Epic....

In the last post I talked about the "end of an era"; that is, the end of my PhD program. But we've traveled even further down the rabbit hole. So with that said I will bid you adieu with the last post of Hither and Yon. I've thoroughly enjoyed writing this blog but as you may have noticed the stretches between posts have become longer and longer. But before I go I'd like to share another "last" or "finally" moment.

Week before last Tim and I took our bound theses and deposited them in the library. I realize that might not sound like a big deal but it is. At Victoria "lodgement" (depositing your thesis in the library) signifies the end of the PhD program. And us being the nerds we are wanted to do this together. We gave our "first year talks" (where you go from provisional to full PhD candidate status) on the same day and said we'd race until the end. Now it's 2016 and we have arrived. So we gathered our bound theses and digital copies, had a friend take a few photos and we set off for the library. There you have it, officially official.

And it goes without saying that this Hither and Yon adventure has been truly amazing!!!

Two and three little letters....

In September I submitted my PhD thesis. After hacking away at the writing for months and months on end I put it out of my mind straight away. This was particularly easy because I had started my job at Wellington Zoo the same week.

Then, just two weeks ago, I received my examiner's reports. And things began to get very real, very fast. Upon thesis submission a soft bound copy of the thesis is mailed out to your three appointed examiners: one from Victoria, one from New Zealand (or because NZ is so small it's sometimes Australia) and one international examiner. They have a couple months to read over the thesis, make comments and submit them to Victoria in an official examiner's report. These are then forwarded on to the candidate, in this case me, and his/her supervisor. With two weeks to prepare I scheduled multiple meetings with my primary supervisor as well as meetings with my secondary supervisor and my "technical" supervisor who helped me a great deal when running the molecular analysis portion of the project. Then every waking moment when I wasn't working at the Zoo I was on campus studying, reading and trying not to panic. I was plagued with incredible worry and doubt. Would I be able to contribute to intelligent discussion regarding my project? Everyone seems to be convinced that this is a given. However, the longer I worked on my project the more questions I had. The more unsure I felt.

With great trepidation I woke up the morning of January 28th and there was no place to hide. After nearly four years, innumerable hours in the laboratory,  and many months writing and revising I had arrived at the end. The end of an era. Tim and I walked over to the Faculty of Graduate Research where the examinations are held. I sat outside the room where it would take place with my heart pounding, mind racing. Soon after the door opened and the Chair walked over, introduced himself and accompanied through the door. I was actually in the room! Where hundreds of other students had defended their theses. I'm incredibly happy to report that upon sitting down at the table I began to relax. Just a tiny bit but at that point I would take anything. We discussed the procedure and then they handed things over to me. Candidates prepare a short presentation, mostly for the benefit of the Chair, that sums up his/her research before the interrogation begins. When preparing this ridiculously short talk I was a bit perturbed that I could sum up four years of blood, sweat and tears in just ten minutes!! What?! That seemed unjust to say that least. I continued to relax as I presented and then the questions commenced. We began discussing and, what seemed like, suddenly the Chair raised his hand and said, "Um, we've been going steady for an hour and a half, would anyone like to take a break?". I was dumbfounded. How could an hour and a half have already whipped by? Everyone else was happy to continue and all eyes fell on me. I'm not sure how I appeared to them but it was left up to me to decide. Considering things were going well up till that point I figured, "Why stop now?". In retrospect adrenaline was probably buoying my mind and body. So we continued on with the questions and discussion. Then the most amazing thing happened. The examiner's looked back over their notes and said, "Yeah, I think we're done", which essentially translates to: the candidate has fulfilled his/her part of this process and now we can deliberate. From this point I think I began the descent/crash back to planet Earth. As per the process I was asked to leave the room which I did with what I'm sure was a bewildered smile on my face. I took a few deep breaths and visited the bathroom where I looked at my reflection and wondered if it could be true. Was I possibly done? Really? From there I returned to the waiting area and by that time my supervisor was there waiting for me. He extended congratulations and said that he was very impressed with how well it went. Now you have to understand that my supervisor is a super smart guy and my worst fear was that he would be disappointed with my defense! Just then Tim came up the stairs and sat with us until the committee had finalized their report. Then Bart and I were invited back into the room for the verdict. Before anything else they commended me for an excellent presentation, confident defense and that my PhD comprised interdisciplinary work. They were happy to recommend that I be awarded the Doctorate of Philosophy!! But wait. This was with the caveat that I make some minor revisions, mostly clarification, and submit the final version to the Faculty of Graduate Research. As you can imagine I floated out of there on a cloud and actually did a "happy dance" on the sidewalk as Tim and I walked back to the lab. From there I did absolutely no work for the rest of the day and instead spent time talking to friends and colleagues about the defense. :) That afternoon we took the lab group out for a celebratory drink. That night Tim and I visited one of our favorite locals to celebrate. Tim ran to the restroom while I ordered and paid. When he came back he said, without hesitation, "Thanks, Doc". The suddenness of hearing it out loud caught me off guard and I burst out laughing! I made it all the way through the evening and most of the next day before I crashed for good. Thankfully, we had a nice relaxing weekend and I was able to gather my wits and return, well rested, to work the following week. When I arrived my manager had already put the business card re-order form on my desk. :) A couple days later at a full staff meeting I was thoroughly humiliated with a huge bouquet of flowers and congratulations from Wellington Zoo. :) I was so surprised, I had no words! I was stunned into silence!

