Which project, overall, would be your first preference?

Which would be your second preference?

And which would be your third?

• I have found a job as a Telephone Market Researcher. I apologise if it's you I call. I did this training this Saturday just past, and start properly this Friday. I applied for it very quickly, and got a call the following day. I doubt this is due to any great outstanding abilities on my part except perhaps written coherency, but still, a source of income I has, and can keep looking for others if I so wish.


• In relation to the above, something I'm considering doing next year is my honours in science, as BSc (Hons) looks so much better to potential employers than a BSc alone, as well as opening up the possibility of a PhD at a later point, presuming I get a first class or second class A honours. It also has the capacity to improve my chances of getting into medicine, or even the ability to do a combined MBBS/PhD, which only takes six years, rather than the usual four of an MBBS alone. Also, the MBBS/PhD would be partially funded through a PhD scholarship, as if you enter it with a prior research degree (the option exists to begin it after second year of the MBBS if you get extremely good grades) the time line breaks down as follows:
  
  • First Year: Do first year of MBBS (mostly theory) and begin your project part time in 2nd semester, at partial funding for the year (around 6K)
  
  
  • Second Year: Do second year of MBBS (mostly theory) and continue working part time on your project all year, confirm by the end of the year or early in third year, partial funding (around 12K)
  
  
  • Third Year: Full time study for the PhD, full funding (around 25K)
  
  
  • Fourth Year: Full time study for the PhD, full funding, as above
  
  
  • Fifth Year: Do third year of MBBS (clinical rotations) and write thesis part time, partial funding (around 12K)
  
  
  • Sixth Year: Do fourth and final year of MBBS (clinical rotations) and complete thesis part time, partial funding as above
  
  
• It'd be as busy as all hell, but if I can handle the honours schedule and score well, it'd be a definite option that'd fast-track my aspirations for research/tertiary education and clinical practice. It's not as if I can expect much of a life in the four years of a normal MBBS anyway.


• On the topic of honours, I've been meeting with or have arranged meetings with various honours supervisors. I sent out twelve emails, received a few rejections (two full labs, and one supervisor whose fellowship runs out next year and can't guarantee another), and got five interested. After I've seen them all at this week's end, I'll make a little pro/con chart and see which is the most worthwhile and has the most benefits to me now and in the future. The projects are:
  
  • Looking at the genetics of drug resistance in the dermal parasite, Sarcoptes scabiei, AKA scabies, and options to repotentiate current drugs (oral Ivermectin and topical permethrin) with synergists. Have visited with the supervisor
  
  
  • Looking at the genetics of osteoporosis, through the medium of people with high density but non-brittle bones (the more common variant is high density but brittle bones). Have visited the supervisor
  
  
  • Looking at a blue-green algae toxin, microcystin, from any of a variety of possible perspectives. I'd be particularly interested in looking at how it affects humans, so the toxicology/pharmacology perspective. Have visited the supervisor
  
  
  • Looking at the human genome, in a project that hasn't been specified. I don't hold much hope for this one, as the supervisor seems scatterbrained and I don't find his previous publications hugely encouraging. Have visited the supervisor. He wasn't as bad as I suspected, but he still doesn't have a lab until next week, and his background is primarily in Drosophila, which isn't so useful: he's midway between changing fields of research. Good for him, not so great for me
  
  
  • Looking at the genetic background of skin cancers. Visit the supervisor Friday morning
  
  


• I'll be moving back into Indro sometime next week, I think, once the room is clear and properly cleaned. It's not a 'thank goodness' situation, but it'll be easier in the long run. Mum is getting irritable (not that she isn't usually)


• The future looks bright

• I am going on Newstart, of Ministry of Plenty fame.


• I have lost 4kg thanks to eating less, exercising more, depression and incendiary willpower.


• I have received an email from Mackay, they're conferring in mid-November to discuss making my position full-time. The view is that it's likely, and if so, I'll be packing up my bag of tricks and migrating.


• I still have a stupid crush.


• I will be up early tomorrow morning to get to Will's place (beating traffic) to assist with an assignment he's completing, but am not sleeping, 'cause sleeping would be sensible.

• What are RNA and DNA?


• What are primers and probes?


• Describe what PCR is.

• My criminal history check form is not yet in Mackay. Damn Post to pretty white hell. Luckily I had them postmark the envelope so that I'm not made out to be a liar when I said I posted it Friday.




• Edit: Form received this afternoon and submitted for processing! [wheet]




• I got a lovely reference from Wallis, who was my supervisor while tutoring at UQ. (Aww, she still loves me!)


• Still chasing up a reference from Barb, but then she's always incredibly busy. (Barb was a lecturer, tutor and supervisor of education students at UQ while I was doing my degree, and she and I always got on well together. Haven't caught up with her since she moved to Griffith on the Gold Coast, sadly.)

amritsar

• Francesca Lanzavecchia's artwork: check out the cool aesthetic, yet function body supports. I love the replacement femur cane, myself


• Riita Ikonen's art page: some awesome images, I love her as a house martin, very cute

• Rice rinsed of all talc


• Rice soaked in bottled water for 60m, after last batch failed to colonise sufficiently due to iron (Fe) in water (fungal growth retardant)


• Rice drained 60m


• Rice placed in moistened cheesecloth and steamed for 60m, ensuring no drips


• Rice cooled to between 30°C and 40°C


• An inoculum of 1.5g of Aspergillus oryzae conidia and 3g of rice flour was prepared by mixing


• Rice is spread in a thin layer on cloth and the inoculum is carefully sifted over the rice with a double-weave stainless steel strainer


• Rice was carefully placed in sterilised plastic container


• A moistened piece of clean cheesecloth was fastened over container


• Inoculated rice was incubated in a water bath at 30°C


• At 16 hours, rice was beginning to attain frangrance


• Stirred thoroughly


• Checked at 46 hours, after missing morning stirring due to work. Rice is a single solid mass, covered in mycelia, which have since sporulated. Navy green colour of spores and uniformity of mass upon inspection confirm safe monoculture. Odour is subtle and pleasant. Suggest Experiment III begin on a Friday evening to allow 12 hourly attention and stirring over duration of weekend. Also suggest making water bath light-proof to discourage sporulation

• Make a rubbed pork shoulder roast, all smoky with paprika and brown sugar, which I sliced and froze for sammiches for teaching days.


• Made a tray of spanikopita, rife with fetta, kalamata olives and fresh broccoli rabe.


• Made a tray of brownies.


• Made four stromboli with cheese and thyme (very portable for lunches).


• Began brewing a demijohn of ginger wine, which begins as an extraordinary lemon-gold colour, clear, syrupy and fragrant from ginger and lemon zest... fantastic. Tomorrow I add the chopped raisins, which will impart body, additional sugar and a beautiful golden brown hue.