Fluoro flowers

Couldn’t resist getting these orange corymbia flowers (aka flowering gum) this morning at the South Melbourne markets.

Gay voice

I don't often listen to podcasts but this caught my attention on The Skinny with Mia Findlay.

ABC journalist and producer Mark Reddie talks about the discrimination he faced early in his career because of the way he spoke, which did not fit the stereotypic low, straight anglo voice expected of male journalists. Glad to see he has managed to carve out a successful career despite the discrimination.

Watching the ABC news in the last few months, its been great to see the national broadcaster embracing greater diversity in front of the cameras. Of course, SBS has been leading the charge for some years now. Commercial TV still has a long way to go though.

London zoo

Misha the aardvark and several meerkats perished in a fire at the London Zoo.

Already, I am reading in the news that some animal rights groups are using the fire to highlight animal suffering in zoos. It's a vexed issue.

Animal welfare is certainly important. But zoos are important too and play a critical role in educating the public, raising awareness of wildlife conservation and, in many cases, are directly involved in research and captive breeding of rare and endangered species. And I know from my own experiences that the welfare of the captive animals and the research carried out on animals in zoos (like research carried out everywhere else) are tightly regulated.

I still remember visiting the Singapore zoo as a kid, which no doubt played a key role in shaping my love of animals and career path as a zoologist. No doubt there are many people like me who have been inspired to go down a similar career path and are now involved in wildlife conservation as a direct result of those first encounters at the zoo.

 

Bad yum cha

Nathan and I went for 'all you can eat' yum cha a few days ago.

You'd think that a yum cha buffet would be a joyous experience. It was not.

The problem?

They ran out of food!

We knew something wasn't quite right when the food carts being pushed around mostly consisted of the same three things: shark fin dumpling, glutinous rice, and bbq pork buns. Unfortunately, the shark fin dumpling is a no go zone (for environmental reasons) and both the glutinous rice and pork buns are, in my opinion, white people's food.

Where we all the other yum cha classics? Over the course of two hours (I insisted that we persevere even though Nathan wanted to go home), we scored ourselves a few chicken feet, some sui mai and a bowl of congee, but the situation was pretty dire.

There was no sighting of prawn dumplings or radish cakes or even a plate of steamed Chinese broccoli! There was no beef offal or beef balls or even steamed tripe. Wtf?

Eventually I asked one of the trolley ladies what was going on and she admitted that the kitchen had under-prepared and ran out of everything (except for shark fin dumplings, glutinous rice and pork buns).

It got even more dire when even the chicken feet ran out and the staff were resorted to serving plates of marinated peanuts! Peanuts!

It was at that stage that I finally lost hope and we left.

Vale Tommy Watson

Tommy Watson, one of my favourite indigenous artists past away recently.

He actually died a few weeks ago but I only just read about it. Despite being an accomplished artist, with works held in public collections both here in Australia and overseas, it seems like there was very little acknowledgement of his passing.

I remember seeing his works for the first time around 2003/2004 at the National Gallery. The bright colours he used were like nothing I had ever seen before; the dots actually felt as though they were pulsating against the background.

Here are some examples of his work held in major public institutions...

Palm trees and flamingos

I'm loving the print on this shirt. Unfortunately, I can't find a close up but it's basically a bunch of palm trees, flamingos (some wearing sunglasses) and snakes. Brilliant.

Apple eyesore

I couldn't believe it. I just found out that Apple will be building a new building at Federation Square.

The sad part is that an existing building, currently occupied by the Koori Heritage Trust, will have to be demolished to make way for the new Apple Store.

And the new store doesn't seem to be very well integrated with the rest of the architecture on the site.

I'm reading there is a huge public backlash.

Oops

My trusty pill box is great for reminding me to take my meds each day. But I learnt this week that the box is only as good as the medicine you put into it.

For the past week, instead of taking my regular anti gout meds, I had been unknowingly taking high doses of corticosteroids! Both drugs are white and round and came in very similar looking containers. Oops.

I now have to slowly wean myself off the corticosteroids to avoid withdrawal symptoms (and not compete in any competitive sporting events with mandatory drug testing).

Hot day

The weather forecast has caused me to rethink my plans today. I think I'll be relaxing at home under the air conditioner with the dog.

Work of art

Our last Dean courted quite a bit of controversy getting the University to acquire all kinds of weird and wonderful artwork for our work environment. These works are changed periodically. I recently went into the foyer of one of our building following a leak and was amused to see this...

Can you guess which is the actual work of art?

Weekend flowers

Bought a gigantic artichoke from the florist this week. Decorative and edible!

Over the top

Nathan and I went to a homewares shop in Collingwood today.

It has a bit of an 'ye olde' feel about it.

There was no cash register, the laptop computer was hidden behind an old box and the sales attendants wrote out the receipt by hand.

Fine. I can see what the shop is trying to achieve.

But....with a huge line of customers all waiting for their purchases to be individually hand written onto a piece of paper, the whole process seemed unnecessarily cumbersome and time consuming. It was also resource intensive; it took two sales assistants to process the order. One to pack the item and the other to add the item onto the hand written receipt.

The situation wasn't helped by the fact that many items did not have price tags so the sales attendants had to look up the items on the lap top.

Meanwhile, three other sales attendants stood nearby doing nothing.

Truff's Christmas present

Truffles has a new dog bowl for Christmas.

