* Camilla *

Pondering.

2011-05-24T17:54:00.002+10:00

I wonder if I will ever blog again?

23.

2011-01-11T22:13:00.001+11:00

Guess I had best start getting used to having no friends, because as Blink182 said...

"no-one likes you when you're 23."

again.

2010-12-15T16:39:00.000+11:00

Remember that time, not all that long ago, August in fact, when I had tonsillitis?

Yep, well. I have it again.

Damn you tonsils and you ability to get inflamed and cause me pain!

At least I caught it early this time, and it wasn't full blown horrible pain!

Do your stuff, Penicillin, and do it fast!

scream.

2010-11-17T21:02:00.004+11:00

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please excuse me while I scream.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Ok. thanks. done.

All better now.

a change.

2010-11-01T22:07:00.000+11:00

This morning I did my normal morning ritual.

I woke up.

I snoozed my alarm.

I turned off my alarm.

I slept for another half an hour.

I went to the loo.

I had a shower.

I ate breakfast.

I did my makeup.

I decided what to wear.

Then I started doing my hair.

And I decided that I did not like it.

It was too long and scraggly and blah.

I had not been cut in months and it was showing it.

So I decided to get it cut.

And not just cut, but completely changed.

So I rang up the hairdresser at 9am.

I had an appointment at 4.30pm.

And at 5.30pm, I looked like this....!!

That my friends, is a bob. And it is rather short! Fun times ahead!

Apparently the idea was to dress up, but I just came straight from work

2010-10-31T22:18:00.000+11:00

Guess I missed the memo. When there is a halloween dance, one is meant to dress up in something weird, or scary, or abnormal. Something different from what one normally wears. I however, did not know this, and I just went to the dance straight from the lab...oops. How embarrassing!!

NERD!

Hahahaha ULTIMATE nerd - check out the goofy nerd face! And the stockings!

Jaz, my fellow nerd.

ha ha ha ha ha!

"Guys, I can't dance. I have to study! Study is all I do!"

There were a few lone heads floating around that I thought about possibly doing some research on them. If only I had my dissecting tools with me I could have dissected out their brains...

A holiday?

2010-10-27T23:38:00.001+11:00

I could really use a holiday right about now.

One of these would even be nice...

...relaxed, stress free, sunshine...

Even though that is not really me...

Really, I'd prefer a holiday like this...

...this is more me!

Science is eating up my life.

In fact, I don't really think I have a life.

And it is going to get worse before it gets better.

I am hanging out for Christmas and the week following, for a bit of this...

...and a bit of this...

..and some of this!

Please hurry, December 22nd and onwards.

But also don't.

Because I have far too much work to do between now and then.

Find a Husband?

2010-10-09T01:09:00.002+11:00

...even family search is telling me to find a husband!!

Sheesh! Can't a girl get a break?!?!

Spring + Saturdays + Snow = Super fun times!

2010-10-09T00:05:00.005+11:00

On thursday night, the 16th of september, a good couple of weeks in to spring, it snowed big time up on top of Mount wellington. On the friday morning, the mountain looked amazing, and so Lucy, Claire and myself decided that a mountain adventure was required the following day. Saturday morning comes and we head up the mountain, with hopes that we might get to the top. Alas, the rangers do not let cars drive past the springs. We park and hop out to start out snowy adventure by foot. We start heading up the pinnacle track, chatting away, stopping to take photos and play in the snow. And this is what happened...

I played with my camera a little because the snow looked awesome.

Pretty!

We hijacked a little kids snowman, which even had a carrot nose!

And yes, we waited until the family had left their snowman alone before hijacking it.

Lucy made her very own little snow man, complete with twig arms and a leaf toupee!

Claire was silly for the camera...

..the snow looked pretty..

Lucy declared her love for me with snow..

I wore my awesome gumboots, and Claire showed the world her crazy stripy thermals and socks!

...we took self timer photos...and I fell down a hole running back to get in the photo!

..And we played with the self timer again...

..and on the way back down the mountain to the car we came across two GIANT snowballs, so obviously had to pose with them!!

All in all it was a succesful Mt Wellington snowy adventure. And to top it off when we got down the mountain we went to the food store, in South Hobart for a DELICIOUS lunch!!!

I have a 4 year old nephew

2010-10-08T23:45:00.000+11:00

I will start off by apologising for the massive amount of photos in this blog. I just love these three kiddies so much that when I get to see them, I get a little snap happy, because I have to take enough photos to last me until the next time I get to see them.

Ethan had his FOURTH (where the hell have 4 years gone??) birthday on September 11. I went over the Melbourne for his Toy Story themed gathering. This is how Ethy (and Asher and Tessa) spent his fourth birthday...

Ash with his Dad.

Ethan and his awesome blow up Buzz lightyear wings

Opening pressies

Miss Tessa

Look at this face..Ooohhh what is it?!

Ash busy entertaining himself

Ethy looks SO happy with this present Nan..

It's an Optimus Prime! What a lucky boy!

He looooved this so so so much!

ha ha - Asher's little curl of hair!

How gorgeous is this little girl??

Showing off Optimus to Aunty Milla.

Ethan did some lovely posing for Aunty Milla's camera, and pulled some awesome "funny faces". Hope you are ready for this. Here we go...

Number one...

Number two...

Number three...

Number four...

Five....

Six....

Seven....

Tessa with her badge she won in pass the parcel..

The kiddies in their little pass-the-parcel circle.

Asher eating a Sav. He loved it and really got in to it!

Ethan's AWESOME rocket cake, complete with sparkler jets!

Blowing out the candles.

mmmm....this is a good cake!

After cake, it was time for a bit of a play outside...

Ethan showed me how to be buzz lightyear...

Happy 4th Birthday Mr Ethan!! xxx

AFL semi-finals

2010-10-08T23:35:00.002+11:00

Happy Fathers Day!

The weekend after father's day, I was in Melbourne for Ethan's birthday, and Mum and Dad were also over (for Ethy's birthday, but also for the Devonport stake temple trip) and so for Dad's Father's day present, I took him to the footy.

Friday night semi-final.

Geelong vs. Fremantle at the MCG.

Geelong flogged freo.

Game was crap.

MCG was rockin' like always.

Crowd was hilarious.

Watching some of the excellent footy players was enjoyable, seeing how they plan plays and direct play from off the ball, which is what you don't see at home on the TV.

We had really really good seats.

So speaking of the crowd, I must recap about this one guy sitting behind us.

He was a geelong supporter.

He was a little chubby.

He had longish curly hair.

It was red.

He had a sign.

On the sign it read...

"Cameron Ling, are you my father?"

It was hilarious.

Every time Lingy touched the ball, he would yell out.

"Nice on Dad, good work Dad, LINGY, look at me, are you my Dad?"

Seriously hilarious.

He really did look like Lingy.

It made my night.

I was going to take a photo of him and his sign, but the he disappeared and never came back.

Because the Friday night game was so crap, we thought we would try our luck again, on saturday night.

At the MCG.

Sydney vs. Bulldogs.

Game was EXCELLENT.

Ended up being super close.

I really enjoyed it.

Even though I hate Sydney.

Sydney lost.

I became a bulldogs supporter for the night and really got in to it.

As soon as the siren sounded though, I became a bulldogs hater, because it was all about them losing the the Saints the next week.

I really love my footy!

Before the game, we had dinner across the road from the 'G' at a french patisserie. They had macarons. I bought a heap. They were a delicious footy snack!

Once again, we had good seats. This time a little further around, just inside the 50, about 6 or so rows from the boundary. Loved it!

I really do love my footy, and it was fun being at some footy finals!

Yves Klein Blue & JET & Powderfinger

2010-10-08T23:10:00.000+11:00

On Monday the 13th September, Collette and I headed out to the DEC to go to Powderfinger's farewell tour concert. Even though we were sitting WAAAAAY up the back, we loved it! They rocked!

