A new low.

I may not be the most absent-minded person ever, but I'm definitely not the least either. I can now report that I've reached a new low in absent-minded-ness (previously the title was probably held by this incident). 

Yesterday (Wednesday) I was at a meeting at uni, and I returned to the office to find out Husband had called frantically looking for me. Apparently he was wondering whether I was home and had just stepped out for a minute. He had just returned home from work to find out the place was very warm. Very very warm. So warm, in fact, that something was on fire. That something was a tray on the stove. Husband thought perhaps I'd been cooking and had stepped out briefly and forgotten to turn the stove off. 

This is quite concerning for a couple of reasons:
1. I had been at uni all day, and definitely didn't cook that morning.
2. I didn't even cook the day before that, we had takeout. 
3. I'd left a big bottle of oil right next to the stove. If the flames reached it, the kitchen might have exploded!

The only possible conclusion therefore is that I had left the stove (and apparently also the oven) on from the last time I'd cooked - Monday night. Yep, that's two whole days. 

I'm not looking forward to the next electricity bill. I'm also a little freaked out that I nearly made the house burn down. 

I'd like to blame the dreaded thesis for this absent-minded episode, but actually Husband and I had been away relaxing for the long weekend (where 'thesis' was a banned word). So really, it's just me.

Oops.

P.S. The weekend away was to a place called Sanctuary Point, about 2.5 hours drive from Sydney. It was lovely. We also went on a short whale and dolphin watching cruise which was awesome (besides the sea-sickness). 

This is the view from the ruined light house in the national park near Sanctuary Point. Pretty.

Bangor

Part of Bangor University (via the uni website)

So I've been here in Wales for over a day now. Bangor and the surrounding areas are quite beautiful. There is a lot of greenery, a massive mountain and the seaside as well. Not to mention some really lovely old buildings. The train trip here from London was largely uneventful; I was worried about my luggage, but luckily standing by my giant bag with a perplexed look and making sighing noises worked at getting stronger people to help me lift it onto and off the train. I got here at 4pm yesterday and from what I could tell, being Sunday the shops were closed already so I just ate crackers for dinner sadly (I found out later a bunch of people found a pub to eat at, I wish I'd done that). At around 10.30pm I was drifting off to sleep when suddenly a beeping noise woke me up. At first I was very confused and thought my computer was playing up, but then realised no, it was the fire alarm and I had to evacuate. Everyone had to stand out in the parking lot in the cold (some people in pyjamas) until firefighters came to investigate. So overall not the best possible start!

Unfortunately this morning wasn't much better. I got extremely lost on the way to the first part of my course - so much so that I missed registration and the first talk. Thankfully a man specifically came up to me and asked if I was going to the course and if I was lost. It turned out he was the lecturer for the next part, so I was able to just follow him. He said my face was very successful at portraying the 'lost' concept which is why he approached me - so combining that with my 'my bags are heavy' look being quite successful too I will take this to mean I have a very expressive face. Perhaps poker is not for me however. Anyway apparently the first talk was just a general 'welcome' type thing so I didn't miss any important content. 

As for the content, it is very dense. Super interesting of course though, but quite an information overload. They also gave us all two books to keep, which is very nice. There are some very friendly people here too. I was a bit concerned as I'm not a fan of interacting with strangers, however I decided to put in an effort as I don't want to be a loner for the whole week. Especially as later this week we have a couple of outings. So shortly some of us are meeting up to go out to dinner - at least I don't have to just eat crackers again.

Lozzz123, Hazard Checker.

I've decided to adopt this title for myself following an embarrassing incident this past weekend. We went to the Sydney Royal Easter Show on Saturday, and I was able to demonstrate my hazard finding skillz by rolling (and subsequently spraining) my ankle on uneven ground. Yes, the same ankle from a few of weeks ago unfortunately. So after a few different security guards came to ask me if I was the person who sprained my ankle and if I needed first aid people to come (yes and yes), finally the first aid people actually came and I got my ankle bandaged up. Then I had to wait for safety people to come and question me, and secure the area. This also happened to be in an eating area, so a lot of people got an extra show with their lunch. 

