Musicians beware of Qantas!

After flying with Qantas this weekend, I feel that I appreciate it a lot more than many of the other budget airlines, like Jetstar Airways and Virgin Blue. Qantas is typically easier to deal with and still provides little 'extras' that the other airlines cut. However, I still can't overlook what they did to Seth's $4300 guitar last year when he flew with them to Australia from the US.

To read the entire saga of Qantas and Seth's damaged guitar

Leeches, Bananas, and Brains: 2008 ASSAB Conference at Coffs Harbour

I spent this weekend at a conference in Coffs Harbour, which is an hour or two's drive south of the Queensland border. It was for the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour, and not only did I deliver my first conference paper (the required BoZo graduate student conference doesn’t count), but it was also my first trip, anywhere, by myself. I was the only person from the School of Botany and Zoology to go, so I booked everything myself and put myself up in a hostel ~2k from the resort where the conference was held. There were about 8 people from the Research School of Biological Science (RSBS, a part of the ANU), and I recognised a few of them, so I suppose I wasn’t totally by myself...

It was a bit awkward for me trying to mingle with other conference-goers (I really suck at trying to think up things to say to people, even if I find the person really interesting), but luckily it was really small—only about 90 people—so I was able to meet quite a few people and get to know several of them. Mingling is definitely the hardest part for me, but I suppose I need to get accustomed to this fine skill if I want to continue going to conferences and meeting like-minded peolpe.

I think I was the only person to stay at a hostel (some people stayed at a nearby campervan park, but most seemed to stay at the extremely posh resort where the conference was held—including the RSBS guys, who were set up real nice through their supervisor). The hostel was alright; the best thing being it was really slow so I had an entire 6 bed dorm to myself for both nights. But the worst thing was the walk to the resort, which was along the main highway, and half of it had no walking path so I had to go along the narrow shoulder. The one good thing about this, however, was that it passed the famous Big Banana. Not nearly as big as the Big Merino, but still pretty cool.

Views from the highway: Overlooking Coffs Harbour and the Big Banana

The first night I was there, Thursday, was the film night. They invited the Australian film director Jan Aldenhoven to talk about her work and contributions to many BBC and ABC series, including The Life of Birds, the Life of Mammals, the Private Life of Plants, etc. She began to show her film, Kangaroo; Faces in the Mob, but unfortunately the girl who offered me a ride back to the hostel had to leave early so I missed the second half. Seth and I don’t watch much TV or see many movies, but we love watching BBC documentaries, which made Jan’s talk one of the highlights of the trip.

The beach next to the resort

Friday morning was the ASSAB bird-watching tour which took us through some bushland near the neighbouring town of Sawtell. I didn’t bring my binoculars, which was really annoying, but we had two guides to point all the birds out to us. It felt strange being in a large group, about 15 people, but it was only just for fun--I wasn’t out to hunt for nests!

Birdwatching tour at Sawtell

We returned to the conference, I slept through a bunch of talks, and after lunch in the nearby shopping centre I managed to sneak away for a few hours to go for a walk to the beach. I had wanted to check out the city centre but it would have been too far. I hadn’t gotten much sleep and was going to head back to the hostel for a nap but decided an afternoon run would be a better use of time. At the start of the run I had to dodge lots of traffic and try to navigate poorly marked paths, but eventually found the Coffs Creek Walk, which was surprisingly marshy and wooded for being in the middle of town.

The beach near the hostel

Coffs Creek Walk

After dinner at the hostel I walked back to the resort, but this time I took the much longer, yet much prettier side roads through a residential neighbourhood.

The neighbourhood behind the resort

The evening ASSAB activity was a trip to Muttonbird Island, a small island (probably less than 1k long) right off the coast, accessible via a footpath from the jetty. The island is unique for being a breeding site for wedge-tailed shearwaters. The adults fly out to sea during the day to feed and when they return an hour or two after sunset they find their burrows. The adults and chicks make a ‘haunting’ call back and forth to each other, and when all the birds come in at night the island is full of these strange and spooky sounds. For some reason, it did not happen that night. It was a dud. We only heard one set of birds making this sound, but at least we got an idea of what it was supposed to be like.