And JET was their support band. And everyone loves Jet. They were excellent, as always! And their other support band who played first, were Yves Klein Blue, from Brisbane (I'm 99% certain on that). And they were AWESOME, and the first thing I did when I got home that night was download their album. Love it.

We had a bit of a groove up in the back row of the DEC, and a sing along, and had an awesome time. Love you powderfinger!!

We created a band.

2010-10-08T10:59:00.000+11:00

I do not know if I have blogged about this at all, but those who are friends with Collette and Elle would have read about this on their blogs.

We created a band.

It is called 52 pick-up.

The members are:

Fiona Cluff - Keys

Vanessa Watson - Vocals

Christopher Mahina - Bass

Jacob Ziesel - Guitar

Campbell King - Guitar

Asher Read - Drums

David Bender - mixed percussion

Myself - Mixed percussion

Collette Gibson - Band Manager

We play covers. We originally got together because Hobart Stake was holding a musical talent night for their stake conference activity in August. Since then, we have played at a YSA talent show, as well as YSA ball.

After our first gig, we had a photo shoot, with the amazing Ellen J Carmichael, photographer.

Here are some of the awesome photos that she took.

Time for some catch up.

2010-10-07T22:58:00.000+11:00

Blogging catch up time. These posts are going to be all over the place, and potentially out of order. But I will probably put them in the correct chronological order once they are all written and posted.

Can't believe we actually have to go through that again...

2010-09-26T21:20:00.000+10:00

A draw?! Seriously, a draw?! Who would have ever thought?!

I actually thought we had won it after this incredible

mark by BJ, and the resultant goal.

This moment was when I nearly lost my voice with the amount

of yelling and screaming at the tele!

But it was not to be...68 all at the final siren.

Devestation.

Numbness.

No sadness.

No happiness.

It was incredibly weird.

What exactly are you meant to do when there is no result of a grand final?!

There is no reaction!

BUT...how GOOD was this guy...

Lenny Hayes.

Amazing.

He definitely deserved the Norm Smith medal!

On ya Lenny.

Do we think he can make it two Norm Smiths in a week!? ha ha!

I'm pretty sure my heart can't take this all over again. I'm still pretty much in shock that we have to play a SECOND grand final.

Good luck this week Sainters!!

I'm famous?!?!

2010-09-26T21:19:00.000+10:00

In the good ol' Mercury on Grand Final Day!

This was not my choice. I happened to be wearing my saints top on Friday, because it was grand final eve. It is what I do. It was about 4pm, and I was coming down the stairs from the lab to the office. And I got hijacked. Cathy (blonde hair) pointed at me. Her dad (Leigh, who is a saints fanatic) came over.

Leigh: "would you like to be in a photo"

Me: "Not particularly"

Cathy: "She would love to be. If I have to do it, she has to do it!"

So somehow I wound up having a photo dressed as a saints fanatic, that appeared in the Mercury on GF day. ha ha ha embarrassing much!?

optimism.

2010-09-01T21:14:00.005+10:00

After the week that I'm having, I think I need to change my mind set to being optimistic and happy. The boys in the lab have stuck lame and corny motivational sayings all up over the office to ease some of the tension that is forming in the lab. They are quite hilarious. My favourites...

"Less me,

More we"

"TEIAM

doesn't work"

Picture from marc johns

tonsillitis.

2010-08-05T17:36:00.000+10:00

Oh how I wish that when I was a kid the doctors had removed my tonsils. I used to get tonsillitis so so many times every year. And then did not get it for years. Until March last year. And today. Well technically tuesday.

On tuesday morning I woke up with a sore throat and a headache. I rolled over, grabbed my iPad, and emailed my supervisor straight away to let her know I was not coming in. Then I went back to sleep until roughly 2pm. For the rest of the day I layed in bed with my laptop watching Season one of "Brothers & Sisters". I thought that I just had a cold. Everyone in the lab has been sick, colds have just been spreading like rapid fire. I figured a day in bed would get rid of it and I'd be fine.

Wednesday morning comes around. I wake up, not really feeling any worse, or any better. I decide to go in to the lab, because wednesday is my big experiments day. I did my experiments all day. But I was miserable. My throat hurt so much that speaking to anyone was difficult. My head was thumping big time, and I was just miserable. I actually said to someone during the day that maybe I have tonsillitis, but I kinda blew it off as a joke...it was just a cold. So I get home from the lab at about 6pm and I feel horrible. I ring mum up to tell her that I'm sick, and she tells me that I should ring up the doctor first thing in the morning and make an appointment because I have tonsillitis. However, I go to the uni doctor down here, and so I knew that I could book online...so I did that just that, except at the city surgery, not the uni one, as the uni surgery was all booked out through til next week. When booking online, it gives a little area to write a note as to why you are going to visit the doctor. I filled mine in with something along the lines of:

"I have a sore throat that really hurts when I swallow. My ear also hurts. I have a headache that has not gone away since tuesday morning. Apart from not having a fever, this is exactly what I feel like when I have tonsillitis."

I went to bed on wednesday night feeling miserable, not being able to swallow very well, and noticing that I was producing a ridiculous amount of saliva, because of my swollen and inflamed tonsils, making me need to swallow more, thus aggravating my sore throat even more. I woke up through the night with chills, and then the sweats, and then the chills, and the cycle was just on repeat. Apparently the fever that I said I did not have had set in. I slept in til 10am, which was brilliant. I ate breakfast which was a big struggle because my Cheerios were very rough on my throat. I had begun to feel nauseous as well, because of the fever. I headed off to the doctor at 11:30, for my 11:45 appointment. Surprisingly the doc was running on time (big brownie points for him!!!). I walk in to his office, he asks me what's up, and I say "I think I have tonsillitis". He then tells me that the note that I wrote online the night before was one of the most comprehensive notes he has read, because it was actually really informative. He takes my temperature - I have a fever. He looks at my tonsils, and exclaims at their swollen-ness and the fact that both are covered with a ridiculous amount of pus (gross). He gives me a script for Penicillin and we have a really short chat about what I do, and that he has heard of my supervisor etc etc, and he sends me on my way within 10 minutes.

Eighty-eight dollars later (seventy for the doctor, eighteen for the drugs) I head home, with some soup that I've picked up from Liveat (Chicken and corn - delish), I am drugged up and back in bed still feeling miserable! I think my fever has slowly started to come down, making me feel an awful lot better, but my throat is still super sore, which means that all I want to eat is soup and icecream.

I just took my before-dinner penicillin capsule (which has to be taken 30 minutes prior to eating), am about to change my doona over to one from my spare beds (fresh bedding always helps one sleep better and this is simpler to do than actually change my doona cover at the moment), get dinner ready (ie re-heat my food that I bought from the grocer today, even though it nearly killed me to be out, but I knew it would be better than attempting to cook something) and settle in for another night of watching "brothers & sisters" on the lappy in bed, before another early night.

Pity that I don't get to go to ysa band practice and institute though.

P.S. The coolest thing about my tablets (apart from the whole making me better thing) are that they are bright pink! (Ok, half red and half bright pink!)

12 hour time points suck.

2010-07-27T19:29:00.003+10:00

I have a time point where I have to stop my cultured cells growing. It is twelve hours. This is quite possibly the worst time point there can be. If i were to plate out my cells at 4pm, I would have to come in and do things to them at 4am. If it was at lunch time, I'd have to come in at midnight. So I have picked 7pm (mainly because after they are plated, I have to feed them after an hour as well). This means that tomorrow morning I have to be in the lab at 7am. I could have started growing my cells later on tonight...but...it is Tuesday night. And Packed to the Rafters starts at 8.30pm. And I have to be home in time for Rafters party. Espec. because we have not had rafters party for two weeks because of my crazy busy life.