It was hand made in Melbourne by an architect-turned-ceramicist. And 'yes', it was very expensive. In fact, it costs more than any of the human crockery in the house.

I just need to make sure that my (exceedingly) clumsy other half doesn't accidentally break it in the wash.

Celebrating marriage equality

Even the animals are celebrating the passage of Australia's marriage equality legislation.

Jacaranda in South Melbourne

I'm continuing to draw down my annual leave, which means 2 day working weeks from now until Christmas. Woohoo!

Today, Truffles and I walked with Nathan to his work in South Melbourne and we wandered down a street (I think it was Napier) that was lined with beautiful flowering jacarandas. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos.

I normally associate jacarandas with Sydney and Brisbane. I didn't realise they did so well in Melbourne. Even though most of the flowers were past their prime and the trees are not as big as the ones I found on the web from more subtropical regions (see above example), the sight was still quite stunning.

More science please

I was at home watching ABC News this morning and I see they have a very good looking and charismatic weather presenter.

Of course, I had to do some further research.

His name is Nate Byrne and he is a meteorologist, science communicator, oceanographer and a former lieutenant of the Royal Australian Navy. Can he be any more perfect?

Gift wrapping

Gift wrapping seems to be part of the service in many shop nowadays.

When it's free, the demand seems to be especially high. Yesterday, I bought a few things from a shop and was told there would be a 1-1.5 hour wait. I left the items with the shop attendant and picked them up today. They had been beautifully wrapped (much better than what I could have possibly done). I was very impressed.

I had to buy a birthday present today and was able to take advantage of the Christmas wrapping service to get the birthday gift wrapped too. Perfect!

Perfume

The sales assistant sprayed the perfume on my wrist. I took a sniff.

Me: "It smells like the moist towelettes you get at KFC."
Sales assistant: "Wait a few minutes for the alcohol to dissipate."
Me: "Oh yeah. It smell much better now."

Same but different

I learnt something new today at the optometrist.

Apparently there are frames specifically designed for Asian faces.

I. had. no. idea.

For most of my life, I've had to contend with the challenge of finding glasses that I not only like (easy), but are also large enough for my gigantic head (difficult) and will sit properly on my Asian face (difficult).

Well, Asian glasses do exist. They are specially designed to accomodate small nose bridges and high cheek bones.

And, to my absolute delight, Tom Ford makes Asian glasses! How wonderful is that?

I guess it makes good economic sense given that almost 60% of humanity have Asian faces.

Still no solution to big heads though.

Ice tea

I'm kinda obsessed with iced tea at the moment.

A couple of weeks ago I was gifted an assortment of teas as a thank you gift. Among them was a French earl grey. It was delicious and I thought it would work very well as a cold drink. And that's how the obsession started.

Since then, I've been brewing all kinds of different teas and popping them in the fridge. Even Nathan (a caramel latte guy) is getting into them.

This is how to bid on a painting...

Last month, the most expensive painting in the world was sold via Christies.

I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to fork out US$450 million on a painting (I get nervous bidding for artworks worth a few thousand dollars).

This is the action from the auction room...

Raining in Canberra

Well, it seems I should have flown further north to escape the deluge.

It started raining last night in Canberra and hasn't stopped. I do like the sound and smell and sight of rain though (especially if I don't have to be outside).

Canberra bound

I'm going to Canberra today.

It was a spontaneous decision. I needed to spend the rest of the Qantas gift voucher I bought myself a year ago (to earn extra Qantas points).

I was incredibly stupid. I've flown so much this year but I kept 'saving' my voucher for 'later' (I don't know why). Next time I'll know better and  actually use the voucher as soon as I can to avoid flying-for-the-sake-of-flying simply to try to use up the voucher towards the expiry date.

Oh well, it will be nice to go to see the family.

I heart my new orchid

I bought an orchid on eBay the other day. Nathan and I went to pick it up. last weekend. The seller was an elderly man with a think European accent. He had a beautiful green house packed full of weird and wonderful plants.

I told him I bought the orchid he was selling because I liked the heart-shaped leaves. He looked at me with a smile. The species name phyllocardia means 'heart shaped'. Aha! Of course. Shame on me. As a biologist I should have made the connection.

Fortuitous day off

I've got a lot of leave scheduled between now and Christmas. I can't take it all in one huge block (too much stuff going on at work, including supervising my research students). So, instead, I've just been picking random days of the week when I don't have anything scheduled in my diary.

This randomness has actually been quite fortuitous. I happened to be on leave when the results of the postal survey came out so I got to watch the event unfold on TV.

And then, today, I got to watch Magda Szubanski (my new favourite person in the whole wide world) deliver a touching speech at the national Press Club. This was followed by a live cross to Parliament House to watch the same sex marriage legislation pass the senate.

I wonder if I'll be on leave when the legislation passes the House of Representatives?

Sleeper

In the art world, a 'sleeper' describes an artwork whose real value has been missed.

I've certainly read news stories about collectors picking up bargains at auction that turn out to be worth millions.

I don't think I'll ever have that kind of luck.

But I do feel incredibly lucky tonight to have picked up a painting by an artist who I love, at a fraction of the painting's true value.