It's been almost a month since defense and it still feels surreal - particularly when people say Dr. Brox or when I see my new business cards. Two and three little letters: Dr. and PhD. I'm wondering if, at some point, it will suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. We'll see.

Book love....

Rogue Lawyer. John Grisham consistently delivers fun reads and this was no exception. :)

Book love.....

The Girl in the Spider's Web. 

Naive......

Some silly part of me thought that after I submitted my thesis and started a job with reduced hours (to start) that my life would fall back into place and I would be able to catch my breath. Wrong. So wrong.

In the last post I mentioned that I started my job the same week I submitted my thesis. With all that excitement happening I thought I should celebrate. So, in true workaholic fashion, I took a single day off. No PhD work. No Zoo work. I spent the day wandering around Wellington, sipping an iced coffee drink, perusing books at the bookstore, picking out a pair of Abstract Design earrings and finding the perfect modern style tea cup and saucer. Yes, after nearly four years we have caved and are exploring the bizarre world of tea drinking. :) I toted all my goodies home and bam! I was hit with a double bug that laid me out for over two weeks. I spent my days and nights coughing, unable to sleep for the pain. In short I was a mess and no matter how much I tried to rest and force fluids I wasn't getting any better. I missed an entire week at the job I had just started and eventually visited student health when I had completely lost my voice. Everything is funnier in retrospect but at the time I wasn't laughing when I had to lean over the reception counter and attempt to whisper that I needed to see a doctor, stat. Thankfully, I didn't have strep or bronchitis but I was still laid out for a few more days. Finally, I decided to go to work even though I wasn't completely well. My supervisor and officemate was also sick so for the next few weeks all you heard from our office was silence punctuated by chest rattling coughs. Bleh.

After my protracted recovery I started preparing for a short contract I had secured on campus: a month's worth of post doc level pay to complete molecular analysis of 43 tissue samples. I was already late on completing this work before I got sick so I was experiencing serious guilt. On top of that I knew how long the process, in its entirety, would take. Working every minute and putting in seriously long days I could've finished everything in three weeks. But that didn't account for the fact that for this type of analysis you need to schedule a machine that other people use as well. Additionally, I was also working three days a week at the zoo. So that meant every minute I wasn't at the zoo I was on campus hogging the qPCR machine and running as many samples as possible. It took about two weeks to finish the first two steps of the process for all samples. Then I proceeded to actually run them in the machine. You can run a single 96 well plate in the machine at a time. It takes about three hours to set up a single plate. Then it runs in the machine for two hours. To ensure non contamination in your samples you need to set up each plate in a laminar flow hood: translate that to sitting at a cabinet that blows cold air on you the entire time. Sigh. The best (ahem, worst) part of all of this is that with the primers I was using I could only set up three samples along with all of their controls on a 96 well plate. Double sigh. With that in mind I had to put my game face on and get to it. I tried to take advantage of the weekends because I could hog the machine as no one else was scheduling it on those days. That meant that instead of working delightfully light hours doing fun work at the zoo I was spend everything other minute on campus trying to finish running my samples. It was like being back in the midst of intensive, never ending lab work I experienced during the program. I thought this kind of schedule was behind me! Finally, at the beginning of December I ran the last of the samples!! I then spent a few more days entering, collating and analyzing the data. With great relief I am so happy to say that the work is behind me!!