I hate you, twelve hour time points.

No fear

2010-07-26T19:40:00.000+10:00

It'd be really cool if people answered this...

...so comment away

My answer: BASE jumping.

(picture from myfairydust)

Childhood bestfriends - change over time.

2010-07-23T00:24:00.001+10:00

Here is a (very inaccurate, with not a whole lot of photos) timeline of Erin and I being friends!

Starting with us as little kiddies!!

Erin's third birthday

I think this one is my birthday party, from when I was three or four?!

Sydney TFY 2003. I stayed at Erin's house for some of the week, and with the Launnie East YW for the rest.

January 2005 - Andrew's wedding. Abby and Erin.

January 2007 - a summer visit to Sydney.

August 2008 - weekender to Sydney

July 2010 - Erin's wedding day!

my childhood bestie is all grown up.

2010-07-22T23:36:00.001+10:00

My childhood bestie, Erin, got married on the weekend. Erin and I were best friends when we were one year old. We lived in Launceston and grew up together (til we were around 4 or 5). Our parent's were also really good friends. When we were 4/5ish, Erin's family moved to Sydney. But we have stayed in touch ever since, and I always try to visit them whenever I am in Sydney, or go up specifically to catch up with them.

On the weekend I flew up to Sydney (and Mum and Dad did as well), to head to Erin's wedding reception. Erin and Keegan got married in the Sydney Temple on saturday morning, and held a lovely reception out on the property that Peter works at, the Yindarra Polo Club, in Richmond, west of Sydney.

When the bride and groom arrived at the reception, there was a lovely ring ceremony.

I got to catch up with my buddies, Sophia...

...and Rach!

The girls. Soph, Sarah, Tamara and Rach.

Erin showing off her lovely wedding shoes...her thongs!

Happy bride!

The Pauna cousin's photo! Pity about Erin's eyes being closed!

The lovely couple, Mr and Mrs Byrnes.

Erin and I! Friends for twenty-two years!

contemplating a tumblr.

2010-07-22T22:57:00.000+10:00

I am contemplating starting a new blog (yes another one.) Now I know this might sound stupid, as I have not had a lot of success with either of the two that I have at the moment, but I have a bit of a fascination with my friend's tumblr blog. And have begun stalking other people's tumblr's, and I really love how easy it is with them to just, reblog cool pictures and things from other people's blogs, and from sites such as flickr. These blogs are all very, self-expressive blogs, with people just showing off things that they love, or hate, or how they are feeling through quotes and pictures.

But perhaps, I shall just turn THIS blog, in to a bit more than just a "travel/activity blog", which is kind of what it is now, in to a more "tumblr" kind of blog....while still keeping my activities and travels and photos all together in the one spot. I don't know. But I do know, that I love stalking tumblr blogs, and have a new found obsession with flickr, and browsing people's flickr accounts and the cool stuff that they post!! I feel I need to be a bit more creative with my life, and start doing and seeing more creative things!

And just to finish off, with one of the quotes I found last night while browsing (because I have nothing better to do with my time...pfft! Procrastination at it's finest, right here!)

Challenge: try and find the good in EVERY day.

2010-07-20T23:55:00.001+10:00

a change.

2010-07-18T22:25:00.001+10:00

I decided my blog needed a layout change. It may not stay the same. I am a very indecisive person. We shall just have to wait and see what I stick with.

I also have lots of blogging that really should be done. I will attempt to do some. soon. maybe even this week. if I do not become too busy in the lab. oh, and with life. but the lab makes up the majority of my life.

A GIANT die/dice!

2010-07-07T16:32:00.000+10:00

What: Party

Why: Ness turned twenty-one

When: April third, twenty-ten

Where: On and under the Watson's deck

Who: Ness' friends (ie the YSA, uni friends, work friends, family)

Wear: Black and White

Happy "three-month-late" birthday Ness!

Matty and Nic's Sealing Day

2010-05-26T20:58:00.001+10:00

On Saturday the 22nd May, Matty and Nicole were sealed in the Melbourne Australia Temple. Everyone was there. Mum, Dad, Emma, Eddy, Tessa, Andrew, Beth, Ethan, Asher, Me and Lisa. It was a perfect autumns day in Melbourne.

While they were getting sealed, I chased the kiddies around the temple, and took photos of them playing with each other.

Miss Tessa with her wonderful posing.

Showing off her new birthday coat from Aunty Nic and Uncle Matt (or Aunty Matt as she would say!!)

Asher doesn't look too impressed about this hugging business...then he kinda just accepts that it is going to happen anyway...and then goes in for the lick! ha ha!

More hugs!

These two were trying to break in to the temple! The little munchkins!!

Playing with the autumn leaves!

The freshly sealed couple and the parents.

The whole Mitchell family photo

The miniature Batchelor family photo.

We attempted to get a photo of all the grandkiddies together...this is what we got!

Ethan was sick and didn't want any photos. Asher could not sit still. Ethan and Asher decided to have hugs. Tessa sat there for most of the time posing for her photo, but never smiled!

The baby sisters.

Our modern age technology kids - Ethan is playing the DS, and Tessa is playing games on the iPhone. Check out their concentration faces!!

It was miss Tessa's second birthday the weekend before. Here she is opening her present from Aunty "Pilla". I love her face when she realises she has a new pretty top to wear! :-)

After the temple sealing which took place at 11am, we (Matt, Nic, Lisa and I) headed over to Emma and Eddy's so that I could see their new place, and then we headed to Chadstone for a bit of shopping. Lisa had never been there before and I think she fell in love! Who wouldn't love Chadstone?! It is amazing!

That night we all met up again for dinner down at the docklands. We went out for Japanese at Kobe Jones, which was delicious! All in all it was a pretty good, short trip to Melbourne!

Who doesn't love breakfast? Especially for dinner! It's a BRINNER party!

2010-05-26T20:56:00.000+10:00

Monday May 17th:

Everyone from uni (and their other halves/sisters/brothers-in-laws to be) came over to my place for a brinner party!! Whoohoo! I love Brinner!

The guests of my brinner party were: Dave K, Lila, Dave R, Nathan, Edgar, Anna, Amy and Tim. Notable absentees included Ben, who had to go to work instead of enjoy a delicious brinner!

I didn't take many photos (which I'm kinda mad about because the food looked incredible when it was all cooked, but oh well!), but here are the few that I took.

Anna (Edgar's girlfriend) was in charge of cooking the eggs. In my electric wok. On the dining room table. I have never cooked food on that side of my kitchen before!!

Lila likes to eat Maple Syrup...

Edgar and Nathan decided to cook the bacon and chorizo

Dave modelled with the english muffins, while Amy (Dave's sister) and Tim (Amy's fiance) looked on and laughed.

Lila looked shocked and amazed when my happy hen laid an egg!!

For brinner we ate SO much food. We had...

- bacon

- scrambled eggs

- fried eggs

- chorizo sausage

- toast

- baked beans (for Edgar, the Englishman!)

- english muffins

- tomatoes

- mushrooms

- hashbrowns

- croissants with jam

- pancakes

- icecream

- orange juice

- hot chocolates and marshmallows

and I have probably forgotten more stuff! But there was an AWFUL lot of food for nine people. We did manage to eat nearly everything though!

Thanks for coming over and enjoying a delicious brinner with me guys!

:-)

Apparently I suck at this blogging thing.

2010-05-25T21:59:00.000+10:00

It's true.

I suck at blogging.

All of these people whose blogs I read, who blog everyday, amaze me!! I wish I could blog every day (not that I would have anything to blog about but still!!).

I once again have about three months worth of stuff to catch up on. I don't even know if I can remember what has happened in the last three months! Yikes!

