The end

Last night (or rather tonight, as I haven't actually slept since) was the perfect way to end an incredible year in Australia. After a lovely last visit to Cottesloe with the McKiernans at sunset, I got dressed up and Ryan picked me up to head into the city one last time. The ASMR Medical Research Week Dinner was held at the very fancy Parmelia Hilton Hotel in the city; we walked through the lobby and upstairs to find a reception room packed with scientists, businessmen and politicians in their gladrags. We grabbed our name tags and attached to mine were instructions on when I'd be collected during the course of the evening to go up and get my award. It wasn't going to be until dessert, so we grabbed a glass of champagne and found the rest of the team, who we'd be sharing a table with. Seeing everyone in their finery was so nice and a welcome change from the sneakers and jeans we see every day in the lab!

The doors to the dining room opened and we were shown to a round table near the stage. Around our table was team Lindy (Ivan, Michael, Wissam, Marcus, Ryan and myself) plus German Jenny, Ivana, Andrew and Kalina. Because they were late to get tickets, Andy and Maria were at the adjacent table with a group of randoms. There was a welcome speech from a lady who apparently used to present the news, then the starters arrived and the Platinum Awards were given out. Andy got one for his talk; it came in the form of $1000! Doing a PhD is clearly a lucrative business for him as he's a really confident speaker. It was at this point that my attention was drawn to the rolling slideshow of the award winners and I spotted my name. My award was funded by the Mothers and Infants Research Fund, which I thought was nice, if unrelated to what I spoke about! The food was delicious and everyone was having a great time.

After the main course, the guest speaker did his speech. Professor David Sinclair is an Australian who's spent his post-doc career at Harvard Medical School working on genes to combat aging. His work is incredible and it was great to hear about the research he's pioneering. As well as describing his work, he spoke about the importance of medical research and stressed how important what we're all doing is, which I think everyone found very inspiring. After his talk, I went up to get my award. I had a photo taken with a representative from the research fund and was presented with a certificate, along with $350. Not a bad last week's work! We then had group photos and photos by institution, so it was cool to be with Andy and the rest of the UWA winners. We then returned to the table for dessert and a few drinks before the dreaded dancing started and we decided it was time to make a move. Seeing scientists so far from their natural habitat gives me the creeps!

This meant it was time to say my goodbyes, which was tough. Lindy and I had a conversation about my PhD; if I want to do it here, I'll have to apply for the international scholarship, which is extremely competitive and requires at least 3 published papers, which I should have by next year with any luck. She made the very good point that I need to do it at a good institution and not necessarily at UWA just because I like the people. Edinburgh and UCL are both very prestigious in our field, but they don't have 6-month summers and beaches... The point is, I'm pretty much sold on doing one now, which is more than I could say when I started here, so that's a huge development. I gave the rest of the team a hug goodbye and promises that I'd be seeing them soon, then Marcus, Ryan, Ivana and I left the hotel to find the cars. We left Marcus at this point (second hardest goodbye I had to make) and dropped Ivana at her halls of residence on the way back to Peppermint Grove.

Team Fitzgerald selfie!

Suddenly I was standing in front of Ryan outside my door and it was time to leave him. We've become such good friends over this year and I really don't know how I'll cope with not seeing him every day. We're very similar and get on unbelievably well; considering he's a self-confessed intolerant, grumpy bugger, the fact that he can't seem to find a flaw in my personality is a huge compliment. However, my tears were kind of a good thing as it verified that I'll be back in Australia very soon. We've already planned that I'll work in his lab when he's a supervisor and we'll cure spinal cord injury together. Sorted.

I got home at midnight, did some last-minute packing and abandoned all hope of sleep due to the sheer excitement of coming home. Candice, Jess and Maggs all drove me to the airport, where I said goodbye and a huge thanks for all they've done for me. Jess will be in England in ten days, so at least that was one less permanent goodbye. So here I am. At the airport. Waiting to board my flight to Dubai. My time in Australia is over and I can't fathom where the time has gone. After what feels like a very rapid nine months, I've developed a huge connection with this country and the amazing people in it and I hope to be back very soon, either for a holiday or to persue a career in science, which I think makes this placement a great success. 22.5 hours now separate me and the UK, where my lovely parents will be waiting with open arms.

Placement: Done!

Goodbye UWA

I just finished my last day at work! This morning was my farewell morning tea; everyone baked cakes and gathered in the tea room to give me a classic EaRN send off. I received my token UWA hoody, apparently the go-to gift for all leaving “Bathies”, along with a card that everyone had written lovely messages in. A few people who no longer work in our building turned up, so it was nice to see some old faces! The only thing on today’s agenda was working on my discussion, which I’ve just submitted for further comments. I’m going to have to remember that I do actually still have alterations to make over the summer, which is going to be difficult when I’m busy being reunited with all my loved ones! However, I think I can afford to give myself the next few weeks off :) By 2pm, I was packing up my stuff and leaving the lab for the final time.