Saturday morning I checked out of the hostel and Sam (from RSBS) picked me up so we could go to the nearby Bruxner Park (next to Ulidara National Park) for a run. I first met Sam at the ASSAB conference last year (which was held at the ANU) after recognising him as a Division 1 runner for B&G's IB team. Since then, I bumped into him on numerous occasions around campus.

We drove up a big hill and passed some very cool banana and avocado plantations, parked the car, and ran to a lookout then tried to follow a path through rainforest. It somehow ended so we eventually found ourselves running along the main road back to the car. It was a crappy run, but it went through some pretty cool areas.

From the lookout at Bruxner Park: banana plantations!

Sam trying to find the trail

Vincent tree

We stopped for a stretch and after a minute I heard Sam say ‘hey, I have a leech on my shoe’. I could feel my heart skip a beat, and I quickly looked at my own shoes—sure enough, they were covered in leeches! I could see them sliding through the ventilation in the sides, so I pulled the shoes off, then noticed there were a few on my socks, so I ripped those off, too. How gross! Sam later found one had attached to his ankle, but being a smoker he had a lighter on hand to rid himself of it :P The only thing that made me feel better was stopping on the way back down the hill to pick up a bag of bananas and a bag of avocados, which the farmers sell from the side of the road.

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the conference, trying to set aside my nervousness to listen to talks. One of my favourite presentations was given by the conference organiser, Gisela Kaplan, about her tedious 10 year study on communication in the very shy tawny frogmouth. She is certainly a great example of devotion to research!

My talk was in the afternoon, and went about as well as can be expected—no major mistakes or fumbles, but probably also not extremely elegant. I did, however, answer my questions at the end fairly well, I think.

I only had 20 minutes after my presentation to talk with people before I had to leave for the airport, which was a bit of a shame. I think I was one of the last people to arrive at the conference and one of the first to leave—I missed the big dinner on the jetty and also the Sunday morning talks. I would have liked to stay longer, but the flight scheduling worked best this way.

I got a ride to the airport with some people from RSBS, hopped on the plane to Sydney (the only time they checked my identification was when I got my ticket—talk about security!), took the midnight bus to Canberra, and finally hitched a ride back to my house with a crazy Asian Christian businessman dude from Qeanbeyan that was really nice but totally freaked me out. I am glad to be back.

From this weekend

This is my room (newly improved with a 'desk') and Easter dinner:

Brian, Alex, Jordan and me

Mixed Easter Bag

I had a pretty relaxing Easter, and one of the best parts of the long weekend was that I didn't go in to BoZo for three days in a row! I managed to get a bit of work done from home, as well as usurp just enough wireless internet to check my email a couple times.

Saturday morning Jordan, Alex, Brian and I went down to the farmers market. Because of the stupid national folk festival at Expo (I call it stupid because it is $77 per day to get in, and FOLK festivals are meant to be for poor people) the farmers market was not happening, but we went to the veggie market in North Lyneham instead, then had coffee at the cafe next door. It was our first outing together, which was pretty neat.

I spent Easter going for a long run, then dashed off to one of the two Lutheran churches in all of Canberra. This little church in Turner only has one service a week, and it so happened to be in Finnish. I knew it was a Finnish service before I arrived, but I wasn't sure if it was actually in Finnish (how many Finnish Lutherans can there be in Canberra?), but since things like this tend to happen to me, it was. There were only about 16 congregants, and I am certain that I was the only person under the age of 75. It was a little weird. It wouldn't have bothered me so much if more people said hello or Happy Easter, but maybe since I sat in the back and old eyes are hard of seeing, I was able to keep an especially low profile. Nonetheless, I am glad I went, particularly since I had not been inside a Lutheran church since leaving Raleigh.

I baked bread pudding for brunch (it was a bit dry and crispy and reminded me of eating crunchy cereal) and munched on hot cross buns, then in the evening each of us in the house cooked up a dish to share for dinner. Jordan and Alex didn't go home for the weekend, and Brian--like me-- had no where else to go, so we all hung out together. Jordan and Brian made really awesome curries (green chicken curry and red beef curry), Alex whipped up an apple rhubarb crumble for dessert, and I tried making shepherd's pie for the first time. It was not as impressive as the other dishes, but it did the trick.