I have also slacked off on my daily blog. It has become more of a "hmm that is cool I might take a photo of it and put it on my blog" kind of blog.

Really...I'm just slack.

Re-re-re-re-reeeee-wiiiinnndd!!!

2010-04-12T23:04:00.000+10:00

Can I get a C-Y-U??

Re-re-re-re-reeeeee-wiiiinnnddd!!

We need a

U...

Y...

C....

BEST. WEEK. OF. MY. LIFE!

I'm pretty much serious when I say that.

These Tasmanian Youth are....

Amazing. Incredible. Spectacular, Awesome, Fantastic.

They have the most amazing spirits, with bucket loads of faith just oozing out of them!

I will blog more on this incredible experience, but let's just say...

Every countless moment. Every saturday training. EVERY sunday choir practice.

Every tribe meeting. Every late night.

Every stitch sewed. Every scripture read in preparation.

Every handout made.

It was ALL worth it!!!

UYC 10

(Ultimate Youth Convention, 2010)

Soph and Mills - Insane!

2010-02-11T21:49:00.000+11:00

For the second half of the week while I was in Sydney, I went and stayed out in Richmond with my oldest friend (time wise) in the whole wide world, Erin Pauna! We grew up together (for four years of our lives) in Tassie, and our parents were great friends. We still catch up with each other every year or two and it's so good to see the Pauna's!

While I was there, I spent the day with Sophia (a friend I met years and years ago in Sydney) while Erin was at work. We randomly decided to have a photo shoot. Soph went all out and boofed her crazy hair, and put on some seriously insane makeup and crazy outfits. I went plain, with the help of a pink cowboy hat and a feather boa!!

While I was staying at the Pauna's I had a super relaxing day on the Friday while Erin was at work (she's a nurse and works weird shift hours ALL the time), where I read and napped and played on the computer and did whatever. I had lunch with Erin's cousin Brook, who I meet about 7 years ago at a TFY in Sydney. Erin and I went to a Richmond ward relief society activity on Fri night, which was really good, and then we hung out at home and watched "Fame".

On saturday I woke up to semi-disaster. The Hawkesbury river, which the Pauna's live next to, had kinda flooded with all the rain overnight, and the pumps and tractors on their property (they live on Polo fields, as Pete, erin's dad, is the grounds manager) were half flooded, and the boys had to rescue them. Which mean that the rest of the Pauna's (Brook's family) came over to help and hang out too, and June (Erin's mum) made us all bacon, eggs and french toast for brekkie!

On saturday night, Soph came over for a sleepover, and we watched 'the house bunny' with Erin.

On sunday I went to Richmond ward and caught up with Rach and Bec Howard, and saw Turi for a little bit, and it was very cool to catch up with all my friends who I had meet years and years ago, but still keep touch with! Then we had pancakes for lunch (mm Pete makes fantastic pancakes!) and Brook took me to the airport so I could catch my flight home.

I was super mad when I got home and realised that I had not taken any photos with the above mentioned people. In fact I took no photos the whole time I was with the Pauna's. But..for your information....these are the people I have talked about...

L-R: Erin, Rach, Bec, Brook.

ANS 2010

2010-02-11T21:21:00.000+11:00

On the 31st January, I headed to Sydney to attend the annual Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS) conference. I went up with my fellow honours students Lila and Nathan, and we met our PhD student Dave there.

We spent sunday afternoon being tourists in Sydney.

Bridge!

Us and the Opera House

Nath & Dave

ha ha ha ha ha.

The boys at dinner

We LOVE our food!

Haha, best thing ever. This is Dave's bar. When we saw it we all thought of "High Pressure Liquir Chromatography" which is an experimental technique which Dave uses. Apparently it stands for High Protein Low Carb.

The room of bed. The big bed was meant to get zipped in to two singles for me and Lils, but instead they gave us another bed, which made our room pretty much bed, and nothing else!

It's a miracle!! Lila is READY half an hour before we had to leave!!!

Conferencing it up!

We were paying attention...

Lisa's talk! Lisa is my supervisor, and the majority of her talk was on my work! Excitement. Lisa is on the right hand side.

It's all of us in Lisa's acknowledgements! She gave me a bit of a plug in her talk, for people to come and look at my poster the next day!

More conference

View of Sydney from the top of our motel

The boys' nightly activities. Drinking beer and...

..watching the Big Bang Theory on Nath's lappy.

Poster presentation day!

Dave

Nath

Lils

Playing with the shower caps (or Le Bonnet de Douche) as you do...

Lils and I went to the conference dinner. Possibly the scariest and most awkward thing I have ever done in my life!

With the super nice girls that I met from Melbourne. Jean and Clare.

Happy Birthday to Lila!

he he he he drunk Lila!

Sydney at Night!

Fun in the taxi!

The conference was great. I felt super grown up going to a neuroscience conference and taking notes and actually understanding a lot of stuff! And it was very very cool having people come up and talk to me about my own work, and being interested and asking questions and asking me to explain some of their own results! Crazy stuff!! I also had an awesome time with Lils, Nath and Dave! They are the best!

Big Day Out

2010-02-11T20:09:00.004+11:00

On Australia Day I went to the Big Day Out in Melbourne with Matty, Nic, Chris and Paul. It was SO much fun. It was hot, but not excessively crazy (prob about 30ish all day). I did not get sunburnt or get dehydrated (amazing, for me!) and I had the BEST time!

Throughout the day I ended up seeing:

Lisa Mitchell (four songs)

Karnivool (most of their set)

Kasabian (whole set)

Eskimo Joe (one song)

Girl Talk (whole set)

Dizee Rascal (three songs)

Rise Against (whole set apart from 1-2 songs)

Lily Allen (whole set)

Grinspoon (first half)

Powderfinger (second half)

Muse (whole set)

Kasabian were awesome!! Muse blew me away - they were absolutely fantastic. I loved seeing Lisa Mitchell, and she was surprisingly good on a big stage, Lilly Allen was very entertaining and great fun, and Rise Against and Karnivool were great! I had an awesome day!

Here are some photos which I've stolen from some reviews I found on the net...I didn't take a camera with me, as that would have required an extra pocket that I did not have!

Muse

Crowd

Orange and Blue stages (the main ones)

more crazy crowd

Lily Allen in her Australian Flag top

Lisa Mitchell

Karnivool

Kasabian

Lily Allen

Powderfinger

Muse and the amazing laser lights show during their set.

Australia Day (weekend) YSA Camp

2010-02-11T19:33:00.000+11:00

This year our annual Australia Day YSA camp was held over the weekend before Australia Day, in Port Sorell at Camp Boomerang.

On the first night we played cricket, watched Astro Boy, and went to the beach and made a bonfire

On Saturday (which was Fake Australia Day) we started off with breakfast, followed by Service, with us all decked out in our Aussie gear!

We had a visitor from Melbs for camp, Fiona.

And Tash...she loves weeds!

Collette became a governor!

On Saturday afternoon we headed to Hawley Beach for some beach activity...

...which included burying Nadine in the sand...

On saturday night we had our Australia themed dance...

..and Fiona had some awesome dance moves (below...)

On Sunday we went to church in Devonport ward. We had lunch at the chapel. And workshops in the afternoon, including a Q&A with President Scott Prebble. That night we had a fireside and testimony meeting (which was fantastic). When we got back to camp, we had hot milo's in the hall and just hung out with each other, before heading to the beach for another bonfire!

Sacha just likes to stand out in all situations! he he he

Jack had a very...feminine...mug.

Fiona broke her thongs while collecting firewood...

On the last morning, we all (most of us) slept through breakfast, and headed to maccas after camp was over for our morning maccas fix!

Camp was AWESOME! I love camp with all the Tassie YSA. We have so much fun together and just muck around being idiots! Good times!!

