feeling home

Here comes another summary of the last days. What's new? I told you that I joined the KungFu club 2 weeks ago. The numerous bruises are disappearing now, but today I ended up with a bleeding nose. That's life. I just hope that I don't need to get used to it. After the training we went to a Yum Cha ! That was really nice and we had a lot of nice food. Except the chicken feet, I skipt them. Look at this picture! I am not so choosy anymore than I used to be as a kid, but ...

... no way I eat this!!!

At our institute we have a student association called SIMBA. Last thursday we had the election for the new executive for the next 12 months. I got nominated as the treasurer, I accepted it and finally I won the elections. I hope I can do a good job and we will have a lot of fun.

We have some kind of Internet at home now. Still need some more longer cables and I need an external monitor and then I am back to civilisation ;) !

Ok, there is nothing more to say so far!

Have a nice day!

Sport is killing me

Hi guys,
after the first pay-day this week I decided as well to join the sport club here at UQ. There is a great offer of any kind of sport such as Rugby, Basketball, Soccer, Tennis (I heard we have more then 20 tennis-courts!), Swimming (heated open pool), Running, Rowing (must be inherited from UK ;) ), Gym, Fitness, Martial Arts and so on. After quitting running I decided to go for Martial Arts, i.e. you will find me three times a week fighting against other KungFu heros. I joined Ben yesterday for my first lesson. I wouldn't call it fun so far. It was more a general training for condition, so push-ups in four different versions, sit-ups with medicine ball and lot of arm work for two hours. The only thing I can move without pain today is my little toe. I have such a muscle ache, but this speeds me up to go on with this. I really need to do something for me and my body. Today I thought I would take it more easy and I could relax my body with some swimming. It worked fine, but after 10 lanes I got a cramp so I had to give up. :) Just too much sport at once. I am really looking forward to my KungFu lesson tomorrow. I think I will enjoy it. Unfortunately the Tai Chi - lessons are at the same time. This would be a nice quiet change. I wouldn't mind joining this as well.

Still no pics to upload, but I decided to take some pics tonight at least from the house, so you can imagine the area I live in. Ok, need to do some work again.

Have a nice weekend and don't forget: Today is Mother Day!!! :)
Take care!

Autumn

Three weeks back in Brissie'world. What happened so far? Don't blame me for no supply of any pics and interesting stories. Nothing exciting here! I just try to settle down. There still almost 3 years to come. :)
First maybe, I am back in my world of Perl, Proteins and Linux! Got my own DELL machine last weekend. I am not a big friend of RedHat, but I will try to fight. That's what my shaggy-hair-friends from Freising taught me! ;) I found the way back into the data I left in January, and I even think I understand them again. But now it is important to find the big question I want to answer during my PhD, or maybe I look for a lot of small ones. I am not sure yet. Conclusion is: reading papers! It is still exciting, but don't ask me after six months! The administration way is a miracle here. It works, it just takes its time. I am finally enrolled since yesterday and I got my student ID card. This is quite important here, because travelling becomes now cheap for me, half of the normal prices!!! Yeapeahhhh! I have to travel, because I am not living just around the corner of the office anymore. I actually take the bus every morning. This reminds me of the good old days in Cambridge. The earliest bus I can take is at 6:33am, so I arrive at the office around 7:20am. It is quite late for me. If you want to suggest to buy a bike, I am sure you haven't seen this region here before. The streets are fine and drivable, but it is extremely hilly here. I can give an example to (Ex)-Weihenstephaner: You remember the path from the BIZ to the Loewentorgebaeude? This I would have at least 10 times on my way to the IMB. I am not sure, if I really want this. I'll keep you up-to-date which way I will choose. I should mention that the bus station is just 50m from my house!
Yep, my house. Since more than one week I am living with three other crazy people in a nice Queenslander house in Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill is a quiet suburb of West-Brisbane. When I say quiet, I mean quiet, except Hannibal, our Possum! :) I overtook one room from Markus (from Tirol), a Postdoc at UQ. I live now together with Ben, an original Brissie studying International Relationship, Anja, funny Austrian girl, just finishing her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Brain Institute ( I hope that's right!) and Markus (or Mucki) from Austria, second year PhD student here at the IMB. You might have noticed that I am learning two languages now, easy-going English with an australian accent and hardcore Austrian. :)
My room is still a bit empty, but I found an IKEA catalogue, so there must be an IKEA here. I am quite happy with the house, with the room and with the housemates! We have a huge veranda at the back side of the house. So almost every evening we sit outside with our wooly jumpers and covers, some glasses of whine and some menthol cigarettes. We have nice discussions about any issue you can imagine. That's fun! I really like it!

Anyway, why did I call it Autumn? Yep, we have autumn here, that means 12 degrees in the morning and only 26 over the day. So quite chilly in the evening! To be honest, I am bored to go on writing here without any pics and real action. I don't have proper internet at home yet (and I am still alive, hihi). But we are heavily working on it.

Hey guys, I keep you definitely up-to-date! Take care and hope to hear from you soon!

Jo