The story of my association with the painting goes back several years. I first saw it in my friend's gallery. It was the second most expensive work in the exhibition. And there was no way I could have justified forking out the asking price (which was equivalent to the cost of a small car). It didn't matter anyway. The painting was sold.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when the same painting turned up in an online auction catalogue with a sales estimate a mere fraction of the original sale price. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I spoke to my gallerist friend and she was just as surprised as I was. This was a very important painting by a very important indigenous artist, whose works are held in major institutional collections, including the National Gallery of Australia.

I went to the auction tonight. I was very nervous but luck was on my side. I got it for a steal.

I'm stoked.

Gareth Samson

I met up with my retired German friend a few weeks ago for lunch. Afterwards, she took me to see the Gareth Samson retrospective at the NGV. I had not heard of Samson before. The exhibition was amazing. I love his use of colours. There was one gallery space within the exhibition that came with a warning because of graphic content (i.e. penises).

Too much leave

My university is making me draw down my annual leave  before the end of the year, otherwise I will be deemed to be on leave in January whether I want to be or not.

I've decided to select a bunch of days between now and Christmas to allocate as leave days. I don't really have anything planned.

I guess it's nice just to do nothing!

Spontaneous purchase

I went to a designer furniture end of year sale. Big mistake. I didn't realise I needed a fluffy pouf until I saw one. It is not very comfortable to sit on and, even with the heavy discount, still cost a fortune. The dog (black one on the right) is less than impressed.

Tale of two restaurants

Nathan and I went for dinner with some friends last night. The restaurant is always busy and last night was no exception. We ordered our meal. They stuffed up one of the orders, which was not a big deal. However, it did mean that one of our friends had to wait a bit longer for her meal to arrive. Still, we felt a lot of pressure to eat quickly, as the waiters kept coming over to try to take away our bowls and plates before we had finished. In fact, Nathan went to the bathroom and when he returned, his plate (which still had food on it) had been taken away without the rest of us even noticing. In the end, the friend whose meal arrived late still had to skol her beer because the waiter wanted to clear our table in preparation for the next customers. By the time we had walked out the restaurant, there was already other customers at our newly vacated table. It was conveyor belt service.

Contrast last night's experience with the lunch I just had with a friend at another restaurant. The kitchen also stuffed up the order. Again, it wasn't a big deal and we waited for my friend's meal to arrive without any complaint. Still, when the bill came, we were taken by surprise when the waitress said they had deducted the cost of both of our drinks due to the 'inconvenience'. It was unexpected and unnecessary but we appreciated the sentiment. We left what would have been the cost of the drinks as a tip.

In the desert

I've been in Israel.

I had no idea that there was a commemoration for the Battle of Beersheba taking place this week and was puzzled by all the Australian flags lining the route to Beersheba.

I've been in the desert most of last week, attending a workshop at a research institute. The days were long and intense but I still managed to do some sightseeing and experience the wonders of the local wildlife.

Here is a view near where I was working/staying. It looks like a scene from Star Wars.

These critters are called ibex. They were everywhere.

Here is a horned viper (it was a tiny baby...and super cute).

And my absolute highlight was seeing scorpions. Under a 'black' light (like the ones they use in a nightclub), they fluoresce brilliant turquoise.

Oglebox

I  must admit I was initially sceptical of the format but I'm very much a Gogglebox fan. The Aussie version is so much better than the British (snore) version.

There are some new people this season. They are Lebanese Aussies. All three are very attractive. Nathan noted that the guy on the left is always 'man spreading'. I'm not sure if it was complaint.

Adelaide

I had a Qantas gift voucher I needed to redeem before the end of the year so Nathan and I decided to go to Adelaide for a day trip.

We arrived in the mid morning and headed to a lovely cafe for brekky before wandering over to the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA). I've never been to AGSA before and I was really impressed by the way they display their collections. Old paintings hung alongside contemporary sculptures. It was fantastic. The highlight for me was this wall of Nolan portraits.

Our visit to Adelaide happen to coincide with Tarnanthi, the festival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art so we also got to check out the exhibition at AGSA and also visit the aboriginal art fair at the nearby Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Centre. Impressively, I managed to resist temptation and only bought an exhibition catalogue. Nathan bought a tea towel.

Afterwards we went to Rundle Mall and had drinks on the balcony of the Richmond Hotel overlooking the pedestrian strip where a street performer was trying to get out of a Houdini straitjacket.

From Rundle Mall, we made our way to the South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute, which is next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital,  to check out the beautifully designed building (it reminds me of the outer surface of a durian).

Soon, it was time to take an uber back to the airport. We got back to Melbourne in the early evening.

It was a great day.

Next week, I'm off to Israel!

Sore back

I managed to hurt my lower back about two weeks ago. Work colleagues, who have seen me waddle around the department have all been encouraging me to do yoga or pilates (I seem to be the only person at work not doing yoga/pilates!). I've told them I'll think about it (the answer is probably going to be 'no').

I decided, instead, to go the physiotherapist. I've never been to the physio before and I would say that it has been a generally positive experience (I guess it helped that the physiotherapist was ridiculously good looking).

I was pleasantly surprised that the work he did on my back was able to bring almost instant relief from the original back pain, though he did inflict a great deal of short term pain with his squeezing and poking and pressing.

It's still not 100% though so I'm going to have to go back for repeated visits.

I don't mind.

Another wedding

One of my cousins is getting married in Melbourne this weekend. There will be a large group of relatives descending from Sydney and Canberra. I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone.