Mountains with Melbournians

2010-02-11T16:22:00.003+11:00

On Thursday January 21st, a few of the YSA gathered at my place to head up to Mount Wellington.

Reason: Tash and Nadine were visiting us from Melbourne!

So off we go, up the mountain....arriving to discover that Paul, who was the first up there, had decided to climb the hut and hang out on the roof!

Blurry photos with Ness...

The Melbournians, Tash and Nadine!

Julia (she was visiting home from Brisbane!)

The awesome sunset...

And the cool pink sky, through my sunnies, cuz it looked cooler!

And us, randomly hanging out on top of a mountain; as we do.

Elder Flakemore and Elder Shoobridge

2010-02-11T16:21:00.000+11:00

On the fourteenth of January, at 6:05am, a QANTAS plane departed the Hobart airport carrying two of our boys, off to serve their missions.

Elder Shaun Flakemore, heading to the New Zealand Wellington Mission,

and

Elder Joshua Shoobridge, heading to the Australia Sydney North Mission.

Shaunie and I at his farewell

Everyone who came to the airport to say goodbye to the boys!

and the girl turns 22.

2010-02-11T16:20:00.004+11:00

On Monday, January 11th, it was my birthday. I turned twenty-two.

On Sunday night, I had a birthday BBQ at Matt's place with Matt, Nic, Drew, Chris and Paul.

In the morning, I went out for breakfast at Zum, in Salamanca, with my friend from school, Sarah. She bought me some Gerberas.

When I got home, I got a visit from Carmen and baby Jackson, to give me a birthday cupcake (Carmy is my visiting teacher)

The day before, at church, Fran gave me a present from her and Carmen (as she is also my VT).

I spent the afternoon at seven mile beach with Fiona, Campbell, James, Collette and Simone, Simon and baby Jonty, as there were down for the day.

That night, I went out for dinner at Hogsbreath with some of the crew from uni: Lila and Dave, Kate, Katherine and Lucy. I got the coolest apron from Lucy!

Throughout the day I got lots of phone calls, messages and facebook love. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! xxx

(Photos to come)

National YSA Convention, Brisbane 2009-10

2010-02-10T23:24:00.006+11:00

Convention this year was held in Brisbane, and it was a national convention. It was MASSIVE. I'm talking 2500 YSA at the ball. That is pretty damn big! It was pretty full on and most days were packed as per usual. I met lots of people, and caught up with heaps and heaps of old friends and old missonaries and stuff! Here are some photos of some of the stuff we got up to!

The Ball:

1. Elder Gin and I; 2. Gemma, Rach, Sacha and I;

3. Rach, Makala, Lisa, Gemma and I; 4. Ness and I;

4. Brook and myself; 6. Rach, Alex and I.

The Summer Carnival:

1. Rachie and myself; 2. Random asians who thought our carnival was real and lined up;

3. The rest of the random asian family; 4. The Rattrays with their "I'm sick of lining up" faces;

5. Lunch at the carnival; 6. The line for the dodgem cars.

Glowsticks with Beata and Rach:

Sunday night:

1. Tash and myself; 2. Me, Alex and Rach;

3. Rach, Han, Sally and I; 4. Rachie and myself;

5. Chris and I; 6. Rach and Peter.

Way too many people in one car:

Scum Party:

1. Scum cards; 2.Chris and Ness;

3. Ash and Chris; 4. Hannah and Alex;

5. The Scum circle; 6. Rhys.

Goodbyes on the last day:

1. Bec and I; 2. Jess; 3. Beata;

4. Tash and I; 5. Ness, Rach, Sam, Alex, Lisa and I;

6. Spud and I; 7. Leigh and myself

The Airport Crew:

1. Gemma and her first ever Hungry Jacks experience; 2. Makala, Me, Hien, Adam and Gemma

Some of the things we did while in Queensland...

2010-02-10T21:58:00.006+11:00

The house that we were staying at had a golf buggy! Everyone drives them EVERYWHERE in Sanctuary cove, so we took it for a few spins here and there. So much fun.

The day that we went to Movieworld it POURED with rain. This meant that we took no photos all day, and that we wore ponchos. Here we are in our ponchos - they are so flattering aren't they?

Matt, Nicole and I went for a drive to Maroochydoore one day. We went to the big pineapple and I had a giant pineapple parfait!

We went down to Surfers one day, mainly to go to the Hard Rock Cafe, as it is the only one left in Australia. Tessa really enjoyed her cool cup that she got!

Dad, Matt, Nic and I went out for dinner one night in Sanctuary Cove, to "George's". Dad got a whole heap of implements to eat his lobster with...

..and here are our awesome looking (and tasting) meals...

Throughout the week we also went shopping on Boxing day (Boxing Day Sales) at Pacific Fair and Harbour town. We went to see 'Avatar' at the movies. We went to Dreamworld. And we hung out in the mansion and swam in the pool. It was an awesome holiday.

Christmas at the cove

2010-02-10T21:42:00.006+11:00

Christmas Day in Sanctuary Cove

Christmas Breakfast:

The Entertainment:

The mid-morning drive: (destination - Kingscliff)

Christmas lunch:

Thanks for an awesome Christmas day, family!

The mansion at Sanctuary Cove

2010-02-10T21:24:00.001+11:00

Mum and Dad hired out this awesome awesome AWESOME house at Sancuary Cove for Christmas. I have made a montage of all the photos of all the rooms in the house, and the views and stuff. I know it is tiny, but if you click on it, it becomes bigger. Much easier than posting a bazillion individual photos!!

Scholarship offer.

2010-02-10T20:40:00.000+11:00

I got a letter in the mail the week before the week of Christmas. It is quite possibly the best letter I have ever received (apart from the first ever letter of offer to university that I got a few years ago...).

This letter was an offer of an Australian Postgraduate Award to undertake my PhD at the University of Tasmania.

Stoked that as of March I will have an income. A PhD student's income. But it is tax free. And it is better than no income.

So come March (which now is only in like two weeks) I will be starting my three years of a PhD!

Gingerbread Houses

2010-02-10T20:04:00.004+11:00

Fiona gets a little bit excited about holidays, and she loves to bake! So for Christmas last year (Dec '09) she made (yes, made. By herself.) 12 gingerbread houses, so that we could have a gingerbread house party and decorate them! It was amazing. There were so many lollies and I think we probably ate just as many, if not more, than what ended up on our houses.

Thanks for the awesome party Fiona (sorry I'm just two months late with the blogging thanks!)

Sensational shortbread...

2010-02-10T19:52:00.001+11:00

...or not.

WAAAAAAAY back in December (I know, I know, the slackest blogger ever!!) Collette and myself had to find a new way to entertain ourselves on Tuesday nights (Since rafters was not on anymore...and Elle was away on her big adventure so we could not play with her....). Seeing as how it was nearing Christmas, Collette wanted to make something Christmassy for the people she visit teaches. One tuesday night, we attempted to make shortbread from scratch. We figured it wouldn't be too hard. We found a recipe on the net and proceeded to muck it up from step one by putting the wrong ingredients together (there were only four steps and we failed at step one), which resulted in me in hysterics and slouched on the floor of my kitchen as I could not stand for the intense laughter. We went on to continue with the shortbread creations...skipping possibly the crucial step of letting cool down in the fridge before baking....

We ended up with something that resembled shortbread, tasted like shortbread, but was a tad browner around the edges than it should have been. Not bad for a first effort really (especially considering the cooks were Collette and myself!!)

Top L: Apparently I do not own a rolling pin - so we used a cup.

Top R: ...which resulted in the shortbread mixture sticking to the cup...

Bottom L: One of the better looking christmas trees

Bottom R: All packaged up and ready to go.

BMedRes (Hons).