It was nice to spend time with the house-mates this weekend, and I feel lucky that 1) I didn't have to be by myself for Easter and 2) we all get along really well. Even though we all have our own schedules and don't really see that much of each other (which can also be good), it is nice knowing there are people around because I think if had to live by myself I would go a bit nutty--and possibly become a crazy cat lady and keep hundreds of animals for company.

I spent yesterday (Monday) working on my presentation, but I took a few minutes off to visit the psychic expo down the road. I had seen advertisements for it and was curious to see what it was like. It was a lot smaller than I expected and really only focused on getting readings done by the psychics, with a take-a-number-and-wait-for-your-favourite-seer approach. Besides that, there weren't many booths and workshops like they advertised, so I left.

Since I had been working from home a bit I decided I should get a desk. The previous residents of the house left tonnes of pieces of old furniture out the back. There are at least three office chairs, two tables, a desk, two wardrobes, several couches, a vacuum, a broken dryer, and many other random pieces of crap. I dragged in a table with lots of funky black marker drawings--as well as a few cob webs--on it to use as a desk. Now I am certain I don't want a bed, just so I can conserve the rest of my floor space for stretching. Besides, I have been sleeping great without one!

Feels like Fall

Today is the first day that officially feels like Autumn--not only is it rather cool, but it is the first time it has been overcast (though not rainy) since we returned, three weeks ago. The deciduous trees are even losing their leaves. It is super dry again, so even though the leaves turn brown and fall, they are not really changing pretty colours like red and orange. However, I suppose it is better than those last few Autumns we had in North Carolina, where it would remain very hot through October and the trees would drop their leaves, bright green, from their branches.

Seth would like this weather, and it is too bad he is missing it--he flew back to New York on Wednesday morning. Nonetheless, I am sure he is loving the snow and having a great time being home with his family, especially for Easter. He hasn't been home for Easter in years!

Today, Good Friday, is a public holiday, as is the Monday after Easter. I suppose it has been almost two full weeks since the last public holiday, so it is nice they are giving the Public Servants a four-day weekend to let them unwind. As for me, I will try to get working on a conference presentation, and if I can get it done by tomorrow night I can enjoy my Easter, too.

Here are a few photos from the past two weeks:

Seth showering at BoZo (we got pretty comfortable there, if you couldn't guess!)...

...but we finally found a place to live! The girls we moved in with, Jordan and Alex, are also in the process of unpacking.

Our first morning in the new house. The tiny bedroom looks a bit less cluttered now, but I still don't have a bed! I am getting used to sleeping on the floor and will probably not get one (even though Julien and Heather offered me one). I like the floorspace that even a twin bed would totally devour.

Artur and Moose during their housewarming party. Moose, who grew up in the US, lived in the Emirates for a while and sometimes wears the traditional clothing. Before I took the photo, Artur (from Russia) advised Moose not to say "bomb".

Jan and Greg's farewell party at El Dorado (Dickson). Alecia and Reggie are presenting Jan with a poster-card, while Greg, not paying any attention, is busy yakking away.

Seth's poor, busted up guitar--the case is destroyed, and the guitar itself is also cracked. Before he left he made sure to make a nice big sign so people at the airport would know who is responsible for the damages: Qantas Airways, the main airline in Australia. (This happened last March when he flew back to Australia from the US. Qantas still refuses to pay for the damages).

Kaima came over for a 'visit' on Wednesday. He actually wanted to use the kitchen to bake ultra-cute Japanese muffins!

The very mini, yet delicious, finished product!

Out with the old

Last night was Jan and Greg's dinner at El Dorado (don't let the name fool you--it wasn't really a Mexican place). Jan and Greg are the owners of Dash and they sold the business about two weeks ago, the same day Seth and I were stuck in the Christchurch airport. I will have my first day back at work tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to it. The new owners seem to be a real pain and I have only heard bad things about them. Almost everyone is quitting. Though I never worked with Jan and Greg much, I did like, and respect, them a lot and really enjoyed working at Dash. I hope it won't be too horrible going in tomorrow. My co-workers assured me I would be able to find another job, but I don't know if I want to spend my final two months getting accustomed to a new one. I will try sticking out two days a week for the next couple weeks so I can at least pay my rent.