Nathan was puzzled why my cousin had chosen to get married on AFL grand final weekend, when flights and accommodation are at a premium.

I don't think my cousin realised when they settled on the date.

Weird flowers

I saw these at a florist in North Melbourne today and had to get them. I have no idea what they are but they look weird and smell wonderful.

The crappiest table in the restaurant

I took a visiting Asian American Professor for Sunday brunch last week. We went to a very fancy restaurant in the city and got there super early in order to secure a table. In fact, we got there before the restaurant had even opened and there was already a small queue.

We waited our turn and a waitress asked us to follow her. Her colleague seemed perplexed and asked her where she was taking us and the colleague's response ("why?") should have been an early warning.

Sure enough, despite lots of unreserved 2 seater tables everywhere, our waitress took us up a ramp to a crappy long bench table, where we would have to sit side by side (and no doubt with others, as the restaurant filled).

We politely asked another waiter if we could sit at one of the two seater tables instead. We were quickly relocated without any fuss.

Ok, so maybe the waitress was just stupid but I couldn't help but wonder why we had been taken to the crappiest part of the restaurant when there were so many empty tables. Surely she couldn't have been that stupid?

My guest was oblivious but I did notice that the best tables were otherwise filled in order of arrival and the crappy long bench that we had been brought to was filled last.

Choosing to believe

So,  One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts chose to believe that he was not a British citizen. What a ridiculously weak argument.

This says a lot about the man, who also chooses to believe that climate change is not a reality.

It seems that Malcolm's reality is guided by beliefs rather than evidence.

Postal vote

Nathan and I both filled out our same-sex marriage surveys and have posted them back to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

As a scientist, I see so many design flaws with the process that, whichever way the decision goes, it's legitimacy is vulnerable to being questioned.

We all know that the compulsory plebiscite was blocked by the Senate and the Government has decided to go for a non compulsory postal survey instead.

Naturally, this means that only the views of a portion of the population will be sampled because not everyone is going to return their postal survey. Gathering data on only a 'subsample' of the population is widely and legitimately used in science – provided that the design of the subsampling is scientifically sound. Herein lies my biggest issue. Those who choose to participate and return their surveys will not necessarily be representative of the population as a whole because they will be a self-selecting bunch of individuals, i.e., those who feel strongly enough about the issue to vote. If one is going to subsample a population, then one needs to randomise the sampling process. The ABS should know this. It's one of the basics of good scientific design.

The question being asked is also being confused. The 'no' campaign has been raising a bunch of questions that have very little to do with the specific question at hand, which is about whether the law should be changed to allow same sex couples to marry. Thus, if some people are answering 'no' because they don't agree with some of the other issues being raised (boys wearing dresses; safe schools program), then this potentially also calls into question the validity of some of the returned surveys.

I've only raised some of the scientific issues. There are, in fact, many problems that could affect the credibility of the postal survey, from undelivered survey forms to people filling out multiple surveys.

And that's the worry!

Canberra bound

I'm off to Canberra today. Lots of celebration going on this weekend.

Youngest sis and brother-in-law are inviting extended family for wedding lunch. Grandma's birthday is coming up. And, of course, it's Father's Day on Sunday.

I'm also going to have to (finally) clean my fish tank, which is still at my folk's house. I have only one fish left. Since it was already an adult when I bought it, it's at least 19 years old!

What the?

I know I should know the answer to this (being a biologist, after all) but I'm stumped.

I saw this photo in an interior design magazine and I'm trying to figure out whether the creature on the furry ottoman is an alpaca or not. I think the context (an alpaca in a London apartment?) is contributing to my confusion.

Thoughts?

Trained

The dog has me well trained.

She stands on my chest every morning, willing me to wake up (usually before 6am).

I go downstairs to heat her food (Did I mention Truffles has mince, rice and vegetables for breakfast?).

She comes down when it cools sufficiently to eat.

After she eats, she goes to toilet, and then runs back up to bed.

No sleep ins for me.

Stylish

I don't care much for boxing but I do care for folks with a sense of style. And Conor McGregor has it in spades.

Dump

Nathan and I went to an open house inspection yesterday (yep, I might be soon moving to the suburbs...let's see).

The house was beautiful but I was perplexed I couldn't find the second bathroom/toilet.

The mystery was later solved when we figured out that the locked door leading from the laundry was, in fact, the toilet – and that another prospective buyer had been taking a dump.

It got me thinking...is it ok to be using the toilet for number 2s at an open house?

All clear

Went to see my electrophysiologist yesterday. The second heart operation seems to have been a success and he hopes he will never have to see me again. The feeling is mutual.

On my way out of the consulting rooms, I received a text from Nathan saying his grandmother was in the same hospital getting some tests. I decided to go up to the ward for a visit.

Nathan's grandma is a fiercely independent lady who lives on her own in Inverloch. She had a fall in the bathroom ten weeks ago - and hasn't been right since. Nathan's aunt finally decided to take her to hospital here in Melbourne to see if they can figure out why she is still in pain.

Nathan's grandmother is all about appearances. She had her hair cut specifically for her hospital stay (though she complained that the hairdresser had cut it too short). When I saw her, she was wearing a necklace under her hospital gown. The nurse made her take it off for her x-ray appointment.