2010-01-10T00:27:00.000+11:00

I graduated (again) from my honours degree on wednesday December 16th. It was 34 degrees in the middle of our ceremony. This feels exceptionally hot when wearing a graduation cap and big thick black graduation robes, and parading through Hobart.

The Foa Lab A-Team!! Mills, Nath and Lils.

with Lils!

Lisa, the most wonderful supervisor ever, and her three first class honours students!! (I will have one of the mushroom hats one day!!)

Ben and Lils, ready to parade.

Parading...

Woo! Excited to be parading...

Still parading...

Lucy just before the ceremony..

Bel and Rhea (the Rhode Scholar and University Medallist!)

Me and Mum

After graduation, a few of us went out for dinner at Barcelona...

Flic and Rhe...

Myself and Bel..

And then drinks at the Squire's Bounty next door...

bel and chris..

Luc and myself..

Katherine and Rhe.

My Launceston BBQ

2010-01-10T00:21:00.002+11:00

Post started on the 8th December 2009

A couple of weekends ago I went home for the first time since July!! It was good to be in Launnie and to catch up with the Launnie YSA (because they are awesome!!). Jack threw me a BBQ on the tuesday, at the gorge, to celebrate my presence in Launceston! Woo!!

I beleive the mesage to all went something lke this...

"to celebrate the existance of Camilla Mitchell and her presence in the northern stake we will be ahving a bbq lunch.... Camilla will take anyones absence as a personal offense!"

Haha, classic!!

Apparently I have a lot of people to be personally offended at (kidding) as it was only a small BBQ with Jack, Danny, Rach and Hannah, but it was enough people to have a fun and hilarious afternoon.

Jack eating his 'kanga banga'

so. we had nothing to clean the BBQ with. For some strange reason we decided to use orange juice...

..we had to scrub pretty hard...

Still scrubbing...I think the orange juice worked but then kinda made things worse when everything went sticky...

...we eventually got it clean (well, clean enough!)

Trevor!! (Jack named the birds)

we went for a paddle in the pool...

took some photos...

went to look at some material for rachael's dress...Jack looked stunning in the shiny rainbow...

...We thought the flaming multi-coloured hearts suited rach...

..Rachael exclaimed that "if we were black the gold might suit us"

...and Jack asked Rach if she "wanted to look like a cow".

While we were at the gorge, Jack decided to see if he could do a handstand in the pool without getting his clothes wet...

...he succeeded.

Danny also tried to give it a crack....

...he failed...

Thanks for the BBQ guys!! Love the Launnie YSA!

Camilla's life everyday

2010-01-07T00:25:00.002+11:00

I have been inspired by Kim's 365 project from 2009, and Elle's start to a daily blog for 2010, and have decided to attempt my own daily blog for 2010. The aim is to take one photo a day, for 365 days, and to blog them every day. I do not know how successful this will be but I am willing to give it a try.

There is a link to my daily blog on the top right hand side of this blog....

On another note...

I have some serious blogging to do from the last couple of months. I will be having a mammoth blogging marathon over the next few days (I hope) so all will be up to date soon!

all eyes on me in the centre of the ring just like a circus

2009-11-19T11:28:00.001+11:00

Last weekend I headed to Melbourne to have a girls night out in Melbourne with Emma, at Rod Laver Arena, to see

"The Circus,

starring

BRITNEY SPEARS"

Thursday:

Oh how I hate you Jetstar.

Thursday night, my flight to Melbourne was scheduled for 5.45pm (well technically, when I booked it was scheduled for like, 2.30pm but had since been changed like 4 times, anyway...). At 4pm I received a text from jetstar telling me it had been delayed til 7pm. Bugger. I let Matt and Nic know (as they were taking me to the airport), and they picked me up a little bit later than planned. On the way to the airport, I forgot my phone, we had to turn back after being a few blocks away from my house. Then we got held up in traffic for aaaages as there was an accident on the bridge. Using nic's iPhone, I checked the estimated departure time. It had been delayed another 25 minutes (til 7.25pm), which in this case was actually kind of lucky seeing as how because of the crash we didn't make it to the airport til 6.45pm. So sitting at the airport...waiting....an announcement is made....the flight is now not leaving til 7.50 pm (ohhh i hate you jetstar!!!). Eventually at 7.35pm we start to board the plane....and do not leave til roughly 8pm....2 hours and 15 minutes later than scheduled. SIGH.

But I did make it to Melbourne. And Andrew did pick me up. And then it took forever to get to his house as there were roadworks on the freeway...(a night of delays!!).

But we made it!!

Friday:

Friday the 13th (Spooky) started early when I heard Ethan come downstairs at 6am...I did not get out of bed til about 8pm though, even though the whole time I could hear Ethan telling Asher to be quiet because "Aunty Camilla is sleeping". he he he. I got up, played with the boys, ate breakfast (Ethan wanted some so he got his own bowl of second breakfast, lucky thing!), and then I showered.

I then checked my phone and had a text from Emma saying that she could not find the tickets for that night. uh oh. never a good thing! She kept looking, did not find them, but found out that because we had reserved seats that we could go to the box office and get replacement tickets (phew!). I played with the boys some more, marevelled at how quick Asher is when he is crawling, was amazed at the amount of energy Ethan has (he just never stops!!), and then Emma and Tessa came over to play.

Tessa and Ethan love each other so much, it is adorable, they were so cute playing together, and they were both so good with bubba Asher too! When all three kiddies started to get tired, I left with Emma and Tessa to head to their place, stopping at maccas on the way for a soft serve (my first experience of Tessa and icecream - she just loves the stuff, and is so cute eating it, she just holds the cone at her mouth, and lets the icecream melt in to her mouth, making the biggest mess!).

When we got to their place, we met up with Eddy, played with Tessa (who out of nowhere became rather attached to me "Milla, Milla, Milla, Wheres Milla?, Milla Milla Milla" - so cute!) and got ready for the night.

Emma and I headed off to have dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Hardware lane (I had the most delicious sesame mustard coated beef with snowpea salad - yum) and we then caught a taxi to Rod Laver Arena for the show! When we arrived we lined up in the 'lost ticket' line, felt less embarrassed about losing our tickets when the girl in front of us told us she had gotten her tickets mailed to the wrong address, waited in line laughing at all the teeny booper outfits that people had on, along with the crazy high heels, short shorts, mini skirts and dresses, overkill of fake tan and bleached hair. We EVENTUALLY (it took aages) got our new tickets and headed in to the arena. Once inside, we scouted out the merchandise, and were super impressed with the amount of cheap merchandise (to make up for the crazy expensive merchandise), with myself buying $5 badges and $4 cups (bargain of the night!!), and Emma buying $4 cups and a $10 britney bracelet. We got icecream (which was crazy expensive of course), headed in to find out seats, and started taking photos and waiting for the circus to begin.

[With our Britney programs]

[my cheap merchandise]

Britney buttons

four dollar plastic cups - awesome

The view of the stage from where we were sitting

(the pole was a little annoying, but not too bad)

In my mask that came with our programs...

Ticket!

There was a countdown, that started at 25 minutes...

30 seconds to go....

20 seconds...

10 seconds...

5 seconds...

1 second...

Here we have very small, far away and

kinda blurry Britney in a cage

Yep, very blurry

Woo for Britney!

We had heaps of fun, it was amusing to bag out the lip synching, and laugh at her, but we did enjoy it and have a good time. The miming through her first song was very out of time, but she got much better as the night went on. We could tell when she was actually singing, and I think tht a lot of the time she would actually sing lines here and there, it was like there were two backing tapes, one for her the mime to, and one for her to actually sing to. We saw her get changed under the stage a couple of times!! and we laughed at her air guitar attempt (in a song that had no guitar in it....). The circus which was with her (which was a real circus) was pretty good, there were some way cool acrobats and dancers and stuff. And going along with the circus kind of theme, the funniest moment of the show was when, she had this bright pink hammer, and there were three dancers in holes in the stage, with the top half of their bodys exposed, and Britney played 'Whack-a-mole" with them! It was hilarious, but so brilliant! haha! Loved it. The arena came alive when she sang "baby one more time" and "toxic", and during her encore of "womanizer".