This afternoon has mainly consisted of packing. Looking at my bulging case and the pile of stuff still left to cram in, I’m a little concerned about getting everything home! That old chestnut of wearing ten layers on the plane could well become a reality. I’m going to take a short nap before I get ready for the conference dinner, a.k.a the last time I’ll see all my work friends before I leave the country. It’s going to be an emotional one for sure! I’ll also receive my award, which is pretty exciting. Considering the fact that we’re leaving for the airport at 3am, I probably won’t bother sleeping after I get back from the dinner and just try to sleep on the plane instead. 14 hours until take-off.

Penultimate day

These last few days in Australia are proving to be nothing short of perfect. My second to last day at work was one of tying up loose ends, with a large chunk of good news thrown in for good measure. Campus was absolutely shining in the winter sun at 8am; so beautiful! I spent the morning making sure my lab book was up to date, amongst other exciting things like helping Ryan with his surgery. It's officially the last day I'll decapitate and dissect baby rats: Yippee!

The main meeting of the day was a "handover" with Lindy, which involved returning all the equipment I've been using, telling her where various reagents are stored and filling her in on what needs ordering before the next Bath student arrives. We also went through my final "programme outline, learning and objectives" form, which gets sent off to Bath as part of my assessment for this year. It asks for a mark out of 5 and a comment for various categories like communication, critical thinking, interpersonal skills etc. I was absolutely delighted with what Lindy had written about me, which was very complimentary. I experienced a huge wave of pride as I realised how far I've come since starting out in September as an absolutely clueless undergrad; she told me that I've become an integral part of the team who gets along with everyone and I'll be sorely missed. Most importantly, she also stressed that (if I were to choose to persue a PhD after I graduate) I should get in touch as they'd be happy to have me. As someone who, before the start of this year, was dead set on escaping education as quickly as possible, I now find myself seriously considering it. Three more years in this beautiful country, all in pursuit of getting "Dr" in front of my name, would be an incredible experience. There are huge hurdles to overcome to do it, such as getting a visa and a scholarship, but having my name on three published papers (fingers crossed!) would definitely help my case. We'll have to see what the future holds!

I was just returning to my desk to make some last-minute progress on my discussion, which has taken a bit of a backseat during all the excitement of the conference, when Lindy popped her head round the door. She was emailed by ASMR to check I'm attending the dinner, because I won a prize for my presentation! I'm so unbelievably happy to have done so well at something I've always associated with extreme nerves. Only Andy and I were successful out of the entire lab, which is predominantly PhD students, so that's an absolutely huge achievement for me as an undergraduate student. I'll have to find out tomorrow evening whether the prize takes the form of a large cash sum, but in either case it's a fantastic way to end my time in Australia. I was on cloud nine to such an extent that I couldn't focus on work for the rest of the day! As is tradition within Team Fitzgerald, Ivan, Marcus and Ryan took me to lunch at the University Club, which is members only and pretty fancy. Sitting in the winter sun with a cold one, chatting to three people who have become firm friends during this incredible year, made me realise how lucky I am and put a melancholy twist on the fact I'm leaving in two days' time.

Back at home, I was met with someone who was just as excited to be finishing as I was. Jess handed in all her final assignments today, meaning that university is finished for her forever! Candice was visiting with Maggs (their Mum) for a few days, so it was big hugs and compulsory champagne all round. I grabbed a quick shower before we headed to Bread in Common in Fremantle for dinner. It's an incredible building that I've only visited for breakfast before, so it was great to see it all lit up in the evening with dangling fairy lights. We had Prosecco over a girlie catch-up, accompanied by probably the most unbelievably tasty food I've had since arriving here. Sharing plates of snapper, cuttlefish, beef cheeks and lamb ribs, all garnished in beautiful, fresh local veggies with Yallingup wood fired bread dipped in olive oil. Yum! We then had desserts and cocktails, because I hadn't ingested enough calories yet...

Pretty cool, right?

Jess and her lovely mama

Old Fashioned a la Ryan Gosling

Getting into the car and leaving Freo for the last time was sad. Although I live in Perth, Fremantle is just a short train ride away and has provided frequent breaks from the city. Countless evenings have been spent visiting all the local bars, such as the amazing Little Creatures Brewery, and dining on cheap Japanese food at the Old Shanghai and ice cream from the Gelato. I've spent many Sundays perusing the local markets and picking up trinkets in the countless little boutique shops. Seeing the docks and the river shrink into the distance was quite emotional; I know I have to return one day soon for a splash of culture and maybe a ferry crossing to Rottnest Island. I'm about to fall asleep in Australia for the very last time, before a big last day of work, the ASMR dinner, a sleepless few hours at home and a very early car journey to the airport.

ASMR conference

I just got home from the conference. It was the most draining and fun day, despite the long build-up and all the terror associated with it. It was an opportunity to spend time with the gang from work, I learnt a lot and, most importantly, I took the plunge and spoke in front of a pretty high-profile audience! The Australian Society for Medical Research did not know what hit it.