The most amusing thing of all was when she introduced me as her 'friend'. The nurse looked at me strangely to try to figure out the nature of this somewhat odd pairing of elderly caucasian lady and younger asian man.

The ring

The poster for the horror movie says it all. Before you die, you see the ring. That's pretty much how I felt last weekend.

My friend and I were wandering along Gertrude Street and she wanted to go into a jewellery store for a browse. I obliged.

I'm not a jewellery wearer but I did appreciate the craftsmanship of the pieces in this particular store. In fact, my eyes almost instantly gravitated towards a beautiful (and large) silver stag beetle ring. Maybe it was the biologists in me but I was mesmerised. So, of course, I asked to try it on.

Big mistake.

The ring got stuck.

At first, I think my friend and the store owner thought I was joking. And I assume people do occasionally joke about these things. But it was no joke. I tugged and tugged and it just wouldn't come off. I then contemplated just buying the thing to cut short the embarrassment ($500 isn't that expensive, I thought to myself).

The store owner, ever the professional, rushed to the back of the shop and returned with a bottle of hand wash. He squirted some of it onto my finger. But nope, the ring was still stuck.  

He then retrieved a bottle of water and ushered me outside onto the busy sidewalk. By this point, I had seen the ring and I truly wanted to die.

Fortunately, water did the trick and I managed to slip the ring off my finger. I politely handed it back to the shop owner, apologised profusely and quickly made my exit.

One nation - or more?

Well, the current Australian Parliament has descended into quite a mess.

And it's all because of section 44 of The Constitution. Who would have thought? I don't even remember spending that much time studying that particular provision as an undergrad law student, although I do remember learning about the citizenship rule. Regardless, I bet law students (and their lecturers) across the country are having lots of interesting class discussions right now.

Malcolm Roberts from the One Nation party is an interesting case. I find it rather amusing that he is now having to 'defend' his allegiance to Australia, when the One Nation party has consistently made it their platform to spew the kind of divisive vitriol that has forced people like myself (i.e. migrant) to have to defend, time and time again, my own allegiance to Australia.

Just deserts.

Snail's pace

I felt well enough to spend some time outside the apartment today.

Nathan and I started with brunch at the South Melbourne Markets. We took the dog with us, which turned out to be a mistake. It was a very cold morning and dining al fresco was a bit too "fresco" for me. The dog enjoyed it though. She is a Scottish terrier cross after all.

After brunch, we dropped the dog back home and headed into the city to visit a designer furniture shop where I had my eyes on a designer quilt cover I had seen online. Unfortunately, the specific quilt I had in mind was not in stock and so the sales person had to check availability from one of their other stores.

Question: How long should it reasonably take for a sales person to do a check online? Well, in this case, it took almost an hour. It wasn't noticeable at first because there were lots of other amazing things in the shop to keep us mesmerised. But after 40 minutes or so, it started to become a bit of a drag. Ok, to be fair to the sales person, I also asked about a velvet cushion that was sitting in the showroom. So...1 hour to find out the availability of a quilt (I have no idea how much it will cost) and the price of a cushion.

Meanwhile, Missy Higgins (i.e. the singer) came into the store to ask about a chair she had ordered and had to wait because the sales person was 'busy' attending to us.

At some point, the sales person gave up and asked me for my contact details and said they'll be in touch.

After seeing this message on their Facebook page, I won't hold my breath. It seems that snail's pace is their trademark:

Very upset!!! Ordered 3 pendant lights 15 weeks ago, with a due date of 14 weeks. Heard nothing from them around due date, so I rang on the day before this date, spoke to someone who told me they would look into it, and she would ring me back, 2 days go by-nothing. So I ring again, and spoke to someone else, he said he would let me know as soon as he knew what was what. He did ring back within 10 minutes, told me they would be available from the Wednesday of the next week, so I said we will be in on the Thursday. Guess what, made the trek in, and NO pendants! They don't know where they are!!! So at this point in time, we have spent nearly $3000 On pendants we may never see! Bad form XXXXX!!! Our architecture recommended them, makes her look bad as well!

Resting at home

I was in hospital having my second catheter ablation on Monday.

Hopefully the procedure works this time, and will fix the terrible arrhythmias I've been having over the past couple of years.

Having already undergone the same procedure in March, I knew what to expect this time around.

I rocked up to the hospital, got lost (again) trying to find the right room, and changed into my hospital gown. I got fitted with the various electrodes, had a cannula put into my arm, and was wheeled into the catheter lab where I was put under general anaesthetic.

When I woke up again, it was all over. I was taken into my hospital room to recover and, as the anaesthetic worked its way out of the system, I began to feel better and better.

On Tuesday, I got to go home.

Nathan has made me promise to take it easy over the next week. The last time, I did too much too soon and that probably contributed to my gout flare up. I've learnt my lesson. I'm at home in my pjs with the dog watching TV. I'm trying not to attend to too much work stuff.

I won't know if the operation has been successful until a few weeks have passed.

I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed.

Canberra

Geeze. Time flies and I've been very tardy with my blog posts.

Nathan and I both had a great time in Canberra.

On the Saturday, we met my sister's future in laws for lunch. They had flown down from Brisbane and are not fans of the cold so it was unfortunate that Canberra had record low temperatures that weekend.

After lunch, Nathan and I managed to get to the National Gallery for the Indigenous Art Triennial.

