Well – I’ve been an awful website admin and I haven’t updated anything on here for over 8 months! Time for a giant update…. In order to keep things simple, I have decided not to go in to too much detail. Instead I am going to write a bullet point list of everything I’ve done in the last 8.5 months (since the last post in JANUARY!) in roughly chronological order. If there’s anything I’ve left out, it’s probably because it wasn’t written in my organiser/diary thing.
Here goes….
- Australia day – Rhiannon came back from the UK and a few of us went and ate, drank, swam, and listened to the JJJ top 100. Photos
- Jared came and stopped by in Brisbane on his way through. Was excellent to see him as I had missed him back in the UK over Christmas. Having both said we weren’t up for a night out we ended up at the Down Under bar until it closed. Absolutely awesome night, reminded me of when Aaron came to visit. Photos
- I moved house – my time at Broomfield St. couldn’t last forever. I moved just up the road to Indooroopilly with my old housemate Tim, his girlfriend, and another guy, Ash. The room’s a little bigger than my last one and the rent is lower so that’s a bonus! I will miss living with Lynche though
- I went back down to ANSTO in Sydney to perform another neutron experiment. We had quite a few troubles due to machinery malfunctioning, but it all turned out okay in the end (although I did have to pull one 25 hour shift).
- It was my birthday! Quarter-century and I don’t look a day over 30… I have to thank everybody who came to A Night In India to help me celebrate (and extra thanks to the few who came back to my place on the night itself to drink homebrew and play Wii!). Photos 1, Photos 2
- Julie got a place for a PhD in Germany, Ellen took some time off to go over to Europe with her and travel for a bit too. It was also Ellen’s birthday (when isn’t it??!) so they had a farewell/happy birthday bbq. Good fun, except for me sending the frisbee into the mud of the Brisbane and having to go fetch it. Photos
- On Good Friday I walked up Mt Coot-tha with Paul Shaw, was actually easier than I thought it would be – nice view at the top. The next night a few people came round to my place for curry & movies. Photos
- Dad & Angela came to visit me! We did lots of cool stuff including Brisbane sight-seeing, Mt Tamborine, LOADS of meals out, a few days in Sydney and the blue mountains. It was very nice to see them both. Photos 1, Photos 2, Photos 3
- For ANZAC weekend a group of us went camping down at the foot of Mt Warning for a weekend. On the Saturday we climbed to the top. It was pretty difficult (especially the scrambling bit at the very end) but definitely worth it. My calves felt a little sore the next day, let me tell you! Photos
- In June I had yet another trip to ANSTO for more neutron experiments. This time three of us went (Arthur & Paul Shaw joined me) and we performed 10 straight days of neutron reflectometry, 24 hours a day. It was pretty intense but we got some good results.
- Ben & Tilly had their birthdays and had a nice BBQ in the park near their house to celebrate. Unfortunately I missed Andy Clulow & Tilly’s birthdays while I was in ANSTO. Karyn’s birthday also came around in August and we went for a curry (as we usually do for birthdays :)! ) Photos
- Ben, Andy, Stewart and I went to an all-grain brewing demonstration day at the Chapel Hill Brewer’s Choice shop. It was a brilliant day! Was good to meet some other homebrewers, see how an all-grain brew was done, and they kept us well fed and watered with sausages and homebrew from the shop. Excellent stuff!
- For the annual River Fire fireworks show along Brisbane river, lots of us went to Ellen’s place (soon to be Ellen & Andy’s place!) had a picnic, sat in her sauna, swam in her pool, had a BBQ, watched the jets fly over and the fireworks, then drank far too much. Photos
- About 13 of us went down to Springbrook national park to stay in Ellen’s mum’s holiday houses for a weekend. The place was absolutely beautiful and we had a great cocktail party on the second night (with Ben’s custom made version of racing pictionary “the drawing game”). Excellent weekend away! Photos
- I have been tutoring on & off, which has been generally quite enjoyable. However, I have developed an intense dislike of marking in just this short space of time. I think that alone is enough to put me off being a teacher…
That’s most of the main points I think. There’s almost certainly some other stuff I’ve forgotten and I will add them if I remember later! Apart from what I’ve written above I’ve been trying to get some work done in the lab. I’m busy writing a couple of papers for publication at the moment – then it should be on to the final push for results before I start thinking about writing my thesis! Scary stuff. NO idea what’s next AT ALL – so any suggestions are welcomed I have at least secured funding until 1st August 2011 (and renewed my passport at great expense) so I am not overly rushed to make sure I get finished.
The rest of my time has probably been spent making or drinking beer (click here to check the brewing site for the latest brews!), or playing mindless video games like I do so well (especially with my newly upgraded quad core/water-cooled PC)! Haha. I’ve been trying to keep up the gym sessions and stay fit, but I have been incredibly slack the last month or so. Time to get back in to it and sort my life out!
Think that’s all for now. I promise I will try to be more frequent with my updates from now on!