[via]

I did manage to hobble around for the rest of the day, and even won a prize on a crossbow game (see I told you I should have grown up in medieval times!). One of the highlights for me was the Silkie Chickens. They are just so funny looking I could watch (and laugh at) them for ages. Husband said 'no' to buying one however. Rude. 

My ankle still hurts a little, but what hurts more is the chunk I took out of my hand when landing. It's pretty gross to look at, but also very fascinating to watch how the body heals itself. Here is a picture...

... just kidding.

Anyway, I got a follow up call, and for my excellent hazard detection ability (or more likely, so I don't sue anyone), I got two free tickets to the Easter Show next year. Huzzah! 

Questions for you:

Have you ever received free stuff for being accident prone? 

Any similarly embarrassing stories to share (to make me feel better)? 

Look at it.

[via my pinterest]

...And in non-duck-related events, the last few days have been a bit mixed. On Sunday, as husband and I were just getting in the car to go shopping, I randomly sprained my ankle (I think partly from the unbalanced-ness that is caused by my ear infection). However I carried on to the shops like a trooper - Husband had actually agreed to take me shopping just so I could buy clothes, as if I'd give up that chance, hobbling around or not! I did get some good clothes too. Since taking on some extra responsibilities at uni, I need some "grownup person" clothes, so I don't get mistaken for a random person in meetings who wandered in by accident. 

Surprisingly for me, I've also been quite productive the last couple of days. I submitted a paper to a journal (4th time's the charm...?), and just finished writing another one, and both my experiments are ready to go for next week (fingers crossed people sign up this time)! 

Well, I think that's mostly it for now. Sorry if you found my update boring, but in that case go back and look at the duck again. 

Experiment Fail?

With no experimenting for my research occurring still for a few weeks, I think I've been a bit bored. As such, I've become quite a bit more experimental at home, mostly with cooking. That is, until I came across this blog. Here, a (by all appearances) sensible not-crazy person decided to stop using shampoo and conditioner and start just using bicarb soda (AKA baking soda) and vinegar. I have to say her hair looks actually quite nice, and when I read some of the comments, and found other blogs also saying this is what they did, and perhaps coupled with the fact that I'm still kind of dizzy and going a bit stir crazy stuck at home, I decided - well perhaps this is for me!?

The ingredients I used (though I realised the items are out of order)

From a (sort of) scientific standpoint, the reason behind it kind of makes sense. Bicarb soda is a super weak alkaline and is well known as a gentle cleaning agent, so it can potentially be used as a shampoo when mixed with water. Some people even use it for toothpaste. To stop the scalp from going dry you can also add a bit of tea-tree oil. Vinegar (also known to be used in cleaning) is then used as a detangler/conditioner to counteract the alkalinity of the bicarb and restore the hair's pH. You can then add essential oils to make it smell a bit less vinegar-y.

So after purchasing all the necessary ingredients, I decided to test it out Monday night. As with many of my experiments, Husband allowed me to go ahead, and nicely kept most of his strange looks and incredulous comments to himself. That is, until I came out of the shower after trying it saying "something happened!"

My skin seemed to have a super bad reaction to one of those ingredients (my suspect is one of the oils), because my face and neck became extremely itchy and was bright red with welts. I was pretty concerned, as I had a meeting with a lot of people today, and as post-grad rep I am meeting all the new students for orientation tomorrow. I didn't want to be known as "the one with the weird skin". Thankfully, after a couple of hours the redness and itch disappeared, so it must have been an allergic reaction, and not some sort of burn. It was then that I remembered to actually check my hair, and I have to say - it's actually quite clean and really soft!

I might change the quantities around a bit, and try it one more time. I'll just be a bit more careful to miss my face/neck (since my scalp didn't get itchy or red) now that I know I probably won't die. So for right now, I will say it isn't a total failure, but I'll also be a bit more cautious in future.

Questions for you:

- Has anyone else tried this?

- Do you now see me as a crazy hippy?

- Do you have any similar mishaps to share?  

- Are you relieved or secretly disappointed I didn't share a picture of my skin freak out? 

'Tis the Season for Cooking Mishaps

...well by me, anyway. I guess I shouldn't be overly surprised considering my burnt icecream and chocolate 'dog poo frisbees' of the past, but I thought maybe this time would be better. 