Well, strictly speaking, it has been about 5 years since the last triennial so the exhibition is really a quinquennial (Good to see that I'm not the only tardy one).

Sunday was the day of the actual wedding. Unfortunately, I had an upset stomach, which meant I spent a lot of my time dashing off to the loo but it was still a great day.

My sister and brother-in-law decided against a big Asian wedding so only immediate family members were in attendance.

Lunch was a multi-course degustation that took up almost the entire afternoon. In fact, the lunch went so long that my brother-in-law's family got changed into more comfy travel clothes at the restaurant and went straight to the airport afterwards for their early evening flight.

We went home for a couple of hours and then headed back out to a family dinner.

I'm back (but off again soon)

Four weeks in Finland came and went a lot quicker than I had hoped. I got back last Friday. Jet lag wasn't too bad this time around. I slept the whole day on Friday (and most of Saturday) and I was pretty much back to normal after that.

Nathan and I are heading to the airport again tomorrow. My youngest sister is getting married so we are going to Canberra. It's going to be a chilly weekend in the Capital. I'm bringing a good winter coat!

European update

I've been busy doing fieldwork here in Finland. It's been nice getting out of the office and working outdoors in the fresh air. I love the smell of the birch and pine forests here. I've been spending quite a bit of time out on the water as we need to take a boat almost everyday out to an island where we are doing our experiments.

I took a break a few days ago and went to Berlin to visit my retired gallerist friend. After several weeks of healthy eating in Finland, everything went out the window during my visit to Germany. I had schnitzel and sausage and meat balls and pickled pork knuckle. I basically pigged out on pig.

No, no, no, no, no

I was sitting in a cafe and a man walked past. The first thing I noticed was his very smart blazer. But then I saw a belly button. Yes, the man was wearing a crop top under his blazer. I hope it's not a new nordic trend.

Northern lights

I arrived in Finland a couple of days ago. The flights over were fine. Of course, I had grand plans to work on the plane but that never happened. Instead, I watched a few movies and even managed to get some sleep.

The flight from Hong Kong to Helsinki was on an A350. It was the first time I had flown on one of those but I had read quite a bit about the plane's features, including lower cabin pressure, reduced noise levels etc. The only thing that stuck out for me though was the fancy overhead lighting, which Finnair was quite keen to show off with a northern lights 'simulation' as we were approaching Helsinki airport.

The normally super time efficient passage through the Helsinki-Vantaa airport was less efficient on this occasion thanks to a slow moving queue at passport control caused by a lady travelling on her own with seven unruly kids. I can't even imagine travelling with one child, let alone seven.

The airport now has a train connection to the city but old habits die hard and I ended up taking the bus.

Then it was off to meet my colleague at a nearby cafe for a smoked salmon breakfast.

European adventure

I'm heading to Finland next Monday. I will be gone for a month. It will be a work trip.

I got travel clearance from the cardiologist several weeks ago (and I'm hoping I will still be ok to go, despite the persistent heart issues).

I reckon the trip will actually be good for my health. I'll be out of the office, working on the shores of the Baltic Sea away from the frenetic pace of city life.

 Let's see.

Small change

I went to the chemist this afternoon to get some prescriptions filled and was standing in line to pay.

There was quite a bit of commotion with the elderly European couple already at the cash register. The gentleman was getting quite worked up and was shouting at the cashier. Meanwhile, the queue was getting longer. The dispute was over 95 cents (for haemorrhoid cream), which the man was refusing to pay.

I was just about to pull out a dollar coin when the guy's wife intervened and made her husband hand over the money. I guess she's the boss.

Meanwhile, Nathan was across the street getting a hair cut, which I later found out cost $85.

Don't order the kimchi

I went out for dinner with some friends the other night. It was one of those swanky Asian places targeted at Westerners. You know the type: trendy, fancy, and expensive.

We asked the waiter if she had any recommendations.

She rattled off the obvious dishes that had already caught my eye (pork belly, beef ribs).

Then, after going through the list of her favourite dishes, the waitress dished out a stern warning.

"Don't order the kimchi", she said. "It's SHIT."

I was rather taken back by her directness....and we heeded her advice.

PS. Both the pork belly and beef ribs were great.

Siamese twins

As a native English speaker, I take many things for granted that can be a source of puzzlement and frustration for my non-native English-speaking friends and colleagues. 

This week, a conversation I was having with a colleague got me looking into something that I subsequently found out is known in linguistics as an "irreversible binomial", or "Siamese twin." 

These are word pairings that appear in an irreversible fixed order. Examples include "salt and pepper", "ladies and gentleman", and "rock and roll". Flipping the order of these nouns would just be weird. The problem was I couldn't quite explain why we order them they way we do. Something just are the way they are, and I promptly directed my colleague to the wikipedia page on the topic. 

Heart update

The specialist says my heart should really be settling about now. Unfortunately, it is not. I'll be seeing him in a few weeks time so will figure out where to from here. It's quite possible I may need to repeat the heart procedure (ablation). Encouragingly, the success rate is much higher after a repeat ablation.

I'm trying to get back to a normal routine. I just need to know my limits. I'm no longer able to run to catch a train or tram for bus and resolve to just waiting for the next one. I've got an overseas work trip planned later this month. I asked my boss to fly me business class (there is always a silver lining).

heart problems

Unfortunately, recovery from the heart operation has not gone as well as I had hoped.