I was all dressed up at 7am for Ryan to pick me up. We collected Marcus from Claremont and drove north of the city to Edith Cowan University, where the conference was held. After getting completely lost on campus, we finally found the right car park and building in time for registration. This involved picking up a sticker with our names on, I assume for networking purposes, and hanging around waiting for it all to start. Pretty much our whole lab was there, either to present or just to support the team. At 9am, we went into the main lecture theatre for the introductory talks. Jess’ old school friend Britt, who I met at a dinner a while ago, sat down right in front of me; she’s lovely and it was great to catch up with her one last time before I leave.

The room I presented in (it was more full, I promise)

After a short welcome from the organisers, a plastic surgeon specialising in burns took to the stage for the plenary seminar. She showed us some pretty harrowing photos of 80+% burn coverage and worse, mostly of children, which I think most people found pretty hard to swallow. Even people like us, who deal with animal surgeries every day, aren’t used to seeing such horrific injuries and I struggled to fathom how she deals with that on a daily basis. However, after the intial shock factor, she told us about this incredible therapy they’ve developed, which is essentially stem cells in an aerosol. Spraying them onto the edges of skin grafts helps them to stretch as the patient grows, which stops scars from burns sustained in childhood becoming taut and raised in adulthood. Incredible! Forgive me for geeking out about it, but this kind of thing genuinely excites me these days.

The first session began: Those presenting and judging in the three smaller seminar rooms left, but the majority of people stayed in the main lecture theatre which, as luck would have it, is where I was presenting. The least experience people talking in the biggest, scariest room: Makes sense. At least some of the pressure was taken off by Lindy not being present, as she was judging one of the other sessions elsewhere. There were six speakers in my session; here’s what we all talked about:

 It’s lucky that I have the programme to look back on because I was not aware of anything going on around me; it all went by in a blur of nerves! I do vaguely remember Ivana, the other student from Bath, doing her presentation, but being last and having to watch everyone else go up and talk just made me freak out. Before I knew it, it was time to make the longest walk of my life down to the front of the room, making a lot of noise in flip flops. As I started my presentation, it was so nice to have my team’s smiling faces looking down on me from the back of the room and I managed to shake my nerves and give a pretty coherent talk. The questions were all pretty easy to answer too, which was a surprise as I’d done next to no preparation for them. My talk marked the end of the session and, as we breaked for morning tea, I breathed a huge sigh of relief as this meant I could relax and enjoy the rest of the day (and all the free food!).

Next, we watched a session in one of the smaller rooms, which Kalina from our lab was presenting in. Each session featured students of one particular level of experience; as we were exceptions, Ivana and I were lumped in with Honours students (the first year after graduation), and I could really tell the difference between those who presented with me and Kalina’s second year PhD group. They got much tougher questions, that’s for sure! Kalina had a little altercation with a lady who was trying to give her a hard time but failing miserably, which was pretty funny. I was really impressed with the breadth of topics being covered; to think that, just in and around Perth, so much research into a whole host of diseases is going on is pretty fascinating.

Lunch was a solid curry buffet and a chance to get feedback from everyone. Not only did they say I came across clearer and more confident than the others in my session, but Lindy came up to me and said she’d been approached by a few independent people who commented on how impressive I was, which I was pretty chuffed with! For pretty much the least experience person at the entire conference, I’m so happy I bit the bullet and agreed to speak. With all the nice things people were saying, I was probably walking around with a gigantic head for the rest of the day!

The two afternoon sessions were pretty interesting, although I did get a bit drowsy as I haven’t sat through anything vaguely resembling a lecture for a year now! German Jenny (affectionate nickname) and Ryan both did really well in the first one and Andy, despite his cold, did a good job in the second. On that note, it’s winter here now and everyone is ill, so I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t come down with anything before I fly home!

Ryan doing his thing

They put on free drinks afterwards in the university bar and I got my first taste of seeing our supervisors knocking back the wine, which I sincerely hope to see much more of at the conference dinner on Friday night, where we’ll find out if we’ve won any awards. Ryan, Andy, Marcus and I had a few beers and played some pool before we made a move as it was getting late. Ryan and I had dinner at a Sushi bar in Claremont on the way home, which was lovely; he’s my dearest friend at work and I almost welled up when he was saying that they all feel closer to me than any of the past Bath students, so I’m sure I’ll be an absolute wreck on Friday night when I’m saying goodbye!

It’s an early night for me after a very big day, but one I’m really happy I participated in. There aren’t many undergraduates who can say they’ve presented at a national level conference! These next two days are going to manically busy, what with a lot of loose ends to tie up at work and all sorts of social things scheduled, but at the end of it all I’ll be on a plane home. It’s all getting very exciting!

Andy, myself and Ryan

Goodbyes: Round I

I am about to begin my final week in Australia. Just one little working week stands between me and my flight home at 6am on Saturday morning. I can’t believe how quickly the time has passed! In work news: We ran through our talks for the conference on Wednesday in front of the lab group and mine was surprisingly well received, so having to make only a few minor alterations to it is allowing me to focus on my writing. Fingers crossed I’ll have my report almost finished by the time I leave, leaving only minimal alterations to attend to during my long-anticipated summer of freedom. Happy days! Other than the final push on my report and preparing for the conference, I have a lot of admin to get through, most of which consists of compiling a handbook of all the practical methods I use for the next Bath student, who arrives in August and will continue the work I’ve started. Add in some final quality time with Candice and the small matter of packing up a year's worth of stuff and life is pretty manic, but it's a good kind of manic as it means I'll soon be back with my loved ones!

