks, because me + chopsticks =disaster. Some of the appetizers were incredible spicy. One made me cough. At some point the servers brought a box of tissues out.

I carpooled with Hanne home since Beate had to stay longer and work. Hanne was heading into the city for a concert celebrating the opening of the In-Between Bridge. I started peeling potatoes for dinner and must say: it was slow progress. I can’t handle a peeler apparently without worrying about slicing my finger off.

Day 10

Both Australia and Germany were playing two different soccer matches at 4:30 am, but the family decided to watch the reruns at 6:30 instead. I would never get up early. I was glad to hear that both countries won, even though Australia wouldn’t proceed to the next round.

Beate’s going on vacation for a week with her family, and I was planning to take the bus to work. I need to figure out where the bus stop is here at Entox and back in West End though. She asked if I wanted to drive the car which I would have no problems with, except it’s a manual car! I can only drive automatic so the bus it is.

It’s Haipu’s birthday today so we had cake! One was a cheesecake, chocolate and vanilla, with a graham cracker bottom, and the other chocolate with orange flavoring. Delish! I felt so full afterwards. Hanne finished up the E-Screen, split some cells, and prepare cells for the umu bioassay tomorrow. We had to stick them in the incubator and we mixed up some more media. Just some more housekeeping stuff. I did a safety orientation form where Wasa showed me around the lab, things that I’ve already known from working in labs before.

Day 9

In the lab, we did some housekeeping. Refilling the boxes with pipette tips, and going on a hunt for the yellow pipette tips that they’re in dire need of. They have a bunch of the wrong kind without beveling so when you add them to an auto-pipettor, they just fall off! Anyways, it led to the opening of a bunch of boxes and seeing what was within. We also picked up some boxes of bottles from the supply store here. We had to go a bit outside the building rolling along one of those pushable platforms so we had to use the elevator. I’ve noticed that no one uses the elevator here, everyone climbs stairs. It’s actually faster to climb stairs! The elevator moved so slowly I couldn’t even feel it!

I also mixed up some B-buffer solution which was more like chemistry than biology. Weighing out a bunch of different compounds, using a stirring rod, testing pH, it was very comforting to know what I was doing for once. I made something else too, just adding 5 mL of certain things and dumping premeasured things in, but I had to do it in the PC2 lab so some prep work was involved. So I got to do a bit more on my own.

I finally got my own id pass so no more visitor badges. I had to wait a bit for the guy to show up who does the pictures. And he actually used an oldish Polaroid type camera, none of this electronic, press a button on the computer pictures here. It says occupational trainee on it (aka intern) and now I can get into buildings. While I was waiting I was talking to Wasa who’s the head safety officer guy of this group. He was interested to learn that I’m a forensic chemistry major and since he has connections in the forensics area, he’s going to get me a tour! I’m excited since it’s pretty high security to get in. I would see the trace area since the DNA analysis section is under construction and the morgue, well that’s not really related to my passion.

We left pretty late, so back at home: I ate, took a shower, went a bit on the computer, and then called my parents, and brothers in Maine. We chatted for an hour. I’m a tad jealous of their warm weather, but glad not to be in Cincy with 90s F!

Interesting fact: Aussies really do say mate all the time. I thought it was exaggerated. Also, they’re all super friendly. At least all the random people I’ve met are.

Day 8

Today at work I got to use a multi-channel pipettor and practice serial dilution using food colors. It was very pretty seeing how they went from dark to light. I brought my lab coat all the way from US to wear it here. Hanne showed me around a bit and I got to see the second smaller lab down the hall past the food chemistry and organics sections. I also checked out where they autoclave items. Basically it’s a process where they heat glassware and other things to a high temperature for a certain amount of time to ensure that they’re sanitized. There’s this special autoclave tape that you put on everything and afterwards there are stripes across the tape.

We had to change the media for the two containers of cells Hanne was growing. They need food too! So I got to do one in the hood in the PC2 lab. The process basically goes like this: put on this lab coat that buttons in the back, put on gloves and spray them with ethanol, clean out the hood using a paper towel and ethanol, and put everything you need in the hood after spraying it with ethanol. You have to be really careful not to contaminate anything. There are these labeled pipettes that you attached to a handheld machine that can suck up liquid or expel it so you remove the old media, throw away the pipette after putting it back in its wrapper, and then add fresh media.

We left early at three since Beate had another dentist appointment. I decided to walk down to South Bank along the river, a section I hadn’t seen before. The Griffith University’s College of Art was right there by the river! So is the music school too.

It’s so beautiful with the walkway, the Maritime Museum, artificial beach, cafes, and parks.

I would love to go to school there! It was getting close to dusk so the light was really pretty. The beach had gorgeous white, pure sand, and its waters reflected wonderfully with the river right there. The palm trees and birds added to the beautiful scene. They have wild turkeys that will fly and jump around in trees. It’s supposed to be warmer soon so maybe I’ll be able to dip my toes in at the beach!

Interesting fact: Since people drive on the left here, the way people walk on the sidewalks is different too. Usually in America if you’re heading a certain direction forwards (like a paved walking path with a divider or sidewalk) you walk on the right side so that people heading in the opposite direction walk on the left and can pass you. Same thing with standing on escalators, etc. Here, you walk on the left! I nearly ran into people on my first day walking through the city because it took me awhile to notice.

Day 7

My first full day on the job today. First at nine, we had a staff meeting where everyone discusses their work plans for the week in Beate’s group. Then the entire Entox group met up for seminar, which the boss was giving. Beate forewarned me about him and all I can say is oh my god. He would have failed with that presentation in school. It was just minuscule diagrams that he copied from the paper. I felt really bad because he seemed like a nice guy and made an effort, but he was awful at presenting. He had no sense of order and kept trying to show cause and effect even though his experiment could only prove correlation. Stuff that I’ve learned in basic psychology classes.

Afterwards, I followed Hanne around as she did an I-PAM bioassay. She was analyzing 24 water samples from different stages in a water treatment plant. Some of them were disgusting looking, brown. As they progressed, they turned green, and then clear. Basically the process involves a lot of pipetting, analyzing the growth of bacteria in the samples, and after adding the algae, testing the luminescence with the I-PAM machine. We had to measure the absorbance of a diluted algae sample to begin with, but the UV-Vis machine would not work! It was really old, but the older machine was more accurate than the newer machine. After two hours, it finally worked again and Hanne could proceed.

While I was in the lab, someone opened one of the -80 °C freezers. It was totally frosted and white in the inside! I was pretty tired by the end of the day; it was already dark when we left. Since the 21^st of June is the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, it’s actually midwinter here with the longest night. On the way home, I was trying to figure out what planet I kept seeing. Apparently, everything’s flipped here. The sun still rises east to west, but the moon travels opposite and all the stars are switched too. I’ve also found myself getting used to the left side of the road driving system. It’ll be weird back in the US!

This evening, I saw my first bat in the wild. It flew up from a tree for a second and it was huge like the ones I saw at Lone Pine. Crazy stuff.

An interesting fact for you: Everyone who goes to school, not college, here has to wear a uniform. The younger kids’ uniforms usual include a wide brimmed hat which they need in order to go outside for recess. Girls have to wear long skirts past their knees when they’re older.