I've been getting really bad arrhythmias (i.e. rapid and irregular heart beats). In fact, I have been feeling worse than what I was feeling prior to the heart procedure.

Evidently, these recurrent episodes do not necessarily mean that the procedure has failed, as it is not uncommon to get arrhythmias while the heart is still recovering.

Nevertheless, the persistent and abnormal heart beats have been extremely unpleasant.  They are also very scary. After 3 days of putting up with my heart racing at 140 beats per minute, I decided to go to hospital, where they performed a cardioversion to basically stop and restart the heart. It worked for a few hours and then the heart started going crazy again.

Looks like I'm going to have to just deal with it and hope that the irregularities will settle down.

Milestone

Nathan and I are celebrating our ten year anniversary today (which is like an eternity in gay years). The day marks our very first date. We had pizza on Lyon Street. The date went for three days.

It's remarkable that we ended up in a relationship at all, as we are very different on so many levels. Nevertheless, these differences have worked out very well for us. And of course, we also share many things in common.

The last couple of years have been tough. Nathan's dad had to go into a nursing home and I've had recurrent health issues, but we have supported each other through of this – and no doubt a whole lot more into the future.

I love him to bits.

After surgery

I had my heart procedure last week. Everything went well and I'm now resting at home. I think the heart and the point where they inserted the catheter in my groin are healing well. Unfortunately my right foot has decided to have gout issues so I'm hobbling around the house, dosed up on endone.

Dogs bar

I caught  up with my gallerist friend at the end of the working week in St Kilda. We went to the Dogs Var. we bumped into my friend's neighbour (the one who cooks with pungent shrimp paste). They were chatting about the shrimp paste when I got back to our table. The neighbour seemed nice and was very apologetic. Oh well, my friend will be off to Germany for 6 months so I guess the neighbour can cook with as much shrimp paste as she wants during that time.

Shrimp paste and fish sauce

My poor gallerist friend. She moved into a nice apartment in St Kilda and has had nothing but trouble. She got permission to hang some of her artwork in the public spaces and two got ripped off the walls and were stolen. Then her storage space got broken into. So much for secure swipe card access into the building.

Her latest gripe has been about her neighbours downstairs. The bloke is British. His wife is Indonesian - and evidently the chef in the household. My friend has been complaining about pungent smells wafting into her apartment. Turns out to be shrimp paste and fish sauce. Even though I don't cook with those ingredients very often, I personally wouldn't have a problem but I'm used to those smells. I find cigarette smoke wafting into my apartment to be more annoying.

Given my friend's German heritage, I suggested she cook sauerkraut to block out the pungent shrimp paste odours in her apartment.

Tentative steps

I took my first tentative steps out into the big wide world today following my medical dramas yesterday.

Even though I am now feeling fine, it was surprising how nervous I was walking out of the apartment. Rather than taking the stairs like I usually do, I decided to take the elevator instead.

And after running my errand, I came straight back home.

Monday morning drama

I ended up in hospital this morning. I was on my way to work and decided to take the stairs up to Collins Street. This is something I do almost every day but today I was in atrial fibrillation.

The actual climb up was fine but when I reached Collins Street and started to make my way towards the train station, I found it increasingly hard to catch my breath and started to black out. I had to lean against a wall to steady myself and it didn't get any better so I had to sit on the sidewalk. I then felt really unwell and ended up calling an ambulance. My shirt was soaked in sweat.

The ambulance arrived but was on the other side of the street so I asked a guy in a suit to help me flag it down. He made a half arsed attempt and then continued on his way. I guess he was eager to get to work. I ended up stopping a lady for help instead and the ambulance eventually found me.

The paramedics were terrific and had a great sense of humour. I was initially reluctant to go to hospital but they talked me into it. It was my first time at the Royal Melbourne. The facilities there seem to be much better than my last visit to Cabrini. A couple of hours later, my heart returned to normal rhythm and I got to go home.

Too much drama for a Monday in my opinion!

Birthday surprise

Nathan and I are in Canberra. We are here celebrating dad's 70th. It was suppose to be a series of surprises but as the weekend approached, more and more of the surprise had to be revealed (e.g. mum let the cat out of the bag that we were coming to Canberra.)

We are heading down to Tilba on the south coast of NSW so it was inevitable that we had to eventually let mum in on the secret and then to tell dad so they can plan the trip (our family doesn't do spontaneous things well).

My sister in Melbourne is also coming with her family. They are driving up and meeting us in Tilba and were suppose to be one of the surprises too but she had to tell mum to mitigate Mum's inevitable stress levels if she suddenly found out there were four extra people to feed (dad's already busy preparing food for Tilba. Yes, it's meant to be his birthday). Dad doesn't know that my Melbourne sis is coming so at least that will remain a source of excitement when we get there.

Blogger catch up

I'm looking forward to catching up with fellow bloggers later this morning. I've met Victor a couple of times previously and really enjoyed our previous catch ups (once in Melbourne and once in Sydney with Nathan in tow). I'll be meeting Andrew for the first time but I've been following his blog for years so it will be fun to finally meet him in person.

Luna Park wedding

Nathan and I went to a wedding last week at Luna Park.

I had no idea that Luna Park did wedding receptions, but I thought it was a really fun venue.

We were perched on the roof of the main cafe for the actual wedding ceremony, right next to the tracks of the big roller coaster. In between the sound of screaming roller coaster riders, the bride and groom managed to get through their vows.