Inevitably, goodbyes were going to have to be scheduled sooner or later. On Saturday, I organised a little lunch with friends from work. It wasn’t a proper goodbye, as I’ll spend next week with them all, but I couldn’t remember the last time we all saw each other outside of the lab! We ate at Grill’d in Claremont Quarter, mainly because it gave Marcus no excuse to bail considering he lives 100m away (he was still late however), but also due to the delicious, healthy burgers they serve. I was a sole undergraduate in a sea of PhD students: Andy, Marcus, Michael, Ivan, Kalina, Alexia and Nick. I had a delicious chicken burger with avacado, bacon and relish, as well as a few ciders!

Andy, Nick, Kalina, Me, Michael and Ivan

Marcus (dressed for an antarctic winter) and Ivan

Alexia: the cutest Russian I know

After dragging my bloated body home and attempting to watch The Great Gatsby in bed (which turned into a booze-fuelled nap), it was time to head over to South Perth for one last dinner with my lovely homestay family, the Billinghams. Jamie pulled up outside my house and I opened the car door to find him frantically scribbling a message into a card. At first I thought this was just him being hugely disorganised in bidding me farewell, but when I saw the Facebook message he was copying from his phone, I realised that it was a "good luck for the conference" note from my adorable parents, who had contacted him as there was no time to post me a card. Thanks you cuties! As we crossed the Narrows Bridge and I saw the view of the city skyline over the river, which I'd become accustomed to after three months in their beautiful apartment, it dawned on me that these would be much more definite and horrible goodbyes. Expertly balancing my bottle of wine, I helped Jamie remove a gigantic, curved screen TV from the back of the car (how the other half live) and we manouvred it into the lift in true “to me, to you” fashion. The door on the fourth floor opened and inside were the beaming faces of my wonderful expat second parents, John and Vic, plus Catriona, her little dog Anzac and greek homestay couple Denai and Tassos.

I cracked open the wine and we caught up on all our news while Vic finished off dinner. We dined on a gorgeous curry with all the trimmings, followed by an old favourite dessert of ours: Jelly and ice cream! They all mentioned how slim I was looking; I didn’t have the heart to tell them that it probably has something to do with no longer munching on their gorgeous three course meals every night... After dinner, we watch John’s video of his recent cycle across the Nullabor plane, which runs all the way from Perth to the South Australian border. Inland Western Australia is so beautiful and he saw loads of snakes, it looks amazing! The night ended around the table with several heated games of Canasta. They gave me a set of cards for my birthday, so it was good to refresh my memory and I plan to teach my parents when I get home. Catriona left, which was emotional enough, but it was then time for Jamie to drive me home. Hugging John and Vic goodbye was so hard! They’ve been so good to me during my time here, not only when I lived with them but since I’ve moved out too and I’ll miss them greatly. Jamie’s also become my buddy and we parted with promises of staying in touch and meeting up if we’re ever in the same country, which actually seems pretty likely given his constant jet-setting. I’m not sure I can deal with too many more goodbyes this week!

So far, I've spent my last Sunday the same way I've whittled away so many since moving to Peppermint Grove. After a lie in, I made my way down to Cimbalino, my favourite café, for coffee and cake to accompany the annotating of papers for my discussion (not ideal, but it's a little late in the day for weekends to be free of work). I then had a wander around all the little shops I love and picked up a few groceries before returning home. This afternoon will be spent alternating between running through my presentation to myself like an insane person and watching the Dockers game; I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm really going to miss watching AFL! Jess gets back from Dunsborough this evening before one final week of conferences and deadlines begins.

A little retail therapy

Work is getting very scary. For the last three weeks, this photo represents my working day. Experiments are over, leaving just the boring writing part. My writing time is split between two tasks: Forming the discussion of my report, where I have to try to (a) make sense of what my findings mean and (b) find out where they belong in the current literature, and writing my talk. Up until two days ago, this was just a precautionary measure in case I got accepted by the conference, but now it's really happening. God help me.

I was mentally prepared for the tail end of my placement involving being chained to my desk writing for eight hours a day, but actually doing it still stings when I think about how casually I treated work a few months ago. Maybe in hindsight knuckling down when there was no time pressure would have lightened the load in these closing weeks. Said every student ever! On the other hand, I'm glad I enjoyed myself when I could, especially when the weather was nicer. Most importantly, whether or not the stress of these last two weeks destroy my soul, I'm going home in THIRTEEN DAYS! The stress that overcomes me when I think of how much I still have to do, combine with the fact that I was entering my penultimate weekend in Australia, justified a Saturday shopping trip.