So this is what I'm attempting to make, stained-glass star cookies for Christmas presents for friends:

Excuse photo quality, it's a photo of the cooking magazine I'm using.

I was excited to get started because this is the first time I've needed to use my mixing machine thing (technical term). So I'm not entirely sure why this happened...

oops.

See that wonky bit of metal on the left? Yeh, that wasn't like that when I started. The machine has two holes for two beaters, so I put both in, and they clashed. One emerged the victor (clearly not the one pictured). Was I not supposed to use both? Is one a spare? I really have no idea. 

So anyway I started just using the machine with the non-broken one. Then I realised the metal bowl was getting scratched. See that plastic little cover thing on the top of the pictured beater (which I assume is used to protect things from being scratched)? Well the other one doesn't seem to have one... ANYMORE (? or I'm hoping it never did but I can't remember). So I had to search through all the cookie dough looking for a weird bit of plastic. I haven't found anything. 

Thank God this batch is the test bach. I'm going ahead with cooking them (just waiting for the dough to refrigerate for a bit) just to see how they turn out. Don't worry friends, you aren't going to be getting these ones with the potential bit of plastic.

Well stay tuned for an update, I'll let you know how the cookies turn out!  

**Updated after the jump**

Instead of marking...

...I'd much prefer to pretend I'm still away at the Blue Mountains. We had such a good time, that we didn't really want to come back yesterday. Even though it was cold, and rainy in parts we still managed to do a lot of looking around. Not to mention a lot of eating! There was also the small issue of me forgetting my bag. When we arrived at the B&B (which was lovely, and the owners were so nice), I realised that my bag of clothes, pyjamas etc. was still sitting at home. A big oops. So we did have to quickly find a clothes shop so I wouldn't be stuck in the same clothes for four days. 

We went to Echo Point, which is one of the best places to view the Three Sisters; Jenolan Caves, which was really cool; Scenic World (a bit of a lame name if you ask me but still interesting) where we got to ride the steepest incline railway in the world down to the valley and look around the rainforest of the mountains, and came back up via cable car; and we also looked around Leura, which is a nearby town which is very pretty and has lovely gardens called Everglade Gardens. It was a great early anniversary present, and Husband and I definitely want to go back ASAP - like tomorrow, please?

Click to enlarge

Here are some photos I took! Clockwise from top left: the gardens at our B&B; View of the Three Sisters from Echo Point; Inside Lucas Cave at the Jenolan Caves; Tulips from Everglades Gardens; Another shot of Lucas Cave; Outside Jenolan Caves.

Instead of packing...

...well here I am. I am very thankful that it is a long weekend this weekend, and as a semi-early 1st anniversary present (our actual anniversary is at the end of Oct) we are going away for the weekend to the Blue Mountains. Google maps tells me that it's less than 2 hours drive away from home, but as we suspect many people have similar plans in mind for the long weekend, traffic will be interesting to say the least. 

If you have never been to the Blue Mountains before, I highly suggest it. It looks like this:

Photo from here, because I'm pretty sure the photos I take this weekend won't be as good!

The only minor glitch is that when booking I thought "Hey, since Husband actually has Tuesday off from work too, we should stay Monday night too and come back Tuesday". So we went ahead and booked. Exactly five minutes after that I remembered: I tutor two two-hour classes on Tuesdays, and have for the whole semester. They start at 11am, so guess who's leaving early to get back in time. Oops. Anyhoo - hope you all have a good weekend :)

P.S. Well I just checked the weather forecast for tomorrow for the Blue Mountains. Top of 10°C (50°F) and rain. Hahah oh dear.

Knees.

Unfortunately, my knees have never liked me. They are currently giving me grief just when I actually became determined to run regularly. However instead for the last week I've been walking around like an elderly person. It could be worse though, like back when I was in high school... (cue tinkling-harp-type music to imply that we are going back in time).

*WARNING: If you're squeamish, maybe don't continue reading. 

Burnt is an all-too-familiar smell at my place...

Chocolate topping tar, and dog-poo frisbees.

