tongariro crossing 2

I went up to Rotorua (or stinky ol Roto-vegas as it's more commonly called here!) a cuppla weeks ago to go to a conference and afterwards I did the Tongariro crossing which is a one day hike over a volcanic range just south of Taupo. The north islanders claim it to be the best one-day hike in NZ, which having lived on the south island for a while, I'd have to say is not true at all, but it was still a great tramp and the scenery is not like anything you get down here. You walk up a saddle between Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe, which looks exactly like Mt Doom (in fact I think it was used as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings film) and apparently is about as much fun to climb! I decided against climbing it and therefore, for the second time in my life, allowed a volcano to defeat me. But I'm cool with that! (the first was Cotopaxi - Ecuador, which is the highest active one in the world and which I came to within 100 m (in altitude) of the top of but didn't manage to get right to the top) It's a great walk with some wicked blue lakes and crazy landscapes.

Mt Ruapehu


Mt Doom (also known as Mt Ngauruhoe)


The emerald lakes


The emerald lakes n some wierd tourist


Ruapehu in background with Ngauruhoe and the red crater in front

tongariro crossing

me at the blue lakes on the tongariro crossing

Down on the farm!

Well that's it, we officially have green fingers! I think I mentioned that we got a little crazy growing seeds and then had to dig up half my garden to plant them all, but its been unbelievably worthwhile cos EVERYTHING is growing! So cool! We've started getting courgettes, sugar snap and snow peas, and beans growing in the last couple of days and the tomatos aren't far off. These are, of course, in addition to the ridiculous amount of spinach and lettuce we're having to eat to stop the whole garden being taken over, plus the coriander we had in our thai curry, the oregano, thyme, rosemary and mint! We already had a couple of baby carrots too. I doubt the sweetcorn is gonna give us any, but it looks sooooo cool! What with the peach tree and walnut tree we're gonna eat well this summer! There's a couple of photos below of me pyjama gardening (my favourite weekend past-time!) and some of our vegies. Sorry to make all y'all northern hemispherites jealous with the sunny, warm looking weather - if it's any consolation it is ridiculously windy here as usual.

proud gardener
courgette (bottom middle)
pyjama gardening!
snowpeas
sweetcorn
Sean reluctantly having his photo taken!

my lovely laydees!

I went to Lyttelton and Corsair bay with two of my most favourite and beautious french speaking buddies, Emelie and Jenna, and thought I'd put a couple of delightful piccies up.

Not had much interesting stuff to say recently, but will hopefully start having more photos and stories as summer gets in full swing, especially since my crazy bro will be over here to entertain me for the summer!

Beer, sun, surf and fun German stick throwing games!

Just had a lovely (apart from the tired beer-induced headache I'm enjoying) weekend for Ben's birthday (the fabulous French guy who's been a great friend almost since I stepped off the plane here) in Gore Bay - a really nice secluded little village halfway between chch and kaikoura. There was a whole gang of us camping there and the blazing Nor-wester (hot hot dry wind) kept us all warm. Paula (see photo), my friend Anna's sister, who is staying with us for a while came along and met a grand total of about one Kiwi! Bit of an international crowd! We drank beer til there was none, played a fun German stick throwing game (which seems largely just to be an excuse to drink beer in the sun - those Germans know what they're doing!) and argued loudly into the night of the worlds woes! Then we all nursed our hangovers on the beach, watching Frenchies surf, in the warm sun. Perfect. Happy birthday Benoitito, and thanks!

My first peer-reviewed publication!

My first publication (peer-reviewed) has finally been published in the excellent journal Journal of Organic Chemistry! Yay!!! You probably won't be able to access the paper but anyone who's interested, you can see the abstract online at the JoC website (2006, p7947). One hell of a lot of work went into that paper; two horrible years of a PhD (and I still have stuff to tidy up in that bit of my project) on my part and a lot of work by Cherry who found the compounds (we finally got the stereochemistry Cherry - sorry for the long wait!) and Maya and Gerhard for sorting out lots of details and writing it, so it's SOOOOOO nice to finally have it published! Maya said there must be a curse on the Malaysian fugus that the compounds were found in (the funky bonsai tree looking thing in the abstract) cos it seemed that anything that could go wrong (or at least slowly!) with the project, did!

Non-chemists may be amused to know that what took two years to get the paper published was the two dotted lines on the bit of the molecules labelled MePro. Ridiculously frustrating! But published, so thanks to everyone involved!

