Back to the other Oz

Guess whaaaaaat?  I'm headed home this summer!

Things have been going really well with my project here in Australia.  I've learned a ton about cell culture, developed a new method for bone marrow collection for cell culture, completed basic conventional and RT PCR training, completed basic serology training, grown up and titrated four strains of ASFV, learned about IMPT/IFAT... and on April 1 I will have completed my first ASFV trial in domestic pigs.

I have learned a ton - not only in the lab, but also about myself.  Moving to a new country was incredibly stressful yet a big adventure and chance for me to grow.  By the time I leave, I'll have lived here in Australia for about 10 months and successfully completed a ton of training in infectious disease research and virology.

The lab back home at Kansas State University/Biosecurity Research Institute has gained approval to work on ASFV, so there is a ton of work to be done to get things going.  When I left last fall, this approval hadn't come through yet.  ASFV is a Select Agent, meaning you need government approval to work on the virus.  So the original plan to have me train in Australia for 18 months has been cut to about 10 months.   Yet I have still gotten so much out of the time that I've spent here - both at the lab and experiencing a new country.

Plans are still developing, but it looks like I'll be home in May and soon after that I'll set things back up for myself in Manhattan.  Back to Wildcat Country!

EDIT:  I've told a few people here and there about my plans to head home, and I was disappointed to receive a bit of backlash.

    "You can't go home yet!  You haven't visited Perth/Adelaide/Darwin/Sydney!"

         - I haven't been a lot of places, but I have done a ton of things here in Victoria,

           I've seen the highlights, and I can always come back and visit to experience more
           of Australia.

    "But the Great Barrier Reef is disappearing, you have to visit it now now now!"

         - That's outside of my budget right now, plus I have a full-time job and can't take off

            to travel that far.

    "You need to go to the Melbourne Cup!  And a footie game!  And do all these

      other things..."

         - I attended the Geelong Cup, the Great Australian Beer Festival, White Night,

           Toast to the Coast, and the Portarlington Mussel Festival.  I've done Australia
           day.  I've done lots of other fun things with the people that I've met here.  I've
           done the best I can with the money I have and the weekends that I didn't have
           to work.

    "But remember that one time you missed out on that fun event that is essential

      for all visitors?"

         - Yes I do, I was busy growing up virus to use.  I was busy developing a bone

            marrow cell collection/culture protocol.  I was busy planning my upcoming trial.
            Because that's my JOB - the whole reason that I am here in Australia in the first
            place.

I look forward to more fun activities during the next few months, but I also have a trial starting in one week that will occupy most of my time.  And then all the testing to be done post-trial will keep me busy as well.  I'll do the best I can, working hard at my job but also trying to enjoy my last few months in Australia with friends.

Melbourne's White Night

Last weekend I got the chance to attend Melbourne's White Night.  This year was the second night for the event - last year they estimated about 300,000 people attended.  But this year they anticipated a lot more - they estimate that 500,000+ attended this year.

Waiting for the sun to set

White Night is a night festival held in Melbourne's CBD.  Areas were sectioned off to traffic (and thank goodness, because not even all the people could fit!).  The event had small districts divided into themes, all with the element of light.  There were huge projectors set up on each street that cast a facade onto each building wall.  It make the buildings appear as if they had been completely redecorated - and in the brightest colors!  Lots of them were dynamic with moving images.

The National Gallery became the "Tattooed City" with images of tattoos both zoomed in and on various people.  They showed the most intricate and colorful tattoos - it was by far my favorite exhibit.

Across the street in the park there were small screens set up with short films playing on them.  They were all super weird contemporary art films - I guess I just don't get art, but it was still interesting to see.  Overlooking the river you could see people walking around the decorated buildings.  Lots of people wore light-up glasses and necklaces, glow-in-the-dark jewelry and makeup and I can't even begin to count the number of sequined outfits I saw.  It was very colorful and stimulating - lots of energy in the middle of the crowd.

Finders Street Station

At about 11, the crow really swelled in front of Flinders Street.  I had a few moments where I was actually concerned.  It was shoulder to shoulder people, the crowd was constantly pushing from behind and sometimes there was no option to move forward.  I enjoyed looking at the lights, but I was glad to be done with the crowd at the end of the night.

More awesome photos of White Night can be found here:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/simoncrerar/melbourne-parties-from-dusk-to-dawn-for-white-night-festival
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/melbournes-white-night-festival-attracts-crowd-of-up-to-550000-20140223-33agq.html

All in all, a great Melbourne experience and a fun evening!!