After being somewhat pleased at my attempt to make a pie last night (essentially just slow cooked casserole into the oven with pastry on top), and wanting a break from uni work, I decided to make some treats. Looking up recipes would have been a good idea, but I of course did not bother with that. My first attempt was little chocolate and peanut butter puffs. I decided to use some hershey's kisses. Well they didn't turn out too well, as unsurprisingly the pastry puffed up, and popped the chocolate and peanut butter off! I managed to get them back on, but the result was still underwhelming (puffs of pastry with what looked like tiny bits of dog poo on top). Then I turned to little pastry scrolls of chocolate and peanut butter. Not wanting to waste more hershey's (they are actually husbands'), the only other chocolate I could find was chocolate topping. That'll work right...? WRONG. Yet again the smell of burning has filled my house. All I can say is I'm glad I used baking paper so the baking tray isn't ruined (like when I had to chuck out the saucepan after burning icecream).

TASTY.

An update of sorts.

I don't have anything particularly gripping to share today, but more just a combination of tidbits of information (I don't think I've ever said tidbit in my life, so there you go).

So attractive...

If you look over at my 30 before 30 page, you'll see I've crossed another thing off my list! I vowed to wear my horrible banana coat out in public, and the other day I did. Husband and a few friends had quite the laugh, especially when I matched not only some road workers with their high visibility vests, but also the curb at a service station, which was painted yellow to make sure people don't fall. It was fun though. Still not sure I'd wear it seriously however.

Secondly, I've lost my wallet (I know I was joking about being an absent minded professor not that long ago, but this is a bit much)! Somewhere over the long weekend it must have fallen out of my bag. I didn't even realise until Monday. Pretty crummy since I have to get replacements of all my cards etc., and particularly bad timing since...

I'm going to NYC next week!! Next Friday, to be exact. Hooray, but also, AARGH! It is very soon and I'm still working on my data and talk (and trying to make sure all my cards get replaced). I'm still not really looking forward to the flights either. However stay tuned for a post soon about getting over fears of flying... it's probably mostly to convince myself but maybe it will help some other people too! 

Lastly, I have a Productive June update for you. June has been very productive so far, I really only have one day of procrastinating to report, and that was the day before the long weekend, which everyone pretty much just phones in anyway. Also, I was very excited to find out that Productive June has now taken off in a whole different department in the uni, thanks to a friend over there. They're displaying guilt-inducing posters and everything! HOORAY! ...how is your Productive June going?

OK that's it for now. Sorry if that was particularly dull, but hey, the posts can't always be about the zombopocalypse (or can they...)!?

One day I could be a great absent-minded professor.

On the way to uni the other day I received a phone call. Much to my surprise, it was from the police station near my house. Obviously getting a call from the police can be a little unnerving. However I realised it was my friend, who is a policeman. I thought perhaps he was just playing a prank and just wanted a friendly chat about something until this:

[via]

Him: So - have you lost your keys?

Me: No... I don't think so *rummages around in bag, GASP* I have!

It turns out, checking the mail on my way to the train station that morning I was happy to find a phonecover I'd ordered from ebay had arrived! YAY. So I opened it up, put it on my phone and went on my way. Some really nice person later on saw my keys still sticking out of the mail box, took note of the address and went and handed them in at the police station. Thank God it was that person that found them and not somebody who decided to rob the place instead! Also, I'm told that usually what happens is people hand in keys, but if they don't know the address they go in the 'key drawer', usually never to be used again. Not many people think to go ask the police about their keys, but anyone turning up at the police for keys have the lucky task of searching through the drawer on the off-chance somebody handed them in.

I wish I had these Tiffany & Co. keys (though maybe I'd lose them too!)

I often tease my husband about his forgetfulness (he's lost keys and wallets on several occasions), but I knew I had to own up to this mishap since my friend now knows what a goober I am. I have grave concerns for any future children Husband and I may have!

Internet Purchase FAIL.

One midnight a few months ago, I was bored and very sleepy. This is a dangerous combination. Exhibit A; I thought it would be a good idea to buy clothes on the internets from the US. This has not always worked out so well in the past - I once received a custom made pair of shoes about 3 sizes too big for me, and they wouldn't let me return them even though I was pretty sure I could prove they made the size mistake. Part of the reason though that I try to internet shop is I don't really like interacting with shop assistants (I used to be one and I didn't like interacting with me then).