What can I say? I went all out. My suitcase may now be a few kilos heavier, but my significantly lightened bank balance will probably counteract that. Nike Free 5.0, anyone? I also bought an iPad (finally!) because they're a lot cheaper here than in the UK and a few gifts for my loved ones. Other than that, let's say I'm now kitted out for winter with some luscious knitwear. Shame I'm going back to summer in England...

I was on cloud nine until my walk from Cottesloe station to our house was plagued by pretty much the heaviest downpour I've ever experienced. Like, tropical rain that standing under a tree can't alleviate. It's a good job I had new purchases to cheer me up, because I looked like a drowned rat with a serious case of the shivers when I finally splashed up to the front door. Worst timing ever! With practice talks this coming Thursday and comments on my entire report to attend to, thinking of the shiny new things waiting for me at home will be the only thing that keeps me sane this week.

Not a happy bunny.

Abstract accepted

Just a very quick update amidst the tornado of coffee and paper that is currently my life: I've had official confirmation today that my abstract has been accepted by ASMR and I'll be presenting at the conference. To a lecture theatre full of doctors. In 13 days. Blimey.

I also appear to be the only undergraduate of the 105 speakers...

Vance Joy

I may go as far as to say that last night was the most fun I’ve had in Perth. It got off to a very good start when I arrived home from work to a parcel from Topshop; I’m not usually one for getting overly excited about clothes, but I’d been waiting for this denim jacket and skirt to arrive for ages and a Vance Joy gig seemed the perfect opportunity to wear them. I’m not sure whether you guys in the UK are familiar with Vance Joy yet but he’s great; his song Riptide was number one on Triple J’s Hottest 100 songs of the year and is bound to be the song of the summer back home when England catches up. Listen to his feel-good sound here:

We cracked open a bottle of wine to sip while getting ready and put on some Vance to get us in the mood. Armed with the rest of our wine stash, we made our way into the city on a very busy commuter train and walked through the chilly evening air to Taka’s for a cheap Japanese dinner. The wine washed down our miso katsu very well indeed and before we knew it, it was time to make a move. From the city centre, we crossed the train line into Northbridge and down James Street to The Bakery. It started to rain just as were having our tickets checked and arms stamped in the outdoor queue. The building was made of huge, bright red industrial units stacked on top of each other, with some of the roof cut off to make an open-walled garden and the low-ceilinged inside decked with fairy lights. Upon further exploration in our mischievously tipsy state, we found a winding corridor lined with thick red curtains (good hiding places for scaring Candice) that lead to the funkiest toilets I’ve ever seen!

We got a round of ciders in and found a place in the crowd as the lights went down. His support act was Gosling, a band similar to The XX and London Grammar; the girl had a really unusual, high voice and their mixture of covers and original songs were a nice warm up to Vance. As for the main man himself, he was even better than we’d expected; he played all the songs we knew and a few we didn’t, all with his lovely tone and trademark ukelele. He is also an absolute dreamboat; I was very disappointed to hear other girls mention that they swore he was looking straight at them as he sang. Damn those dark eyes!

The man himself

We were three more ciders worse for wear as the lights came back on and the search for some late-night sweet treats suddenly overtook the wish to move onto another bar on our list of priorities. The Moon satisfied this purpose magnificently and is probably our best unexpected find yet: An all-night diner in Northbridge serving cocktails and, more importantly, puddings at all times. A chocolate pizza and a banana split between three, washed down with Moscow Mules, was absolute heaven and gave us the energy necessary to party on. On the way back to the station, we nipped into The Universal bar, where a great live band was churning out great tunes for dancing, which is precisely what we did. I love those two McKiernan girls so much! By this point, the night was far from young, so we made our way home and collapsed into bed.

Happy Candle munching on banana split

 It’s safe to say that none of us were feeling particularly fresh this morning, so a remedial breakfast was definitely the order of the day. I am always astounded at the sheer number of amazing eateries in the area and Bib ‘n’ Tucker in North Fremantle, which we’ve had earmarked for ages, was no exception. Attached to the life-saving centre, the restaurant has a terrace running around the outside and our outdoor table provided much-needed fresh air and the bonus of beautiful ocean views. Fresh orange juice, coffee and Eggs Benedict accompanied by hilarious snippets of the previous night (Candice fended off some unwanted male attention with “all four of us have men”. There were only three of us…) had me revived to the point of readiness for a short stint at work, which is now occurring with almost minimal discomfort. The girls are currently on their way home to treat Maggs for the Mother’s Day weekend and my agenda consists of an early night, before stocking the fridge with goodies and welcoming the lovely Timothy Lyne to Perth for his little holiday from placement in Adelaide, which is bound to involve lots more eating out. It’s almost as if work doesn’t exist!

Brekky at Bib 'n' Tucker

Sian's farewell dinner

Aside from the mountain of work plaguing my days in the lab, this week is shaping up to be filled with fun! My weekend was quiet due to Jess embarking on a spontaneous trip home, so I made winding down from this hectic schedule a priority. A couple of leisurely shopping trips to Fremantle and Claremont and a Sunday morning in bed with a cup of tea and my book certainly did the trick and I felt nicely rested going into yet another week. However, an entire Monday spent sitting in a dark room imaging on the microscope had me feeling trapped and gagging to get out into the wide world as soon as possible.