Great Australian Beer Festival

A few weeks ago, I got the chance to attend the Great Australian Beer Festival (Yeah, I'm falling behind on posting stories, sorry about that).  Discount tickets were offered through work, so it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.  Peter, a fellow PhD student at AAHL and I both showed up at the gate as soon as it opened and enjoyed the afternoon tasting beer and cider.

First beers of the day!

The event was set up in different sections, with small booths for every brewing company set up throughout.  There were three music stages set up within the festival grounds and food vendors were planted in the middle.

Lots of people attended, but the crowds weren't too bad

One of the entertainment spots was a circus-type tent set up where they did various "acts".  The acts weren't all that great, but it was a shaded area in the grass to relax.  The morning started off comfortable, but by noon the sun was out in full force, so a break in the shade was a treat.  Some of the acts that we watched included a lady playing the accordion and telling terrible corny jokes, a hula-hoop act, and a really sad version of Evel Knievel.

Hula-hoop craziness

Roving entertainers

Samples were sold via tokens, and each sample was about 100 ml each.  When I had my first sample, I was a little disappointed at how much we got.  It was only a small taste of the beer.  But 30 samples later, I decided that the serving size was appropriate - it allowed you to fully sample the beer but still be able to taste others without passing out in an hour.  Regular Australian beer is about 5.0%, so you can't just drink it endlessly all day...

Beers/ciders that I got to taste included Napoleone's Pear Cider, 3 Ravens' White Ale, Murrays' Whale Ale, Hawthorne's Golden Ale, Mountain Goat's Steam Ale, Cavalier's Summer Ale, Mildura Brewery's Honey Wheat, Feral Brewing Company's Sly Fox, Killer Sproket's Amber Ale, Kooinda Brewery's English Red Ale, Little Creatures' Bright Ale,  and my favorite of the day: Prockley Moses' Blueberry Hefewizen.  I'm sure I missed a few, but those were the ones that I wrote down on my program :P

  

The day was a great success, and we both managed to avoid sunburn.  I was glad to be able to enjoy Australia's beers as well as Australia(s)Wine!

Australia Day

January 26th is Australia Day, or as many Aussies call it: 'Straya Day.  I found it to be a very interesting holiday, particularly because of the history behind it.  Australia Day is celebrated much like the 4th of July in the US.  Everyone has a big BBQ with friends and family, people go to the beach and enjoy being outside.  There's lots of red, white and blue and clothing with the flag on it.  Though people don't set off fireworks in their driveway here in Australia, they still had a fireworks display down by the bay.

I celebrated Australia Day in the most Australian way I knew how - being outside!  It's especially important for me to get outside on the evenings and weekends since I work in a lab with no windows.  Down on the waterfront was the Festival of Sails.  They had a crafty marketplace, food court area, a kids activity spot as well as a stage with live entertainment all day.

These ladies sang "Waltzing Matilda" - very patriotic

There were also sailboats doing different races throughout the weekend, but unless you were directly involved, it was a bit hard to watch the boats out on the bay (too far away to see anything).  Something about a Regatta - I know nothing about boats/sailing so I didn't really get what was going on, some sort of race thingy.

Pirate-like ship spotted at the Festival of Sails.  I think this was the same ship I saw at the Portarlington Mussel Festival

Very patriotic, though I didn't recognize all the flags

I found it very funny, in the marketplace area, they had a booth for the Cancer Council.  It was manned with ladies actively squirting people with sunscreen.  The sun is no joke here.  Back in the US we have a bit of an ozone layer, so if you lay out too long you'll get crispy.  But here, the UV is VERY intense.  You'll have third-degree burns if you spend a day outside without sunscreen.

Down with Melanomas

Of course, all of this fun was interspersed with LOTS of Australian flags.  Evidently it's a "thing" down here to wear the flag as a cape...  I also saw lots of Australian flag temporary tattoos on people's faces.

Lots of Australia paraphernalia for sale

You're not Australian if you're not wearing a flag

Seen on one of the Australia Day booths - quite Australian, haha

Amidst the crafts and food, they also had rides for the kids and other entertainment.  Down by the beach a 2v2 volleyball tournament was going on, and someone brought a bunch of camels for people to ride.  I must admit, the camels were odd, but entertaining.