I guess an amusement park is actually quite an appropriate venue for a wedding. It's full of wedding relevant symbolism (emotional roller coaster ride immediately comes to mind).

A morning at the museum

I had to go to the Museum for a work meeting yesterday. I stopped by at a cafe on Gertrude Street called Grumpy and the Dreaded One's Little Cafe of Awesome. True to it's name, the cafe was awesome and there was a lady with dreads behind the counter. And after my companion received his coffee, we realised that the bloke who brought out his drink is, indeed, a grump.

Spiders and how not to quit your job

A couple of interesting social media lessons for me this week.

The first concerns a Facebook post I made, in which I posted a picture of a big, hairy huntsman spider. Pretty innocuous right? Well, not if you have both biologist and non-biologist friends on Facebook. The reaction of the non-biologists was naturally quite predictable. Most people do not like spiders. The problem was that one of my Facebook friends happens to be a spider expert and took offence to the commentary and started writing comments about the people who wrote the anti-spider posts. Lesson 1: No more spider posts on Facebook.

The second concerns the resignation of a colleague, who told our boss that she would be resigning to take up a new position overseas. She initially wanted to keep things under wraps until she had the opportunity to inform her grad students. Once that had happened, I guess she posted something about her new job on social media (Twitter?). Well, the boss saw the post and had a dummy spit accusing her of undermining his reputation by making her resignation public before he had the opportunity to formally tell the rest of our Department. Lesson 2: Your boss probably follows you on Twitter.

My new toy

I have a new laptop. Yay.

My last one is starting to fail me and I am too technologically incompetent to rectify the things that I'm sure can otherwise be easily fixed or updated.

Broken wifi and problems with accessing various websites (including those associated with my work) has led me to my brand new Macbook Pro.

The scary thing is that I'm beginning to worry that the new laptop might be a bit overly fancy for me. For example, what the heck is a thunderbolt port and will I be able to figure out how to connect my computer to the lecture theatre screens at work before the start of second semester? Oh, and how do I use my fancy trackpad?

I'm worried I might have simply traded one set of technological incompetencies for another.

I took my new toy out of the box last night but haven't actually switched it on yet.

In the meantime, I'm typing this on my old computer in the bedroom connected to a very long ethernet cable.

On hands and knees

Don't get the wrong idea.

I've spent a week stuck in my apartment because of a nasty gout flare up. At its worst, I was having to crawl on my hands and knees to get to and from the bathroom.

The week in bed did allow me to catch up on a lot of movies and I kinda went crazy watching queer movies (I exhausted half of our download limit for the month). Three stand outs for me were Freefall, Strangers by the Lake, and Weekend. 

I also watched an interesting documentary called Do I Sound Gay? The latter was particularly surprising because I didn't expected to see my old (American) boss and colleague in the documentary.

My old boss is most definitely not gay (though he does have a very strong lisp). He also happens to be (along with his wonderful wife) one of the very first people I ever came out to, but that's another story.

Anyhow, it turns out that my former boss is the documentary filmmaker's cousin and made a cameo in the film. I emailed him to let him know that I saw him in a doco and he said that if he knew he was going to be an international star, he would have made a bit more effort to comb his hair on the day of the filming.

Exempt

There is a news story on the Fairfax websites about a woman who was told by a security guard to refrain from breastfeeding at the National Gallery. The Gallery has since apologised.

It did get me wondering though. Food and drink are generally prohibited in public gallery spaces – and for good reason. Should breastfeeding mothers be exempt? And what about other spaces where food and drinks are not allowed?

Gong xi fa chai

Rooster

Tomorrow marks the year of the rooster in the Chinese lunar calendar.

It was interesting to read that the period around chinese new year also marks the largest human movement on Earth as hundreds of thousands of people make their way home to celebrate with their families.

I'm staying in Melbourne this year, having only just gone back to Canberra for Christmas and (Western) new year.

There are a lot of weird traditions and superstitions surrounding the lunar new year. For example, one is not suppose to cut their hair for a month.

You should also refrain from doing any house work on new year's day to avoid sweeping away all your luck and good fortune.

Another tradition is to consume copious amounts of things with auspicious sounding chinese names that are totally lost in translation. I'm talking about things like pig trotters, dried cyanobacteria, dried oysters, sticky cakes and whole fish. Yum.

Every kid's favourite tradition is, of course, to receive red envelopes of money from adults. For a long time, chinese new year was my one and only source of pocket money for the year!

As time has gone by, it seems that Australia has really embraced the chinese new year festivities. For me, I've become increasingly 'meh' about the whole thing.

In pictures

Well, how bloody disorganised am I? It's taken a week but here is a selection of pictures from our recent vacation in Hong Kong.

Of course, for a fish fanatic, no trip to Hong Kong would be complete without a visit to the goldfish market. I don't approve of the way the fish are sold though. Poor things.

 We caught the cable car to Lantau Island to see the big buddha. It worked out quite well because the cable car was shut the following day for 5 months for maintenance so it was a fortuitous decision to go the day that we did.

 I visited Macau for the first time. It was interesting to see the Portuguese influence.

 Also took a ride on the mid level escalator, just for fun.

Naturally, as a tourist, we went on the peak tram up to Victoria Peak. The crowds were horrendous...

...but the view was worth the wait.