So in the weeks since finishing with those samples I've been able to enjoy some time away from both jobs and it has been amazing! Now I need to put my game face back on and prepare for my upcoming defense. It was tentatively set for the end of January but I need to confirm the actual date. It is very difficult to imagine that we are approaching this point in time. Miracles do happen. :)

Choice.....

Let me take a moment to bring you up to speed on what's been happening since thesis submission. First, yes, it actually happened and I have to admit in the ensuing months I've made a conscious effort to avoid thinking about it. As soon as it was printed I was tempted to page through it. Wisely, I did not. I would've just found infuriating typos and formatting errors. Instead I walked away.

Actually, the same week I submitted my thesis I also started my dream job. Wow, I feel like a self-obsessed jerk just saying that. When I was finishing up my thesis I was checking the Wellington Zoo website compulsively waiting to see the job offer for their newly created Animal Welfare Advisor role. And one day it was there so, excitedly, I started working on my application and wondering if this was actually happening. During my time as a volunteer data collector as Wellington Zoo I had continually fantasized about doing the same type of work as an actual employee. Remember this was happening when I should've been concentrating on my thesis and final lab work but instead I ran between campus and the zoo like a crazy person. I must tell you that this volunteering opportunity was really important for me. And not just that it started a conversation about potential employment. Rather when I started collecting "small cat" data for the zoo I had just finished a particularly stressful portion of my PhD lab work. I know I've mentioned it before but I lost some, if not most, of my humanity completing those experiments. So even though the last thing I needed was more work my time spent at the zoo was downright therapeutic. Every day I went in to collect data I breathed a sigh of relief. A change of pace was exactly what I needed at the time.

So with this in mind I was exhilarated to think that I might be hired as the Animal Welfare Advisor at Wellington Zoo. But just like applications for PhD programs I was nervous. What if I didn't get hired? And what if I did? This is an entirely new type of work and I'd been traipsing through the halls of academia on and off for more than a decade. With a deep breath I submitted my application and waited to hear about an interview. I was actually on my way to visit a lab group that focuses on animal welfare research located about an hour north of Wellington. The call was great news - I had an interview for the following Monday! The rest of the day I spent touring the various laboratory facilities, learning about the specific research projects the group was working on and presenting my own work for discussion. It was an amazing day and to my great surprise I was offered a 2.5 year post doctoral position with the group!! I was gobsmacked! I had wanted to visit this group because they do a wide range of animal welfare research and considering I was preparing to enter the field it only seemed prudent to get spend some time with them. I never imagined I would be offered a position on the spot. I spent the weekend hemming and hawing about my options; both the post doc and the position at the zoo would be amazing opportunities and offered comparable compensation. I fully recognized how fortunate I was to have to options. I would have to make a decision. All I could figure is that I'd see how the zoo interview went and go from there. I mean, who knew? I never expected that I would be a shoe-in for the job and so didn't count on it being mine until an offer was made. 

I went into the interview excited and nervous as is standard for job interviews. It went well and I had a great conversation with most of the senior management team of Wellington Zoo Trust. At the end of the interview they had me scared when they said: "Right, so we had nine other applicants from all around the world apply for this position....". My stomach dropped and my mind began to race. Nine! And out of those there is a great possibility that someone has actual experience doing this type of work! Where I've barely begun and am looking to embark on a major shift from neuroscience to animal science....I have innumerable things to catch up on...... . I said my goodbyes and was escorted out of the conference room. Checking my watch I saw that I was in luck and could grab a bus up to campus within the next ten minutes. I ducked into the ladies room at the zoo entrance and then was starting to run for the door when one of the women at reception intercepted me. She said, "Are you Bridget?". To which I said yes. She went on to explain that one of my interviewers wanted to talk to me for a second before I left. I wasn't sure what to think but waited until he arrived. He asked if I had time to chat over coffee and I said yes even though I knew I was missing my bus. There would be another one in an hour. While we were waiting to put in our order he turned to me and said, "So, it didn't take us long to make our decision: we'd like you to come work with us". I couldn't reign in the huge smile that was spreading across my face - it was actually happening!!!!! From there we sat down to discuss details regarding my contract (it would be couriered out), uniform, start date and the like. I floated out of there on a cloud, caught the next bus and gave Timmy the great news!