After the dinner Seth and I spent the evening going through his luggage (again) for his trip back home. I am determined to get rid of tonnes of my ratty old clothes, some of which I have had since high school. Luckily I found a donation bin in Dickson, though this may actually be unlucky for those who end up wearing it!

It has been weird living so close to Watson again. This is where I had spent so much time those first few months I arrived, and it is a little surreal being back. It isn't weird in the sense of time (only one year has passed), but it is so dream-like because those months were my first impressions and experiences from Australia, and since then it seems like so much has happened and changed. The past few mornings we have been running up in the Mt Majura/Mt Ainsle parks and it really brings back weird memories of late summer days at Oanh and Hawks house--I almost expect to come home to an unruly boxer dog and the smell of Vietnamese food cooking! What's more is that I went to the farmers market and visited the Dickson shops for the first time in over a year and that also added to the strangeness of being back in this part of town.

Our fourth house-mate, Brian, moved in last night. He grew up in CA and actually knows Tatiana, a masters student from Dr. Pfennig's lab whom I worked with the summer before I left. Small world! It is ironic he is just getting settled and trying to figure things out (like finding the best way to call home, getting around the shops, using the internet, etc), just like I had to do when living up in Watson. However, I can look at him from the other end, since now it is finally my turn to be getting ready to head home!

New Home!!

Seth and I finally got to move into a house last night! We are now living in Downer, which is the neighborhood just south of Watson (where we used to live with Oanh). I heard about the spare room through people at BoZo but I didn't want to get my hopes up--but on Monday they wrote back and said I was set to move in this week. I asked Jon (whom we met at Johns last year) to help us, and we piled everything into his big red van (it all just barely fit--there wasn't even enough room for Seth so he had to bike up!). We hadn't seen Jon for several months so it was good to catch up with him--he is probably one of the most intriguing people we met at Johns and I will try to make more of an effort to meet up with him in the future.

I couldn't believe how much crap we had accumulated in the past year and a half. Though a lot of it is kitchen stuff, which will be easy enough to use up or get rid of, there are also just boxes and boxes of other things that we wouldn't notice if we didn't have. Especially after travelling and always being aware of what is necessary and valuable enough to carry wherever you go, it makes me really want to just give everything away (or, in my case, I would probably have to be wasteful and throw it away because no one would want my stuff). For example, in the past six weeks Seth and I have only worn just a few changes of clothes, which we hand-wash every few days, and we never missed our other boxes of clothes we left at BoZo. Particularly when we get ready to head back to the US, I don't think the Australian Postal Service offers very cheap rates for sea mail, so we will have to go through everything we have and just start getting rid of anything we don't really need.

Before we showed up at the house, I had never even spoken with any of the house-mates. I was VERY relieved to see they are very friendly, and based on their DVD/CD collection they seem to have a similar style as me. Jordan, the girl I was in contact with, is a new honours student at BoZo (I think her office is next to mine!). Alex, the other house-mate, is also an ANU student (psychology). Since it is a 4-bedroom house, the fourth person to fill it will arrive on Saturday. He is a new PhD student at BoZo who just arrived from the US.

The house is a bit chaotic at the moment since Jordan and Alex just moved in on Monday--they previously lived a few houses down the street but were 'evicted' (ie. it was being remodeled), so they also have boxes everywhere and are in the process of unpacking.

Good news is that Seth was planning to leave for the US this morning but he found out a couple days ago his flight was rescheduled. I think he was annoyed by that but I don't mind :P It will be nice to have this weekend with him, and it is also great he can see the house and meet the girls before heading home.

It felt great to unpack what we could, but it is a very small house for so many people--at least it will encourage me to get rid of unnecessary things, haha! It is also strange to move out of BoZo--Seth had worked out quite a nice routine of playing guitar in the rock garden (which he will continue doing), lifting weights in my office, etc, and I was getting used to showering, cooking, and doing everything else there. It will also take getting re-used to biking a bit further to Uni (Nick's house in Lyneham was only a 10min ride, Downer is nearly 20min). But Jordan drives in everyday and she offered a ride this morning, so I imagine if I ever don't feel well or if the weather is poor I can bum a ride with her.