Other Australia-Day-isms... Havaianas thong floaties.  (They call them thongs here, not flip-flops).  Every year on Australia Day at one of the Torquay beaches, a fundraiser is held to see how many people they can get out in the water with these giant blow-up thong floaties.  The money goes towards a cancer fund, and I'm told they get something like 12,000 people out there at one time.  After spending the early part of the afternoon down by the waterfront in Geelong, I decided to enjoy the rest of the day at the beach in Torquay to see all the floaties.

I couldn't get a good photo with all the floaties visible, but this is a taste of what the entire beach looked like.

Bright orange blow-up thongs everywhere!

There were plenty of Australian-isms present at the beach as well.  Everyone making sandcastles, playing cricket on the beach, BBQ-ing in the nearby park.  Everyone was having a great time.

Cricket kits were all over the place!

I did my best to join in on the patriotism with a $10 Australian-flag bikini that I got from Kmart.  I had a fantastic afternoon on the beach soaking up  some sun and people-watching.  Of course, I wore plenty of sunscreen and didn't get burned at all (awesome!).

I finished off the day by picking up fish and chips on my way home from the beach.  All-in-all a great first Australia Day!!

Oh the weather outside is weather...

Today was the first day it was actually comfortable to be outside.  While the US has been suffering through a "Polar Vortex" (I'm still massively annoyed by that term.  It's not a hurricane or anything, why does it have to be named?), down here in Australia there's been a serious 5-day heat wave.  Back in KS, I've had summers with 100F days, but we had four days in row with temps reaching as high as 113F.  113 - do you have any idea how hot that feels?  Massively miserable... especially since the place I'm staying doesn't have air conditioning.

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately depending on how you look at it), I'm inside at work during the hottest parts of the day.  And yes, there is air conditioning at work (thank God).  Still, it's been blazingly hot in the mornings and evenings, and today was the first break in the heat.  Looks like we'll be able to enjoy at least a week of comfortable temps.

Daily projected highs were about 100F but it surpassed 110F every single day!

During a heat wave, what is there to do to escape?  Go to the beach!  The beach was pretty busy in the evenings, and I had a blast with a few of the PhD students enjoying the cool water after work.  It's nuts - it's summer, so of course the sun sets later, but the sun is much more intense here than back home.  There is a SERIOUS hole in the ozone layer, so you don't just get a sunburn, you pretty much get instant skin cancer.  So when we get off work and hit the beach at 6pm, we're still lathering up with 50+SPF to enjoy the water.

That pelican was so cool

In other news, I enjoyed the Portarlington Mussel Festival last weekend with one of my co-PhDs.  They had a ton of booths set up with crafty things for sale, lots of ethnic food to try, and of course: mussels!!  I had coconut chili mussels - deeelish!  They were cooked up fresh off the boat.  The seafood has been a big part of why I was looking forward to living in Australia, so we can mark that one off the 'to-do' list!

The mussels tasted extra-delicious once we got them because there was a long wait before they were ready.  We decided to hasten the wait by enjoying pints of craft beer.  Hooray beer!

They had an old-masted ship at the dock as part of the festival - that was pretty dang cool too.  I kept calling it a pirate ship because, I mean, look at it - it looks like it needs a few pirates on board to make it complete.  All in all, a fun afternoon near the water.

Joey (2001-2014)

The holidays have come and gone, and I had a great time with Dad.  He arrived on Dec 16, and we spent a few days touring the Great Ocean Road and surrounding sights.  Christmas day was spent in Geelong with my host family, and then on Boxing day we headed to Melbourne on the train to have a few days in the city.  Dad's trip was busy and fun, and it was extremely hard to say goodbye to him when he flew home New Year's day.  I'll do a full post later with detail and photos, but today I want to talk about my dog back home.

Since Dad landed, on Dec 16, my dog (Joey) has been sick.  He first presented with lethargy, diarrhea, and shortness of breath.  They did chest rads and found fluid in his lungs.  Over the next month, he had fluid drawn off his lungs every few days, which seemed to make him more comfortable.  But the fluid kept accumulating, and he showed no signs of improvement after courses of antibiotics and diuretics.  Some of the fluid from his lungs was sent off to a lab for analysis, and results took a bit longer than expected due to the holidays.

Joey's illness has been very stressful because we didn't know exactly what was causing the problem.  I was worried it could be something that had a cure with a treatment plan and we just couldn't figure out what it was, but also concerned that it might be cancer (since he's an older dog).  It was also a very stressful time because Mom was at home on her own trying to help Joey, and Dad was out of the country.