Then I needed to make a decision: which job should I take? Weighing pros and cons didn't really work and in the end I chose the zoo. The decision was made easier because I was assured that whether I took the post doc position or not I would still have the opportunity to collaborate with these researchers and their students even while working at the zoo.

So here I am, three months into the job, buried with work but so very, very happy!!!!

Book love.....

Tricky Twenty-Two.

The Rosie Effect. 

Book love......

The completion of my first book (thesis) calls for celebration: books, books and more books to read. Happy as a clam!

Go Set a Watchmen. The much anticipated second novel by Harper Lee. It received widely mixed reviews and some scathing criticism but I was just happy to read something else from the author of my favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Letters to a Young Scientist. A great perspective piece by E.O. Wilson. And all the more enjoyable as I finished it just after thesis submission. :)

The Fault in Our Stars. Just because light fiction is fun to read!

198....

With heaps of hubbub these last couple weeks I'm just getting around to this post. When I started my PhD over three years ago I knew this day would come. Or at least people said that it would. However, many times throughout the process I feared the worst. That I would never submit my thesis. Apparently, this is a common fear among PhD students. Well I was no exception. So with that wandering preamble out of the way I am pleased, no thrilled, no ecstatic, to tell you that as of 28 September, I, Bridget Williams Brox, have submitted my PhD thesis for examination!!! There aren't enough exclamations in this world to really capture the excitement of this reality.

Let me take you back to the beginning for a moment. We first set foot in NZ in early 2012 and I was petrified. Not only were we about to start a new chapter in a foreign country but my first application to the Psychology PhD program had been rejected. Upon receiving this news we were already committed to moving and with fresh, matching passports and visas we jet set to NZ. Arriving was a flurry of newness, stress, anxiety and continual feeling of being outside any comfort zone that existed previously. I met with the folks who would become my PhD supervisors and organised a second application to the PhD program. Tim started work immediately and together we outfitted our tiny home. While I waited to hear about my application I started work as a tutor (teaching assistant) to gain a bit of income. I worried incessantly. I continually felt out of place. I wondered if I would ever feel normal again. If I would ever be caught up in regular day to day things like everyone else. And more than anything else I obsessed about getting into the PhD program. I seriously worried that I wouldn't be accepted. But even more so I worried that I would be. I don't remember every detail of that time but I can tell you that I was petrified about everything in the program. It was an opportunity to study something completely new and that meant starting at square one regarding technical skills as well as my understanding of the overall topic and associated literature. I seriously considered not taking the offer if I did get into the program. This all sounds crazy now but that's where I was at the time.

Then my acceptance letter arrived and somehow I decided to take the plunge. The flurry of paperwork had me running around campus to capture signatures and turn in forms. I was doing this when I was told, "Oh, right, you don't have a student visa? Well, you need one before you can get started". I thought I had regained some of my composure and everything was moving in the right direction when this happened. I panicked. To my great relief the visa officer talked me down, I applied for a student visa and by some miracle had that sticker in my passport within a week. I returned to the Faculty of Graduate Research, shiny student visa in hand. But I had to wait as another student was talking to the person behind the counter. She had a file box of papers and was holding them close to her chest, almost like she didn't want to let them go. Then she said, "I've worked on this for so long, it's hard to hand it over now". Despite my own personal drama I realized that she was submitting her thesis. I thought to myself, "Wow. I CANNOT imagine that actually happening for me". Remember at this point I was embarking on a journey where nothing seemed sure.

It was with all this in mind that I, bound thesis copies and accompanying paperwork in hand, walked through the doors at the Faculty of Graduate Research to submit my thesis. I could scarcely believe that I was uttering the words, "I'm here to submit a PhD thesis". The day had FINALLY come! And then I completed the most anticlimactic process of my life. My three soft bound copies were whisked away to be sent to my examiners. My electronic copy was transferred to their computer. We double checked all the forms and signatures. I was required to sign the "these ledger" where all students provide their name, school, thesis title and signature. I was given a few pieces of outgoing paperwork and then found myself exiting the office. What? What? That was it? It was only as the hours and subsequent days passed that realization started to sink in - I had finished my first book. 198 pages.

Book love....

Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body. Simply brilliant - a very readable account of the origins of genetic diversity. If you like historical medicine this one is for you.

Five big ones....

Yesterday Tim and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Yeah. Five years. It's hard to believe that much time has passed. I know I've said it in the past but I never imagined that I would marry and here we are five years later. :) That's a big smiley face!

If you had told me ten years ago that I would marry, move to NZ and complete my PhD I'd probably would've had some inappropriate outburst that a social norm filter would normally repress. I love that reality can be stranger (and more wonderful) than anything we could imagine. But this post isn't really about the five years past. It's about food. Food.

Every year Wellington restaurants pull out all the stops and put on a city-wide event called Wellington on a Plate (WOAP). And this is the first year that we've been able to partake. So a couple days ago we sat down and perused the long list of  WOAP participating restaurants and starting narrowing things down. Now some of this was easy when you've embraced a vegetarian lifestyle and some places only offer meaty portions. At one point we had twenty tabs open on the laptop. With some counterbalancing as only science nerds will do we narrowed the list down to ten contenders. Then with random pairings we narrowed it to six. Then three. And finally we picked a winner! To our surprise it was Southern Cross, a restaurant just two blocks from our house. Now you have to understand that Southern Cross isn't particularly fancy; they embrace an eclectic, bordering on chic, look with mismatched dining tables and chairs and a garden bar out the back. Since we moved to Wellington we've enjoyed going there and decided to do WOAP at Southern Cross for our fifth.

Upon arrival we were whisked to a cute corner table in the front window and I was thanking myself for making a reservation. The waitress arrived and described the WOAP protocol; three courses with an entree, a main and a dessert served with a regional bevvie. We both ordered the Urlar Sauvignon Blanc 2013 made right up the road in NZ wine country, Wairarapa.

Next came the entree and since both were vegetarian we decided to each order one and share around. The first was a delightful think tomato soup that was topped with pillowy soft pieces of smoked brinza. Everyone knows that tomato cheese pairs well but this was amazing!

The second entree was a Parkvale portobello mushroom burger. This came out and I realized that the chef was going with a very literal interpretation because the portobellos comprised what would have been the bun of a traditional burger. Sandwiched between the mushrooms was a light almond hummus and finely sliced beetroot. Now when we read the description on the menu it sounded good but the combination of flavors was spot on - admittedly I would've had seconds it that were allowed. :)

Feeling rather content we sipped our Sauv while the entree dishes and cutlery were cleared away. With the main on its way we were both sufficiently curious. The menu read, "Raw beetroot ravioli" and while we enjoy beetroot with the best of them you wonder, "What does that mean, exactly?". 

Soon after we were presented with the main and tucked in straightaway. On a bed of spinach and clouds of butter lettuce we found the ravioli. They were made from two thin slices of beetroot surrounding a scrumptious filling made of salty feta. On their own they were delicious but the course came full circle when you tried the accompanying pistachio and sweet potato croquettes. The course, in a word, was a stunner! Two thumbs way up. 

Lastly, we ordered both dessert options so we could try everything. The first was a poached pear with Carello del Gelato vanilla bean ice cream. Simply elegant. The second dessert was truly different: a Whittaker's Dark Chocolate cheesecake stuffed apple accompanied by Carrello del Gelato banoffee ice cream. I've never really considered chocolate and apple together but they were amazing!

Pushing back from the table we declared that WOAP has a sure winner at Southern Cross. :) I'm hoping I could convey some of the experience here.

Book love (catch up).....

Talk about a mix bag - all three were simply wonderful. :)

Complications. 

The Rosie Project.

Ender in Exile. 

Dark side.....

I must apologize. I haven't posted in months. In the past I've had the expected ebb and flow of blog posts however these last few months have been utterly and completely overwhelmed with work. I remember writing about being busy running experiments for months on end; those times were crazy however they pale in comparison to what I've experienced lately.

In short I completed the last of my behavioral experiments then spent weeks living in one of the biology labs on campus processing tissue. After that I finished collecting data at Wellington Zoo project. The following day Tim and I flew to the US where he spent a month working in the NMR lab at MSU and I holed up and spent my days writing. It was an incredibly productive time and upon arriving back in NZ I had serious drafts of all my chapters in the works.