Cue the McKiernan sisters coming to my rescue as always! Candice is work-free and up in Perth with Jess until Friday afternoon, when they’ll go back to Dunsborough for the Mothers’ Day weekend. We have a few treats planned, but first on the list was a goodbye dinner for Sian on Tuesday night before she embarks on six months of travelling. Her and her boyfriend are having a month in Bali before she moves onto the UK and Europe solo. Fingers crossed she’ll be able to get down to Cornwall at some point during the summer, so it was only a temporary goodbye, but the separation was long enough to warrant great food, drink and chat with the girls.

After a very quick shower, change and cider when I got home from work, the McKiernans and I set off from our place to catch the two trains necessary to get us to Leederville for 6pm. We managed the first train into the city with no issues and couldn’t believe our luck when we hopped on a connecting train with seconds to spare… before the tannoy informed us that this particular train was direct to Stirling, missing out Leederville Station. Typical! We got off and waited for another train back to Leederville (second time lucky), then walked to The Garden, where we were meeting the girls for dinner. Sian was already there with Britt, who the girls went to school with and is coincidentally doing her PhD in Biochemistry at UWA and going to the conference next month, and Rosie joined us a little later.

We dined of half-price pizza (prawn, pesto and panchetta – yum) and drank local cider in the outdoor dining area filled with patio heaters, candles and plants, which was just lovely. The weather was lovely and warm for autumn and I tried this custard cider by Indian Ocean brewery: spectacular! After feeling like I’d settled into a very dull routine of work-home-sleep repeat, being out with the girls felt great. After dinner, we went to Rosie’s new houseshare in Mount Lawley for a snoop around (and to pass judgement on her hot new housemates), and then went to the local pub for another drink. By this time it was getting pretty late, so Britt and Rosie left and the McKiernans, Sian and I got a taxi home. I must have had a good night, because getting up for work was very difficult indeed and my eyes have been going out all day. It’s a quiet one with a movie and chocolate tonight before we head into the city tomorrow night to see the wonderful Vance Joy perform at The Bakery. Happy days!

Candi and I at The Garden

Britt, Rosie, Jess and Sian. Safe travels Siany!

Who needs a bed anyhow?

One of the obstacles you have to deal with while living abroad short-term is sourcing all the large items that are essential to life (but impossible to fly over) without breaking the bank. Having lead a very sheltered life in South Perth, I only encountered this problem when I moved out of the Billinghams’ and in with Jess. For example, I had to buy a second-hand bike (and collect it from bloody miles away without a car), which I’m currently in the process of trying to sell on.

A little more essential to everyday living than two-wheeled transport (if it gets sold before I leave, there’s always the bus) is bedroom furniture, which I was very lucky with when I initially moved into Peppermint Grove. Sian, Jess’ previous housemate, was graduating and moving back in with her parents down south while she worked during the summer and left me everything in her bedroom, including the best bed in the world. However, she’s about to go travelling for four months (including Cornwall – yay!), meaning she had to come up and clear out her room last week so that her parents don’t have to do it by themselves when the lease finishes. This culminated in me leaving a fully furnished room on Monday and returning from work to the exact opposite. No desk, no chair and, most importantly, no bed. It’s extremely lucky that Jess had a spare single mattress; otherwise I’d either be sleeping on the floor or, even worse, searching the verge sales for a mouldy and probably bug-infested replacement. My new arrangement is “minimalistic” to say the least:

Before

After. To quote Step Brothers: "So much room for activities!"... Unless said activities include working, sitting down or sleeping anything more than three inches off the ground.

I only joke about my ferral living conditions. Firstly, it was lovely of Sian to let me use her stuff in the first place and I can’t begrudge her reclaiming it. Secondly, I’m actually loving the whole bed-on-the-floor set up! It reminds me of having a den as a kid and is super cosy now the weather’s starting to get colder. For the sake of five weeks, I think I can put up with my new tramp-chic lifestyle.

No turning back!

Happy May everyone! With a mere five weeks of Australian life left, things have suddenly got very, very scary at work. This morning, I submitted an abstract (a very brief summary of part of the research I’ve done here) to the Australian Society of Medical Research. I’ll find out next week whether they find it interesting enough to invite me to do a talk at the annual conference during my last week in Perth. For anyone interested in what I’ve been up to, here it is:

Calixarenes and calixarene-capped nanoparticles reduce reactive species induced by glutamate in neuronal cells in vitro

 Emma K Stephens¹  

¹Experimental and Regenerative Neurosciences, School of Animal Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Australia.