Here are some photos from the night we were at Britney, from her official website

This was SO cool!

Womanizer!

These were the awesome backup hip hop dancers,

that were my favourite.

They had their own introductions and all.

All in all it was a great night, and she was fantastic, she looks great, and is a good performer, and if anyone has a problem with being ripped off by her because she lip synchs her shows, then surely they should feel ripped off listening to her albums, because they are kidding themselves if they think the singing on the albums is actually her and it has not been altered dramatically.

After the show, we walked from Rod Laver, all the way back to Emma's house, which took about 45 minutes.

Saturday:

Saturday morning was an early one, as little miss Tessa did not do much sleeping the night before. We played at home in the morning, and then after Tessa went to bed, Emma and I headed down to docklands, and went to costco, which was awesome!!! And so American, and it reminded me of when I was little and Aunty Betty took us to costco in Utah! it was very fun, and we found some cool stuff, and I of course, took photos of fun things!

GIANT pizzas to take home and cook - they looked so good!

The wall of coke! Ahhh heaven!!

Giant pizza slice for lunch!

We had lunch at costco, a giant piece of pepperoni pizza (delish!), and then headed over to Harbour town to have a bit of a shop. After shopping, we went back to Emma's, played with miss Tessa who was awake and much happier, and then piled everyone in to the car and went to Lygon street, to go to country road and witchery (always fun), to visit the american lolly shop, and to but icecream (Tessa once again made a massive mess, but enjoyed herself so much eating her icecream!)

[Tessa eating her icecream and giving me her 'special' smile]

We then went back home and played for a little bit, before I had to leave for the airport to catch my flight home. Thankfully this time jetstar was more or less on time (I think we left 10 or 15 minutes late).

All in all it was a fun weekend, playing with Ethan, Asher and Tessa, and spending time with Emma and going to see Britney.

Results. check

2009-11-09T00:12:00.003+11:00

Oh yeah...I did check that I had my results back!

Come december 16 when I graduate (again, second time in two years!) I will be known as...

Camilla Mitchell BMedRes (Hons.) 1st class

Yiieww I got FIRST CLASS! So so so excited.

The year from hell was worth it!

I cannot wait for the day in roughly 3.5 years when I become

Camilla Mitchell, PhD

(otherwise known as Dr. Camilla Mitchell!)

I'm DONE!!!!!

2009-11-09T00:06:00.002+11:00

I'm done! I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done!

Thesis handed in. check

Seminar prepared. check

Seminar practiced. check

Seminar presented. check

On holidays. check

(well..except for tuesdays/tuesday nights when i'm working in the lab!)

Results back. check

I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done!

halloween.

2009-11-08T23:54:00.004+11:00

On saturday October 31, the YSA held a halloween dance, in the Flakemore's shed in the Huon. The evening started with the drive to the huon through some crazy fog which set the mood of halloween very nicely. The shed was decorated up awesomely, and to enter we had to go through a spooky, skinny maze in the dark. Everyone did such an awesome job with their costumes, and really got in to it...

Here are some happy snaps of everyone and their costumes!

[quite possibly the scariest looking Bert I've ever seen]

[I loved being a pirate - and I thoroughly enjoyed having a sword for the night]

[cold spaghetti, cold spaghetti!!]

[just playing the part of the boozy pirate! ;-)]

[I LOVED Elle's stickman costume....she looked awesome!!! good job El]

It was a really fun night, and everyone had fun dancing and playing awesome games run by El and Lauren! I particularly liked the video you guys made El!

Friday, October 16. D-Day.

2009-10-21T01:08:00.003+11:00

Friday, October 16, 2009.

This date seemed SO far away when honours started at the end of february.

When I handed in my literature review in April, Oct 16 seemed so far away.

When I gave my reading topic presentation in July, Oct 16 still seemed so far away.

When I stopped doing experiments in the lab at the end of September, Oct 16 still seemed a reasonable distance away (three weeks - plenty of time!)

However, October 16 did arrive. And it arrived quickly.

I did not make October 16th with ease however. In the build up, there were many late nights had. The normal routine was to wake up, be at uni by roughly 1030-11am each day. I did not arrive home til between 2 and 4am most mornings. My life consisted of sleep for a few hours, wake up, eat breakfast, go to uni, come home from uni 17 or 18 hours later, fall in to bed, sleep, and do it all again. Two meals per day were eaten in the office at uni. Usually those two meals turned in to all night grazing, or first dinner, second dinner and third dinner, just to keep entertained and to keep the brain supplied with energy!

The final day/night before it was due, no sleep was had. That is correct. On thursday, October 15, I arrived at uni at roughly 1030am. I did not leave uni to go home again until 2.30pm, Friday October 16.

That last, crazy night, five crazed honours students stayed all night in the office on the third floor. There was much coke drank. and much pizza and chocolate eaten. and much work done. and many weird crazy moments that have since probably been forgotten as they only occured out of tiredness. But the morning of October 16 did roll around. in fact, I was awake to welcome it. At roughly 5.30am, whilst sitting at my desk in the office, the birds started to chirp (seriously, really annoying when you are trying to do work and all they wanna do is tweet and chirp!!). I decided come 9am that my thesis was pretty much complete, after an intense night of proof reading and fixing and last minute typing. Between 9 and 11 am, much formatting occurred, with a trial print run....followed by what I thought was the first real deal copy, only to discover there was a formatting error with page numbers...yes...a whole thesis worth of paper was wasted....

Eventually, two complete copies were printed, and taken to the Xerox shop for binding. They were handed in, along with an electronic copy of my epistle. Yes, my epistle.

My thesis was massive. And it was handed in at roughly 11.45am, on Friday, October 16. All 144 pages of it. All 28, 587 words of it. All 32, 306 words of it if you count the gigantic reference list at the back.

Thank goodness for that!! That evening (ok it was still the afternoon), I was in my bed, fast asleep by 4pm, and I did not wake up again until 9.30am the next day. Bliss.

Pity I still have a seminar to give next thursday. It is nearly over!!

I forgot to mention...

2009-09-30T23:07:00.004+10:00

...in my three massive blog posts, that I am now a published author. Rob (from our lab, he is doing his post-doctoral fellowship, he is also my supervisors husband) published the data from his PhD thesis. I am also an author on the paper, as I ran a few experiments for my own thesis, which correlated with some of his work.

It was officially published in Neural Development on August 3, 2009, and can be found here.

Thesis update.

2009-09-29T00:25:00.000+10:00

Working title:

STIM1 and the regulation of store-operated calcium entry in dorsal root ganglia growth cones.

Introduction (chapter one):

Sections: 7

Figures: 12

Current word count: 6441

Materials and methods (chapter two):

Sections: 8

subsections: 7

Figures: 0

Current word count: 2199

Results/discussion 1 (chapter three):

Sections: undetermined

Figures: 6

Current word count:952

Results/discussion 2 (chapter four):

Sections: 8

Subsections: 14

Figures: 4 (but could end up with as many as 10)

Current word count: 2744

Results/discussion 3 (Chapter five):

Sections: undetermined

Figures: 3, but could be 5+

Current word count: 838

Conclusions/future directions:

Sections:0

Current word count: 0

Total current word count: 13, 174

I am possibly only half way done! Kill me now. I think that this thesis might kill me before the due date. yikes. It's just a little bit intense!

September - the month to have no life.