Then it happened. Months earlier I had submitted two abstracts for presentations at the Australia and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching (ANZCCART) conference. One outlined the training program we've developed at Vic and the other my small cats zoo project. After submitting them I heard back straightaway about the ethics training program and was given a presentation slot - great! After that I didn't hear back about the second abstract and assumed that it had not been accepted. The week before we left the US I emailed the conference organizers just to be sure. Apparently, an email had been lost along the way and the second abstract had been accepted but because they couldn't get in touch with me I didn't realize this until less than two weeks before the conference. They were relieved to hear from me but worried that I wouldn't have enough time to prepare. As insanity would have it I assured them that I would make it happen. So the week we arrived back in NZ I spent the majority of my time preparing the two presentations as well as the accompanying papers that the conference requires of the presenters. I was also scrambling to arrange a time to give my presentation of the small cats data to a group at the zoo. Thankfully we were able to squeeze this in - I'm a firm believer in practicing presentations and getting feedback before you give them for real. A veritable whirlwind of activity and unfortunately that left no time for the thesis. Talk about serious guilt. The conference started the following week and I was on a plane to Gold Coast, Australia, before I knew it. Both talks went very well and generated a great deal of discussion throughout the week. After each one I had people lining up to talk to me - I took that as a good sign. :) I'm very glad that I decided to go but as you can imagine it didn't leave much time for thesis writing during that week either. Sigh. More guilt.

After returning to NZ I had just one week until the end of July: my arbitrary deadline for thesis submission. As you might expect that was not going to happen. And it didn't.

Now we're two weeks into August and I am creeping ever closer to submitting this book. It's the first one I've written and currently is numbering 150 pages. Of my five chapters I've finished three of them. The fourth chapter and the General Discussion are both well on their way. So thesis submission will happen sometime in August and I can't tell you how amazing it is to consider this. After all this time, work, blood, sweat and tears - it is actually going to happen! More to come. 

Book love....

Clash of Kings. After an epic and all consuming run of molecular analysis my PhD lab work has come to an end! And so has this book. Another gigantic tome: just shy of 1000 pages. Now onto Storm of Swords. :)

Book love.....

To Kill a Mockingbird. Simply brilliant - Harper Lee delivers wit and sarcasm with perfect precision. This one remains my all-time favorite.

Ugly....

Upon returning from my DC trip Tim gifted me a "keep cup" to use when getting coffee on and off campus. He spied this particular one at one of the coffee shops at Victoria, liked to color combination and decided to snap it up for me. Then he gave me the option: I could have this one or I could pick out another one and he'd take the original cup. After persuing the Keep Cup website and trying a wide variety of color combinations I still hadn't found the perfect one. Then we were standing in line to get coffee when I saw an aqua colored cup with a pink band. I knew it was the one and so decided to purchase it. It's a slightly random color combination but one that still works.

One day Tim and I got our coffees in the Keep Cups and met up with Tim's supervisor, Petrik, for lunch. As a group we were talking about the color combinations and how the baristas, without fail, never put the right lid on the corresponding cup resulting in truly hideous color mixtures. I laughed and said, "They look like uglies...." to which Petrik immediately said, "No, no, it's not ugly!". I then went on to explain the reference.

In NZ there exists a sportswear brand called Canterbury; they made their start with rugby jerseys but have since expanded to offer track pants, t-shirts, sweatshirts and even socks. By the 1970s the worldwide demand for rugby jerseys was keeping Canterbury busy. But then they were swimming in left over bits and pieces of fabric - what would they do with them? This is where "the Uglies" were born. Taking random pieces (arms, hems and collars) Canterbury starting putting together what they would market as a "practice" jersey. This simple idea resulted in a complete "uglies" line of clothing that is still sold today. It has become an iconic piece of Kiwi culture.

So does my Keep Cup qualify for "ugly" status? I think yes. :)

Traditional.....

Last week Tim and I were having lunch with Tim's supervisor, Petrik, and two colleagues from the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences. Petrik made the introductions and after saying, "This is Tim and Bridget" he went on to say, "and they're married". Now we've had all sorts of different reactions when this fact is brought to light. Some people are surprised, for reasons I fail to understand. But the response that came next surprised me. It was: "Well, that's refreshingly traditional!". We all laughed but it got me thinking. Since moving to New Zealand I've noticed that many people are quick to talk about their significant other as their "partner". Additionally, many couples we have met are not married. So I guess it comes as a surprise when a relatively young couple is actually married. Very unhip, but that doesn't bother us. We are happy to be together but we've always felt that way even before we were official. :)

Book love....