An Inconvenient Truth

I had no idea that An Inconvenient Truth has only just come out in the UK. I got a chance to see it a couple of months back at a film festival (since when is NZ ahead of the UK?!) and I really recommend it. It's funny to think what the world would be like if Al Gore had only won that election! It is a very well put together documentary and he is a very good speaker. Even if you don't usually go to see documentaries at the cinema, go see this one - if we make it a box-office hit maybe then governments will listen.

There are many who doubt the existance of man-made climate change and as is always the case in science, it's much easier to disprove than to prove a concept. However even if you're not convinced, the changes that are needed are not necessarily that large, and the catastrophe that would face us if the scientists are proved right is too disasterous to play chance with. Go see this movie, then sell your SUV and get on your bike or hybrid car if you really must be one step ahead of the Jones'!

the beautiful people!

Last night was our department's annual ball, and despite always promising not to go again, we of course ended up going. It was actually a very good night, with the required TERRIBLE music and equally terrible dancing, no dramas or toilet hugging - just good fun! Best thing was it was a masquerade ball so we spent all week making our masks! Ah, the joys of paper mache and glitter! Sonia's brilliant mask deservedly won the competition for best mask, her's is the blue one with the rose. Mine was (of course) the purple one.

cluster bombs

I hate to get all political again, but I like to think that people power is still alive and kicking and that we can make a difference. I guess most will know that Israel chose to drop a monstrous number of cluster bombs in the last three days of it's war with Lebanon in civilian areas. This just as they were finalising the terms of the ceasefire. Even the Americans are like 'hmmmm...not too sure that was appropriate' and that really takes something!

Cluster bombs are specially designed to be indiscriminate and with a large number of the bomblets not exploding on impact they lie in wait to explode sometimes many years after the war is over. If they are disturbed later, for example while trying to rebuild a house or often when kids are playing in the rubble, they can explode causing severe injury or death.

Clearly these weapons have no place in civilian areas, but even in completely military cases they are of dubious morality given how indiscriminate they are and how long they can remain on the ground unexploded after battle lines and military targets have changed. These weapons are produced, used by and exported by our very own British government. In my opinion we should be pressuring our government to set up and heavily lobby other countries (in particular the USA and Israel) to sign an international agreement stopping the use and production of these weapons. There is a petition online for just this cause so if you're interested go along and sign it. Go to the British petition site or the international site.

As an aside the Israelis are still refusing to give the UN a map detailing where they dropped cluster bombs making the job of clearing them much more difficult and much more dangerous for the peacekeeping troups who have the job of clearing up Israel's mess. Yeah, cheers guys. We'll come bail you out again anytime.

codename e.

It's time to blow my favourite petite demoiselle's cover and expose the wonderful codename e.! That's right ladies and gents, she who doth actually leave comments on my blog and make me feel like I have friends! Meet the lovely Emelie! The only art historian I know. That's a lie actually, sorry Morgan! OK, the first art historian I ever met! And by her side is the wondrous codename mpy (Mikki!), also a frequent contributor to this blog. They just moved into their lovely house on the hill in Lyttelton which has a fantastic view over the harbour and banks peninsula (for a great picture see Mikki's blog http://mpydesigns.blogspot.com/).

Lyttelton is a really cute little town on the inside of the volcanic crater that Christchurch is just north of. It has gorgeous oldstyle colonial houses and the most cool bar near Christchurch - the Wunderbar. I'll have to go there again and get some photos cos that bar is so wierd (in the good way).

So anyway - thanks mpy and e. for a lovely bbq on Sunday (I managed to get my chickpeas peeled in time by the way!) and for always leaving messages on here! Love you crazy kidz!

Subversion part II

I saw "V for Vendetta" when it came out a few months back and whilst I knew it was a good movie, somehow the circumstances (being on holiday and having all sorts of other fun stuff to fill my mind) deflected me away from it. I saw it again tonight and I have to say - it is a faaaaaaaaaakin awesome movie. One of the best movies I've seen in a while and it really benefits a second viewing.

It discusses how fear and its use to manipulate the people can allow a nation to accept increasingly idealogical and fascist rule. The analogies to current issues in the world seems to only have made the film more relevant since I last saw it 6 months ago, and I hope that this doesn't represent an ongoing trend. Our acceptance of the loss of civil liberties in the face of terrorist attacks must be very carefully considered and while America may be showing a more extreme aspect of this fear, we are certainly not exempt from it in Britain. A very obvious example would be the killing of an innocent man in London by our own police force after the London terrorist attacks. I don't say that we should tie the hands of our government and police force, but we should be very wary of how slippery the slope can be.

I really recommend this movie; if you were disappointed by the second two Matrix movies, watch this one. The Wachowski brothers got it right again.