2009-09-29T00:10:00.000+10:00

Yep. It is official. I have no life. All I do is do experiments at uni, and stay late and write. Yuck.

This is what has happened in September:

*Saturday 5th September

Mum and Dad came down for the day to have lunch with nan and Pop for Father's day. That night, Matt, Nic and myself took them out for dinner at Me Wah, in Sandy Bay, to have a chinese Banquet. It was DELICIOUS!!

This weekend was also the first week of AFL finals!

*Sunday 6th September

Father-less Father's day dinner at Nicole's Mum's house. St Kilda also played in the first qualifying final and won against Collingwood.

*Tuesday 8th September

Tuesday night Rafter's Party with Elle and Coll

*Thursday 10th September

Our first basketball final. We lost to the dreaded red team.

*Friday 11th September

Ethan's third Birthday! He had a party on the saturday, but I couldn't fly over to Melbourne to attend unfortunately.

Neuroscience retreat all day at uni. ALl of the neuroscientists at Menzies Research Institute/UTas got together for a neuro day. It was really really good, we had some fantastic speakers and an awesome guest speaker, Alan Mackay-Sim, who has set up a lot of the Adult Stem Cell research centres across Australia - he's very well known and does some awesome and interestin research.

*Sunday 13th September

Sunday dinner at Fran's place, with all of the Docking crew and a few others.

*Monday 14th September

Optometrist appointment - I got new contacts and they are fabulous. So much more comfortable and clearer than my old ones! Brilliant!!

*Thursday 17th September

Our Baskteball prelim final - we won, which put us through to the grand final.

*Friday 18th September

St Kilda's prelim final against the doggies. They won in the last minute, and ended up winning by 7 points. Incredibly stressful. But we were in to the grand final!! So exciting!!

*Saturday 19th September

YSA soccer activity at the stake centre

*Sunday 20th September

Sunday dinner at Matt and Nic's

*Wednesday 23rd September

The boys basketball grand final: Drew, Matt, Joel, Leigh, Reuben, Seth. They won in the last minute of the game and it was INTENSE. Such a good game!!

*Thursday 24th September

OUR basketball grand final. We played the dreaded red team. It was a draw at full time. We lost by 5 points in extra time.

*Saturady 26th September

Grand Final Day!! Eeek so excited and nervous. Went to Matty's for the game. We (Matt, Nic, Drew, Chris, Paul) had pizza for lunch, cheesecake for dessert, and watched the mst intense game of football in my entire life! Stressful! Unfortunately the saints lost by 12 points and it was a sad sad day.

*Sunday 27th September

Sunday dinner at matt and nic's

*Monday 28th September

Lunch with Simon Foote, the Director of the Menzies Reseach Institute.

*************************************************

This whole month has been insane. My thesis is due on October 16th (which is REALLY close) and for the past two-three weeks I have been staying late at uni in the office to write. It has become pretty normal to start the day at 9am at uni, and not get home til midnight, if not later, because I am writing. It.is.INSANE. And I am going insane. But this thesis is going to be written, and it is going to be good..no...Great....no...BRILLIANT!!!!

busy.busy.busy.

2009-09-28T23:37:00.005+10:00

I have been SO busy lately, definitely busier than I thought was physically possible. But i thought I should blog my life over the past few months....Not that I can remember a whole lot of it!!

So I guess a lot happened in between my last two posts. The first post being Jess' wedding party, and the second being the nursery rhyme dance.

So since Jess got married and had her reception on July 3:

*Saturday 18th July

The YSA went on a snow trip to Mt field. It turned more in to a hike than a snow trip as there was very little of the white stuff on the ground. When we got to the VERY top we found some snow. There was enough for us to slide around and have a bit of fun!

That night we all went to Elle's for a bit of a Wii night

*Thursday 23rd- Monday 27th July

A little "get-away-from-everything" trip to Melbourne. I went over to visit Andrew, Beth, Ethan, Asher, Emma, Eddy and Tessa. I also caught up with my best friend from primary school and high school, Amy. I stayed at her place one night and we went to see 'Wicked', which was fantastic. I also introduced her (Yes, the Tasmanian introducing the Melbournian to something in Melb) to San Churro, which she loved and was delicious as always!!

Little bubba Asher

San Churro with Amy

Yummo!

*Friday 31st July

A girlie cousins night to the movies to see 'My Sister's Keeper'. We all cried like babies as it was so sad. But the book is WAY better! Definitely read the book before seeing the movie.

*Saturday 1st August

Andrew and Ethan came to Tassie for the weekend. On the Saturday, Mum, Dad, Andrew and Ethan came to Hobart to visit us. it was fun to play with the little boy and muck around with him! He's so cute!!

That night the YSA had a bit of a 'Dance Dance Revolution' Wii party at Elle's

*Friday 7th August

Lab drinks at uni to celebrate the paper getting published! I had my very own bottle of Apple Cider! haha - they look after me well!

That night I went to see GI Joe at the movies with a few people.

*Saturday 8th August

Jess and Kyle were in Hobart. That night we had dinner at Hogsbreath with them, Collette, Hayden, Paul and Alex. It was Hogsbreath's 20th birthday, so they were giving away free mudcake with every steak. Of course this meant we all ordered steak!

After dinner that night, we went to the Tolmans Hill house to help Josh celebrate his birthday.

*Monday 10th August

Another dinner at Hogsbreath for steak and cake. This time with Matty, Nic, Drew, Chris and Paul.

* Friday 14th August

Stake conference weekend. Friday night activity was a stake choral activity that was really good and entertaining, followed by a visit to the bakehouse with the YSA who were at the activity.

* Saturady 15th August

Nan and Pops 60th wedding anniversary. All of the family came over from melbourne and down from Launceston for the big party in the Huon. It was held int the Flakemore's shed and it was awesome, all of the family was there, except for a couple of families.

The three little Mitchell Grandchildren

*Wednesday 19th August

I attended Bill Mahina's (Chris and Muggsy's Dad) funeral. It was really sasd and I really felt for the boys as they were going through such a horrible time.

*Friday 21st August

A cousins 'Dance Dance Revolution' Wii party at Elle's place

*Saturday 22nd August

Open Housing with Kathryn Y, Lisa T, Jess B and Jess K.

Tip shopping and TV smashing with Kathryn Y and Lisa T - yes, we went to the tip shop, bought a ten dollar tv and a two dollar hockey stick, went out the back of nowhere and smashed it to pieces. Really quite fun and therapeutic.

Tip shopping

Before.....

After...

After this we went to touch footy with the missionaries.

That night a few people came over to my place, we had Annapurna for dinner and watched a few movies (Fiona B was visiting from Melbourne)

*Sunday 23rd August

YSA fireside at the kasinak's place. It was on marriage and was actually really good. It was run by Tom and Jenny Wright, Margaret and John Jury, and Steve and Monika Kasiniak.

*Friday 28th August

YSA Nursery Rhyme Dance

******* Not to mention all of the weekly things that occured in this time**********

*Basketball every thursday with a fun group of girls: Elle, Mary, Lisa and Brielle

* Institute every thursday night

* Getting sick about three times in this two month period

* weekly or bi-weekly late night eperiments in the lab doing turning assays.

*Weekly Tuesday night 'Packed to the Rafters' Parties at my place with Coll and Elle

* Sunday dinners at Matt and Nic's place

* Lots of crazy hours spent at uni doing experiments and writing my thesis.

Oh...and random moments that don't really fit anywhere....

Being in the lab late at night and discovering something on a poster of biochemical pathways in the hallway. I never knew that the process of endocytosis was also called "kiss & Run". I found this amusing at midnight.

Having pictures stuck on the wall in the office next to my desk, coloured in and drawn by my supervisors daughter, Lucia.

Finding comics in the mercury that we found amusing as it applied to all of us lab people!