Breaking the silence

Hello all!

Again, apologies for being so quiet on here..... It's amazing how time flies at the moment - you blink and next thing you know another 2 months have gone by!

To be honest, I'm just about over the emotional roller coaster ride of 2008 .... I really hope 2009 will be a little more steady and calm...

Of course it hasn't all been bad - actually it's been a lot more good than bad really!

The problem with the evil vollie (I mentioned in the last post) somehow sorted itself out, it seems. It just kind of disappeared into thin air and it seems that everybody just overreacted a bit at the first shock of hearing that story... Thank God is all I can say, that's a HUUUUUGE relief!

Everything has been going well with the PhD since that problem vanished - I finished my first field season without any more complications. And it was a pretty successful first season: 24 survey days, covering almost the entire Moreton Bay area, 57 sightings of bottlenose dolphins, I've identified 146 different dolphins based on photographs of their dorsal fins and managed to shoot (sorry, biopsy sample) 21 dolphins - which I think is pretty good for a first try!!

So at the moment I'm learning genetics! Have just extracted DNA from my samples and am about to start running PCRs etc... It's a steep learning curve and nowhere near as difficult as I had thought/feared.... It's true, it really is just like cooking - chop up your meat, add some ingredients, mix really well, stick it in the oven.... ;)

So yeah, work is great... which of course means...... if the work life is going well then the love life has to go downhill, right??

Kinda ironic how this year has really been like that... everything was going so wonderfully great in my personal life (house, car, friends and a man) when my PhD went into spectacular meltdown and almost blew up in my face... now that's all sorted out and the work life is going really well again and boom.... the other side falls apart. I guess you can't have it all.....

Well I'm not going to go into detail here.

But I will say that the last week has taught me one thing for sure (not that I didn't know this before but it was a pretty strong reminder): I am so lucky - I have so many amazing friends, the best friends in the world, all over the world actually :) I don't think anyone can be sad for very long with friends like you guys - I love you all, thanks!!!

Ina

xoxo

Still alive... sorta...

Hi all!
Sorry, I realise I haven't updated this in months!
Well the last 2 months of my life have been a trip to say the least! It would take me hours to tell you everything that happened so I'm gonna try to boil it down to the essentials...

Well I've started fieldwork and that has just been a constant up and down! On the up-side, the weather has been fairly good, lots of dolphins, and biopsy sampling is actually a LOT of fun!!!
I still need a lot of practice, still missing a lot of shots, but I have collected 15 samples so far and I think that's a pretty good result for the first ~ 3 weeks of field time. On the down-side I've had a lot of issues with leaky boats (and a boat that can't turn left, kinda like Zoolander...) and I've had the volunteer from hell in July... Can't go into details there but after I thought I'd gotten rid of her, she's now back to haunt me with a vengance!!! You have NO idea.... it's actually quite serious and making my life hell at the moment, like I said, probably shouldn't give details on the internet... Just keep your fingers crossed for me that it'll all get sorted out!
At least my current volunteers are absolutely great, love them, they are a huge support and a big help in the field - and they are just good fun to be with which is very important when you spend that much time together. So big THANK YOU out to Ces, Irys and Tom!

Other than that, things have been really great lately (which is why it was such a shock when this huge issue came up ... just when you think everything is wonderful, something goes spectacularly wrong).
I've finally moved into my new place, now nicknamed "the Princess Pad" (because it's in Princess Street, not what you think ;)) and am absolutely loving it!!! Still waiting for bits of furniture to be delivered and for the phone and internet to be connected, but feeling very much at home already! Once I'm done with this field season (in about 2-3 weeks) I'll have time to start decorating, putting up pictures, etc, I can't wait for that!!!

For everyone that's in the general Brisbane area:
There will be a huge birthday / housewarming / end of first field season - party on September 26!!

Right, that's gonna have to do for a quick update... will upload some pics soon (don't have them on this computer at uni), but in the mean time, check out my facebook album with plenty of pics of the Princess Pad!

My House!

As I mentioned in the last post, a while ago, I recently bought an apartment so I figured it was time to put some pictures up!!! It still looks a bit like a construction site but I think it's gonna be gorgeous once it's finished!!! Which should be in about 3 weeks time!! Fingers crossed!

Anyway, this is the apartment block,

"Samui Terraces" at 8 Princess Street, Fairfield, QLD:

And that's my place, unit 6, with the great big balcony and view over the backyard with some lovely big eucalypts! And car parking below!
This is the living room, balcony to the left, kitchen to the right
Balcony
Kitchen
My bedroom, with ensuite bath and walk-in closet (on the right edge of the pic) My bath, with bathtub - yay!