Subversion!

Banksy just gets better! Most Brits probably know him but for those of you who haven't come across him, go check out his website www.banksy.co.uk. He's a cheeky and subversive graffitti artist from Bristol and he's over in the states causing some mayhem! He snuck a life-size guantanamo bay prisoner model onto a ride at Disneyland and apparently he snuck an elephant (well hidden in pink!) into a warehouse for an exhibition. Keep an eye on the bbc news website for his ongoing stunts.

I don't usually understand art, but his stuff I get and I love it! I'd say he's the best artist Britain's generated in a long while. Anyone with the audacity to paint on the Israeli's illegal wall is pretty rock and roll in my books!
So cool!

stuff

I've been slack with this recently cos it's been all go here! I finally managed to get a pretty important step in my research to work but it only works when it feels like it and so I've been frustratedly working pretty hard recently. If I can get the thing reliable it's a very important step though, so it's well worth the effort and pretty exciting stuff. Well I think so anyway. But chemists are wierd. I wouldn't trust their definition of exciting if I were you!

It's not all work though, cos the spring is finally here in Christchurch and we went snowboarding today. Perfect conditions for it - gorgeous sunny day and good snow and we didn't even have to get mucky trying to put snowchains on cos the snow was all on the piste and not the road! What more could you ask for?! Couple of pictures below.

Also become quite the budding horticulturalist recently, cos we decided to grow a couple of vegetable plants from seed for the summer and I didn't really expect much to work, but actually they've pretty much all grown perfectly! So now we'll have our own classy vegetable and herb garden. Of course we may never get any actual vegetables out of it, but it's still fun to try! What with cycling to school everyday, our own "worm farm" (which is posh for compost heap!) and our own vege plot we're becoming right little hippies! I've got a lot of carbon footprint to make up for with these flights to NZ though!
Hope you're all hunky dorey and having fun! x

Earthquake!

I've been in New Zealand for 2 and a half years now, and the one thing I really wanted to experience was one of these earthquakes it's famous for. And today at 4.29pm I FINALLY felt one! Initial readings say it was 5.9 on the Richter scale but it was miles away (Murchison) so it wasn't very strong. Which is pretty much what I wanted - a nice gentle one! So cool, just a gentle rocking motion; I was on the 7th floor of the chemistry building so I guess it was amplified. Sean wouldn't believe me when I phoned him, but 5 mins later it was already up on the geonet website. Apparently some people could hear a rumble here in Christchurch too. But the birds carried on flying and it certainly stayed windy so I can discount a few myths for all you friendly folk!

OK, that's my excitement for the day! I also saw a ridiculous French movie called the science of dreams (which was mostly in English) and it was great in a whacked of sort of way. I love Gael Garcia Bernal anyway - such a hottie! Hope all's well with you kiddies!

chemistry's glamour girl!

Well if the volumetric flasks don't convince them, the hot sheila on the HPLC will! That's right my friends, I'm now the fresh face of chemistry! Go check out our uni's chemistry website (http://www.chem.canterbury.ac.nz/) and you shall see just how cool chemistry is! I'm ready for my champagne and cocaine now - the heady heights of the modelling world must be going to my head!
(Please note, there is no way that any chemistrician would ever be seen dead in such a clean lab coat under normal circumstances - it even has creases down the sleeves!)

Go Jenson!

SO my man finally won a grand prix! Wahoo! He got into F1 quicker than I expected but took longer to get his first win than I thought. Hope it'll be the first of many! With Alonso coming second and Michael Schumacher crashing out!

Very frustratingly the terrestrial TV over here gave up the rights to F1 and I don't have sky so I didn't get to see the race. I probably wouldn't have seen it anyway though, cos it starts at 1am on a Sunday night over here! That said, it's nice to have the option!

A big rant! Arguments against my position welcome. Unless you're some psycho rightwing Fox-viewing neocon religo freak.

Well, since I warned I was gonna allow myself to ramble aimlessly, I should get on with it! One of the things that has obviously led to the most debate recently and the thing that winds me up unbelievably is the current situation in the middle east. I guess some people might call me a bleeding heart leftie, but I'm reasonably comfortable with that label and if you don't like it don't read any more! However, I can't believe that the international community has let the situation get anywhere near where it has and that the Israelis weren't forced to show restraint right from the start.