Thankfully, two days after Dad landed back in the states, we finally received results that cancer was causing Joey's problems.  I was extremely sad to hear this news, but also slightly relieved, because it meant that we could make that hard decision with a clear conscience.  Joey was not improving, and fluid keep accumulating in his lungs making his breathing difficult.  On Jan 3, Joey was allowed to pass peacefully.

I am so heartbroken to lose Joey, and it's been exceptionally hard because I'm so far away.  I've been so lucky to be in email contact with a person from the clinic as well as receiving updates and photos from my family.  I know that Joey is at peace now, and hopefully I don't grieve too long.  Miss you lots, Joey.

                                                     Joey and Josh in 2004

                                Joey and Alyssa in 2005 - Joey always loved kids

                                                Hanging out with Joey in 2007

Joey on his favorite chair in 2007, though he preferred to sleep under it rather than on it.

Joey being handsome in 2007 and 2009

                                                  Joey and I in 2008 and 2009

We had a lot of great Christmases with Joey.  He wore the obligatory red bow in 2005 and 2007.

                                   With Conner and Joey on Christmas Eve 2007

                                       Joey's 2012 Christmas photo at Laura's house

Joey enjoyed quite a few snowy winters in Kansas.  Enjoyed?  Actually, he didn't really care for the snow all the much, especially not the cold that came with it.  He shortened his walks when it would get too cold outside, as well as if it was too hot.  The photo above is from a snowstorm in 2007, and the photos below are from 2011.

                                           Joey looking very dapper in his sweater

                                Joey was a great sport, ringing in 2009 with a festive hat.

                                                           With Dad in 2005

Dad and Joey on the deck in 2011 - Joey always loved following Dad around when he'd be outside doing yard work.  But his favorite activity was to be Dad's shadow while grilling on the deck.

      Joey loved "helping" with the grilling, but his biggest contribution was being underfoot.

This photo is from Thanksgiving 2010.  With everyone relaxing, I'm guessing it was after a big Thanksgiving lunch.

              Joey was a great sport when I brought Eddie home for a weekend in 2012

Joey always seemed to enjoy visiting Laura and John across town.  He'd play for short periods with their dog Felix, and spend the rest of his time begging to be pet (most often trying to sit near John).  Felix would always outrun Joey, being younger and very agile, but Joey still enjoyed their short play periods.  Mom spent Christmas with the Romines and I'm told that Joey still did some playing with Felix even though he had trouble breathing.  I'm glad to hear that Joey had a fun Christmas.

Joey was always so good with my guinea pig, Suki (aka "potato").  Being a rodent-hunting breed, I was initially concerned that I'd have to be careful that he didn't get her, but luckily he was semi-afraid of her.  Suki was blissfully unaware that Joey could easily eat her, and Joey would sniff her out sometimes and then quickly back away.  They were pretty funny to watch together.

 

Another of Joey's favorite activities was playing with his toys, particularly tennis balls.  As he aged, he would play less and less, but he never really gave it up all together.  When he was younger, he'd get really excited while playing and run figure eights around the dining room table and couch.  We called it the "Westie 500".

Joey also really enjoyed car rides.  Dad would often take him along for a trip to the bank or the store.  After shopping, Dad would take him for a circle around the block to allow Joey to enjoy the new sights and smells.  The photos above are from 2011 and 2013.

Joey loved his walks and playing, but he especially loved his naps.  He was always very happy to find a sunspot to sleep in.  If he had his way he'd sleep in the bed every night, but that only happened when I visited home.  Whenever his regular routine was disrupted, such as going to visit someone at their house, Joey enjoyed the activity and new smells.  But as he aged, he would sleep hard for 2-3 days after these visits, especially if the house had another dog that he could play with.  He certainly enjoyed his 18 hr naps everyday.  Both photos above are from 2013.

                                After being rudely awoken from a couch nap in 2012

                                           Snuggling next to my leg in 2013

                      Cuddling with the Joey the night before I left for Australia in Sept

                                 Sleeping on Mom's quilted bedspread in 2013

Joey and I got to spend some quality time together before I left for Australia in Sept.  I was in Wichita for about two weeks enjoying time with family.

Thanks to videochatting over the internet, I was able to see Joey a few times while chatting with my folks.

During an afternoon sitting-in-the-sun session earlier in Dec, Joey definitely has an old-man face.

Joey was really important to me, and I'm sad to see him go.  But in creating this post, I've had the chance to enjoy all the photos I have of Joey.  And I'm reminded that he had a long full and happy life - not all dogs are as fortunate.  I'm happy to know he had such a wonderful life.  I can only hope my future pets will be as great as Joey was.