 Traumatic injury to the central nervous system (CNS) has catastrophic and widespread effects on the survival and function of neurons and glia. The abnormal Ca²⁺ influx that occurs in response to injury is closely associated with increases in reactive species which, when ineffectively controlled by endogenous antioxidant mechanisms, culminate in oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a feature of traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, making it a target for therapeutic strategies. Existing antioxidants that are effective in the treatment of CNS injury exhibit problems with solubility and additional antioxidants and/or delivery mechanisms are required to overcome these limitations. Nanomedicine is emerging as a therapeutic avenue that is capable of offering highly specific antioxidant drug delivery. Calix[n]arenes are a class of macrocyclic organic nanoparticle of 100nm diameter, where n represents the number of phenolic moieties arranged in a ring. Calix[4]arenes have been shown to deliver curcumin to stressed cells and also have inherent antioxidant properties, but the antioxidant effects of other calixarenes are unknown. Here we assess the effects of a range of calix[n]arene cyclic oligomers (designated SCn, PCn or CD), both alone and linked to silver nanoparticles, on the production of reactive species by neuronal-like PC12 cells exposed to glutamate stress. The indicator dichlorofluorescein diacetate was used to assess the presence of reactive species. We show that treatment with 1, 10 or 100μg mL^-1 calix[4]- and calix[6]arene preparations for 60 minutes significantly reduced the glutamate-induced increase in reactive species. The efficacy of SC4a, SC4b and SC6a was dependent on linkage to silver nanoparticles, whereas both the pure and nanoparticle-linked forms of SC4c, SC6b and SC6c significantly reduced reactive species. There was no significant reduction in reactive species after treatment with the SC8a/b/c, PC4 or CD preparations. We also demonstrate that the calix[n]arene preparations were not toxic to glutamate-stressed PC12 cells at the highest experimental concentration of 100μg mL^-1, with no significant effect on cell viability or morphology. In terms of future direction, it is worthwhile to assess the efficacy of these preparations as antioxidants in the treatment of neurotrauma in vivo.

This conference is a big deal. Part of the West Australian branch of ASMR’s Medical Research Week, it’s attended by hundreds of clinicians, academics and other professionals and covers not only neuroscience, but medical research as a whole. As someone who isn’t overly fond of public speaking at the best of times, the thought of presenting in front of a group of such reputable people fills me with dread and I’m not sure whether I’ll be chuffed or terrified if I get a talk. I’m glad that I’m not alone though; two others from team Lindy, Wissam and Ryan, have also submitted and the rest of the office will be attending the conference for moral support, which runs for one day in the first week of June. We’ll be doing a practice to the team in the week leading up to the big day, so I feel secure in the knowledge that Lindy won’t let me do it unless it’s good and I know it word for word. I’m telling myself that it’ll be an experience and it would definitely look good on my CV. All of this is presumptuous of the abstract being accepted of course!

Even if I don’t get accepted, the whole team has registered for the Gala Dinner on the Friday night following the conference, which also happens to be my last night in Australia! It’s a three-course formal dinner at the Hilton Hotel in the city, followed by the prize-giving (did I mention I could win $500 for my talk?!) and a dance. The lab is covering the cost and, from what I’ve heard of previous conferences, it’s a rare chance for us to see the more senior members of staff come out of their shells, have a few too many drinks and dance the night away, so it should be a lot of fun. I’ll have to be very careful with the wine though; my flight the following morning is at 6am, meaning I’ll have to be at the airport at 3am and up even earlier. I envisage myself getting next to no sleep as it is, so adding a hangover to a situation that already includes an 20-hour journey would just be foolish. The other option would be remaining drunk the entire time…

Aside from the conference, work currently consists of finishing the last few experiments that will generate preliminary data for the next Bath student’s project (you’re welcome love) and frantically writing up drafts of various chunks of my report, which I hope to finish before I leave so I don’t have to worry about it during the extra long summer I’ve been looking forward to forever. I’m pleased to say that, despite all going slightly mad from the pressure, my work friends and I are finding time to make the lab a little more bearable. Yesterday, I required help from Ryan to take some photos of my spinal cord injury technique for both my methods section and Lindy’s collaborative paper that I’ll be an author on. Needless to say, this descended into selfies within the space of five minutes! Ryan and Marcus are also currently enjoying repeating whatever I say in a cockney accent, which is both inaccurate and irritating, but in a good way. I fail to understand how such moronic individuals are currently doing their PhDs. I’m glad of the laughs though; god knows what would happen to us if we had to be serious all the time!

Mmmm, spinal cord

Post-it presents left on my lab book. My "favourite phrases"

A double dose of music therapy

It brings me great joy to say that I spent most of Saturday listening to great musicians. A long time ago, I booked tickets to two concerts that happened to be in the afternoon and evening of the same day: the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and Michael Bublé! Everything’s been pretty hectic recently, so I’d completely forgotten about it until a few days ago, which was a lovely surprise and I spent the week leading up to it getting excited for a little weekend music therapy.

Escargot in an adorable takeaway box; what more do you need?!

I left the house at lunchtime and made my way to the train station via my favourite Cottesloe café, Cimbalino, for takeaway fuel in the form of coffee and a pastry. After the half-hour journey into the city, I changed trains onto another line that would take me east to Burswood. The WASO concert was in the Crown Theatre, which is joined to the very swanky casino complex that overlooks the city from the other side of the river. Once I’d found the right floor and purchased a ridiculously overpriced drink, I queued up to take my seat ahead of the 2pm start time.