Anyway. I came across this picture:

[source]

And I really liked that outfit so I decided to buy the same yellow coat so I could look EXACTLY like that. The sleepy Lozzz123 obviously did not consider that I may not actually look like that in reality:

excuse the iphone blurry photo quality!

The thoughts that come to mind are: banana (this may in part be due to the fact I'm posing like a banana), and hazmat suit. Actually going to a fancy dress party as a banana, or for lab emergencies may be the actual times I'd ever consider wearing this out in public.

P.S. Husband was quite bemused with my insistent demand to take a picture of me being a banana.
P.P.S. Feel free to also pose like a piece of fruit and put it on your blog. That way I won't feel so awkward. You know you want to.  
P.P.P.S. Bet you didn't think this post was going to say the word 'banana' that many times. BANANA. 

A Day in the Life of a PhD Student Working from Home

10am: Wake up, feel bad for sleeping in so long, but decide to rest for 'just 10 more minutes'.

11am: Wake up again. Oops. Actually get up this time. Check email, look at blogs and facebook. 

11.30am: Feel bad about procrastinating so look at motivational blogs instead, think about doing some work. Instead check email, blogs and facebook again.

12pm: LUNCH! Better whip up the most elaborate thing you can think of, especially since you forgot breakfast. 

12.30pm: Notice all the things in the kitchen that need cleaning. Get started, realise this is boring and decide - should really do some work. Check email again. Hey, look at those fingernails - you should really file them (and paint...? yeh good idea).

1pm: This might be a good time to clean your desk. Also, does your computer need defragmenting, or some big virus scan that means you can't work on your computer? Better do that now. 

[Anide, this one's for you]

1.30pm: QUICK!! Something exciting might have happened on facebook! Check it now and get distracted stalking people you don't really like all that much. 

2pm: Ever wonder what happened to that celebrity who was in that thing a few years ago? Why not research that instead of PhD-related topics.  Alternative option: you should probably look up symptoms of that rare and dangerous disease you think you might be developing.

2.30pm: Is today the day to start that new exercise plan? YOU KNOW IT!!

3pm: Wait - this seems hard, and really you should be doing some work. Check email again.

3.30pm: Actually start doing work. 

4pm: Feel very accomplished for doing some work; check facebook as reward.

4.30pm: Husband returns home from work. "Why do you have to be so distracting and noisy? Can't you see I'm working very hard?!" Oh well... consider getting started on dinner?

5pm: Start making elaborate dinner. Feel a bit bad about uni work, but people need to eat don't they!

7pm: Dinner; Throw out the idea of doing any more work today - at least you did that little bit, it was like 4 hours or so wasn't it? Right? Relax for the rest of the evening with big plans for PhD work tomorrow.

P.S. Yes I am working from home today - how did you guess?! :P

Science FAIL.

Back in my undergraduate degree I did Chemistry. I found the lectures pretty interesting for the most part but the practical lab parts a bit dull, mostly due to all the calculations. I had a fairly nice lab partner, though I decided in my head that his name didn't suit him and he seemed more like an Andrew. So I spent most of the time trying to remember his real name and not to call him Andrew. 

[pic via here]

Chemistry definitely wasn't my best subject, and I was mostly only taking it because it was a pre-requisite for some other courses. Anyway, the day came for us to do an exam in the lab. It required us doing a variety of tests to work out the mystery chemical we were given. We had to do it alone, and in silence. Well I started off OK, but five minutes into it, I realised that I had accidentally put some of the test ingredients in the original sample. This meant I had contaminated it, and had no actual way from then of working out what the mystery chemical was. Now, I am definitely not what you call an assertive person, and I was quite afraid of looking like a total goober in front of my parter and all the other people in the lab. Too scared to tell anyone, I just pottered around pretending to do tests for the rest of the time, and looking like I was deep in thought or working out calculations whenever an examiner walked past. Clearly, I should have just told someone, and although I would have looked silly for a few minutes it probably would have been better than spending the whole rest of the exam in sheer panic. Obviously I made up my answer at the end of the test. When my partner asked how I went I'm pretty sure I said: "yeah not too bad"!

I'd like to say I fluked it and got it right, but the title of this post isn't 'Science Fail' for nothing.