Hither and Yon: Life and Times in New Zealand

Sunday, February 10, 2013

A year later.....

Yesterday (NZ time) we marked one year in NZ! When we arrived here we were tired, overwhelmed and wondering if we could manage in this new country and navigate this new way of life. Without doubt we have had ups and downs along the way but I'm happy to say that, one year later, we are still glad that we made the decision to turn our lives up-side-down in order to move here. :)

Now we've settled into our respective programs and are both working towards 'Full PhD' status. Up until a student compiles a research proposal and presents it to a committee he/she remains 'Provisional'. So here we are getting ready to present what research we plan to do (and what we've done already) during our tenure at Vic as PhD students. This first year has been filled with reading the literature surrounding our topics, attempting to understand what has been done and what contribution we can make with our experiments. We've both attended conferences and are looking forward to future opportunities to travel and share our research with other students and scientists. We're actually leaving today for Auckland where Tim will spend the week at a conference. I'm planning to spend my days reading/studying for my presentation as well as exploring the city and of course reading for fun. :)

Now we'd like to say thank you to everyone who has supported us in this endeavor - it means so much. Here's to a happy and successful year 2!!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Welly Botanical Gardens....

Passing through a few weeks ago I snapped these with my phone. I'm excited to return with the camera and lenses - it could turn into a day long project. :)