More pics will come soon as things get done...

Finally settling down?!

Wow, I've just had the craziest, longest week ever... and it's not quite over yet!

My PhD is slowly coming together and July is fast approaching, which is when I am supposed to start field work.... aaaah.... so much to organise still!!! Boats to book, volunteers to recruit (woohoo, I get my own volunteers to boss around after being one of them for YEARS!!), equipment to buy, schedules to figure out, budgets to calculate... And then there's still the ongoing quest to get funding, writing the lit review, sorting out what the hell I'm doing when it comes to the genetics analysis...

And as if the PhD wasn't keeping me busy enough, I'm also currently having my parents visiting from Germany for 2 weeks to help me essentially sort out my new life (it's quite handy to have a dad who's in the real estate business himself and knows all the legal terms etc). So we've spent the last week looking at apartments, cars, insurances, loans ...... essentially running from one agent/office/bank to the next, I definitely reached a point of information overload!

But it's all slowly coming together, at least I have now bought my first ever car, a Toyota RAV4 which will hopefully reliably carry me, my 3 volunteers, and a bunch of field gear to and from the coast... So far I'm pretty happy with it anyway :). I took it (and my parents) for a nice drive up and around Mount Coot-tha today....

And I've also found an amazing little townhouse style apartment in Dutton Park, which I totally fell in love with at first sight, even though it's still in the last stages of construction (to be finished in 4-6 weeks). It has two storeys, 2 bedrooms (each with it's own bathroom and one with a walk-in closet!!) upstairs and a large kitchen and living area downstairs, plus a huge balcony overlooking the backyard which is nice and green with some gorgeous big old eucalypt trees lots of birds and apparently possums... It's also located about 5 minutes from the bridge which connects Dutton Park with the UQ campus across the river, so I can walk to uni in 15 minutes (or bike) - super convenient!! And also close to the pubs and lifestyle of West End and Southbank and right near the train station which takes me into the city centre in 5 minutes. But it's a much more quiet and residential neighbourhood than most of the suburbs around there, where I've been looking at apartments as well.

So yeah, I'm sooo happy we found this place (really lucky!)! We'll most likely finalise the deal with the developer on Monday or Tuesday and then I'll be a home owner!!! I can't wait to move in and live in my very own place!

Seriously, it feels like I'm finally starting the real life - no more living in student housing where I'm not allowed to put up a picture if I want to, no more moving from one country to the next.... my own car, my own place... I feel so grown up!!! ;)

Now all I need is a husband, a dog, a white fence and 2.4 children - haha!! Nah, no rush there!

Easter at the Gold Coast

For the long Easter weekend, Gabi and I took 2 days off to get away and caught the train down to the Gold Coast!

We spent the entire Saturday at Wet 'n' Wild Water World, which is a massive outdoors water theme park, with lots of slides and other fun stuff. Just perfect for a big water baby like me :)

We had a blast splashing around, racing down slides, getting thrown around on a giant surfboard, perving on life guards (hehe) and relaxing by floating around in circles on big plastic tubes...

After that it was on to Surfers Paradise to enjoy the Easter fireworks Saturday night and then spend Easter Sunday at the beach, relaxing!
It sure was nice to look at the ocean and remind myself again what it is I'm doing all this paperwork for at the moment ;)

All in all - a perfect weekend and not a bad way to spend Easter (even though there were no bunnies or eggs involved)...

More pretty pics of Brisbane

Some more pics for you, this time during the day!

Some lovely pics of Brisbane at night!

On Friday night, Gabi and I went out to Southbank (the parklands along the Brisbane river, opposite the city centre). We had a beautiful stroll through the parklands and along the artificial beach which is just gorgeous at night - felt like being in some expensive resort on a tropical island!!!

And afterwards we went for some salsa dancing on Little Stanley Street. It was heaps of fun, just a bunch of people who set up a stereo and just danced outdoors in a little square between the cafés and restaurants. It's every Friday night so I'm sure this won't be the last time for us... It's so great to salsa again, it's been a while!!! Brisbane seems to have a pretty big latin dancing scene, yay! I really want to get back into it and seeing some of these people dance... there's a lot still to learn for me!!!!

Apartment - inside :)

Due to popular demand, here are some more pics of my apartment, this time the inside of it :)

The living room

The kitchen

The balcony

My bedroom