It was at this point that what I should have considered when booking finally dawned on me. The concert was a showcase of the music from the Disney Pixar films, so naturally the gross majority of the audience was under eight years old. Gross was the appropriate word; as a music boff who loves nothing more than the atmosphere when an entire audience is transfixed into silence, I envisaged the chattering kids completely ruining the whole experience. I’m pleased to say, however, that the concert was so incredible that I managed to block out the fidgeting and complaining going on around me. I saw WASO play a selection of classical and film pieces back in December in Langley Park and they were just as sublime as they were back then.

What really made this concert different was how the combination of audio and visual components came together so beautifully. The orchestra played a short montage of music from each film, running in chronological order of when they were released, all in front of a big screen playing clips. It was fascinating to watch how far the animation has come on, from Toy Story in 1995 to Monsters’ University, released last year. While the majority of people were focussed on the screen, my attention was drawn to the conductor. In order for the music to be in time with the video, he had a screen in front of him with the beat appearing in flashing lights and the barline moving from left to right for him to follow. Everything, down to the tiniest rall and upbeat, had to be in perfect unison with the video, which must have been insanely difficult and perhaps restricted his interpretation of the music. In my experience, conductors often experience some spontaneous feeling that makes them want certain parts played differently every time, which is why it’s so important to watch the baton (for all those who say “what’s the point of them standing there and waving the stick?”)!

Of course, the real star of the show was the music. Each Pixar score has been created by one of only four composers: Randy Newman, Thomas Newman (cousins; what I wouldn’t give for some of those genes), Michael Giacchino and Patrick Doyle, a Scot who got called in to do Brave, which I really want to see now! Giacchino has to be my personal favourite, as all the Pixar scores I’ve been lucky enough to play are his: The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Up. The stories really would be nothing without the music and it astounds me how so much emotion can be crammed so cleverly into the pieces. Take the tearjerking five-minute opening of Up; it’s been said that the sequence says more about relationships than a lot of full-length romance novels and I tend to agree. I get goosebumps every time and welled up a little bit watching it played out in the flesh. Naturally, my eyes were firmly fixed on the man playing principle clarinet, who was amazing and had some truly beautiful parts. I’d have paid a lot of money to be in his shoes! There was also a little light entertainment in the form of the token, wildly gesticulating flautist sitting in front of him… talk about overkill. I don’t know why so many people do that; don’t sway all over the place, just play. You look silly.

As the lights came on, the parents dried their eyes and the children breathed a sigh of relief that “all the boring old music” was over. They don’t know they’re born! I left Crown and made my way back to the city on the train, trying to dodge the showers that had started. What’s with all this rain lately?! With a few hours to kill, but not enough time to justify going home, I went to our favourite Japanese kitchen Taka’s for dinner and a couple of BYO ciders. As 7pm came around, I made the very rainy walk through the city, packed with people out for Saturday, to Perth Arena. Observation number one: It’s bloody huge! I’ve never been to a proper arena show before and couldn’t believe the scale. I had quite a good seat on the right hand side and settled in for a few hours of swooning.

As the arena filled, I couldn’t help noticing that there was a very high concentration of 50+ women milling around in their Saturday best. I felt very underdressed in my jeans and flats and was probably caught gawking at some of the outfits I was seeing; mutton dressed as lamb immediately sprang to mind as my glance in every direction was met with some old dear pulling down a skin-tight skirt or rearranging some cleavage. Shudder. Not sure whether they were intending on secuding Bublé or what, but you can’t blame them for trying!

The lights went down and I was delighted to discover that Naturally 7 were the support act. It pains me to think that 99% of the audience didn’t know who they were or appreciate how talented they are; they’re a 7-piece acapella group of awesome black dudes who create songs that sound like they have a full band accompanying them, just using their voices. They’ve been around forever and it was great to see them in the flesh!

After an hour of sweet sweet harmonies, it was time for Bublé to make an entrance, and boy did he succeed. Phwoarrr; he is one sexy, sexy man! He obviously sang flawlessy the entire time, but he’s also a great entertainer and hilariously rude at times. The face of the lady sitting next to me when some of his chat got a little X-rated was priceless. His band were unbelievable and he did a whole segment letting each of them improvise, which was really nice to see. In other words, despite my jesting about the old biddies, I screamed along with them like a fan girl. I associate him with ballads, but he did a lot of upbeat numbers and popped up on a little stage right in front of my section to do a few Motown numbers with Naturally 7, which were my favourites.

It's not Bublé without a heart-shaped confetti canon...

With an encore ending in a load of fire canons going off, he was gone and it was time to trudge home through what had become a downpour. By the time I got home, I resembled a drown rat and was still shivering half an hour after a hot shower and getting wrapped up in a blanket. Not a huge fan of winter approaching so quickly! I very much enjoyed both concerts, but the connection on such a personal level meant that Pixar had to be my favourite. If anyone hears of a vacancy for a clarinettist in an orchestra specialising in the music of animated kids’ films, let me know!