Game of Thrones. This book, and its three successors, has been sitting on the shelf since we returned from the US over two years ago. Fail. Now I'm jumping in and it's no surprise this was, in itself, a tour de force. Now onto the next epic tome.

Bittersweet...

Tim and I have been talking about resigning from our volunteer roles at Wellington SPCA for several months now. With thesis submission looming just five months away we recently submitted our resignation letters and arrived to work our last shifts this past Monday. For me the shift was surreal and anticlimactic. The staff had a special training session and so I wasn't able to assist with incoming animals as per usual. Instead, I roamed from room to room feeding, watering and cleaning cages. I syringe fed a cat that had suffered some kind of injury and then did something completely new: I hand fed a puppy who was staying in the hospital for observation and treatment. She was some sort of pit bull mix and this sweet pup was shy of human contact and cowered away from me when I opened her crate. Since I'd never hand fed a dog or puppy I wasn't sure what to expect, especially with this particular animal who was wary of people in general. Taking a deep breath I scooped a small handful of the wet/dry puppy food mixture and slowly brought it closer and closer to the pup. She was sitting in her puppy bed, as far from the front of the crate as possible, fighting the urge to even look at me. But perhaps she was hungry and couldn't resist the smell of the food. So we began the slow process of her slurping up the food in my proffered hand. Then we'd do another handful. Then another. And another. Until she had eaten almost all of it. I was thinking, "Yes! Success!". It was then I realized that I should take her out for a little walk to get her moving around and allow her to go to the bathroom. I wondered how this would go over since I'd have to handle her by the collar to attach the leash and then get her out of the crate. Thankfully, we were able to do this without incident but she was still very wary of me. As soon as I had the leash secured I stood up and hoped I wouldn't need to carry her outside. To my great relief she hopped from the crate and we took a stroll around outside. I have to say she was such a sweet pup and just needed a careful, slow hand. I'm confident she will flourish under the care of the hospital staff. Sadly, since it was my last shift I won't be able to keep track of her progress.

It's difficult to describe how amazing our SPCA volunteering has been over the past year and a half. Each week we faced new challenges but the work was filled with joy. Working with animals is incredibly therapeutic and I'm so glad we had this distraction through some of the most challenging portions of our study. And so it breaks my heart to take our leave but the time has come to cut down our commitments as we make strides toward the end of our respective programs.

If you want to see and read more about Wellington SPCA follow this link to their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/wellingtonspca . Love!

Ethics.....

Two years ago I signed on as the Postgraduate Student Representative to the Animal Ethics Committee at Victoria. The work has been incredibly rewarding and has shed light on a career path that I want to pursue: animal welfare. Working at the SPCA, collecting data for Wellington Zoo, as well as my PhD study has contributed to this realization. 

As the postgrad student rep I found myself thinking about the students who work in the animal laboratories at Victoria. I also reflected on my own experience working with animals in the laboratory and realized that I had always wanted more of a foundation and more training when it came to animal ethics and animal welfare. And from this line of thought came the idea for an ethics training module for students. I proposed the idea to the larger Animal Ethics Committee, a subcommittee was formed with me as Chair and we were away. Last year we spent time putting together the content of the course and then refined it through feedback from various sources. For example, when the content was largely complete we held a "beta testing" session with some researchers and their students. After that we incorporated some additional material and the Committee deemed the course ready to be rolled out for real. The first session was held this afternoon; I ran the course and was pleased to have 40+ students attending. Because I firmly believe in preparing for presentations, and because I had given this one previously when in beta, I was able to run a fairly fluid course that was well received by the group. At the end of the session all the students had to see me to sign off on their participation; it was a great opportunity to chat with each student and without fail I received compliments about the content, the discussion points and my delivery. I only mention this because some of the rosiest comments came from students who spent the entire session sitting with smirks on their faces and arms crossed. I would never have guessed that they gained anything from attending the session. Teaching never fails to show you interesting things like this. I'm absolultey smitten with it. :)

We won't run another session until next term (July) but having this first one under my belt has imbued me with confidence. I'm very proud of this venture and truly believe that it is something useful for students as they grow and develop as scientists.