I should probably say first up that I'm not anti-Israel (although I think the world would probably be a safer place without it) but I find their way of dealing with its neighbours absolutely counterproductive, short-sighted and incomprehensible. Incomprehensible because only a couple of years ago, even Ariel Sharon was making great efforts towards a peace with Palestine by giving back some of its settlements (although really only very limited amounts compared with the amount to land that they have taken since the original 1947 UN partition plan) and now they will have to restart the peace plan (if indeed they ever want peace) from a much weaker position. By weaker I obviously don't mean militarily weaker, but as history has shown them again and again, military strength and the threat of nuclear warfare doesn't equal anything like a peace. To be respected as cooperative neighbours would go a lot further towards a lasting peace. I also realise that many argue that Israel only gained all its extra land due to Arab aggression, however showing a genuine willingness to return it would help moderate parties like Fatah gain genuine power in Palestine. Whilst Israel constantly undermines Fatah how can it possibly expect it to be a strong partner in negotiations. Whilst it constantly alienates the Palestinian people with concrete walls and blockading its borders how can it expect them not to become extremist and certain members aggressive.

The thing I find the most depressing and ridiculous is the fact that all this was started by the fact that Palestinians voted DEMOCRATICALLY for Hamas in government. The context of this vote has to be understood. Most commentators agree that this represented a lack of faith in the Fatah government with regard to internal issues rather than pushing for aggression against Israel. Indeed Hamas did not go on any sort of warpath upon coming to power even when it's funding was withdrawn. I do not wish to show support for Hamas, as obviously terrorism in any guise is wrong (including when military powers do it). However, for several months Hamas were keeping their heads low and there seemed to be real hope that they may be more moderate now that they were in power. In fact there were reports on the BBC that Hamas had drawn up a statement implicitly recognising the state of Israel - a monstrous step forward.

Also interesting to put in context is the original "kidnapping" of an Israeli soldier (a military target and therefore in my opinion not a terrorist act). This act came after a series of shellings from Israel into Gaza including the missile which killed a Palestinian family of seven on the beach (I guess you remember the pictures). This sounds quite provocative to me, but then the day before the "kidnapping" Israelis also launched an incursion into Gaza and "arrested" two Hamas members. I realise that Hamas is defined by Israel as a terrorist organisation, but given that it is supposed to have given control of the territory to the Palestinian authority, the lawful course of action is to approach them. By undermining the Palestinian authority's territorial control and carrying out "arrests" in Palestinian territory its actions effectively add up to no more than a "kidnapping". Is it hugely surprising then that certain radical groups (which apparently did not include Hamas) chose to carry out their own border crossing raid and attack one of the MILITARY outposts that had been shelling innocent families on beaches? And what is Israel's response to this retaliation? To bomb the only power station in Gaza, the university, the parliamentary buildings, the foreign office, to threaten to assasinate the democratically elected prime minister and to take prisoner a large chunk of the government. Hmmm. Good, I like what you've done there. Not enough you say? Oh ok, close the borders completely cutting off all trade, and severely hamper any access of aid. (Remember people, trade aid sell Palestinian olive oil - buy it - it's great!)

And what exactly do the international community do. The lefties go 'that's ridiculous, completely disproportionate and collective punishment' which is against Geneva conventions and all that is humane. The powers that be do nothing. A week passes and still Gaza is under siege. Powers that be : nothing. Another week passes. Hezbollah enters the fray. I guess my point is - TWO WEEKS passed before Hezbollah got in on the action. In that time I was about ready to bomb the IDF and I'm not a crazy muslim extremist! (Not Israel I hasten to add, but God did it annoy me that their army were allowed to get away with it) Can the international community lay the blame for what was to happen afterwards anywhere but at their own door? Tony Blair, I can't imagine how you're going to get on at the ol pearly gates, mate. You can't even represent your own party, let alone your country. Then again most of our fair nation is populated by Sun and News of the World readers - maybe you do represent the majority.

So Hezbollah deflect attention away from Gaza. One particularly interesting fact is that many news sources are now saying that actually Hezbollah captured two soldiers during an Israeli incursion into the Lebanon at a village called Aitaa al-Chaab. Sounds to me like Israel are on pretty thin ice when they claim "kidnapping" when they were actually arrested by Lebanese police on Lebanese land. Even if they were "kidnapped" the ensuing carnage that the IDF have unleashed on the population is absolutely criminal. To bomb highways and bomb convoys of civilians trying to flee the absolutely indiscriminate attacks on the Lebanese infrastructure is inhumane on the highest level. I don't know the most recent figures but a couple of days ago the number of children killed by Israeli fire in the Lebanon was 35 % of all casualties. The average % of the Lebanese population under 16 is 27 %. Now to me that, at best, represents a complete ineptitude of the IDF and Israeli intelligence (unlikely given that they're known to be amongst the best in the world) or a deliberate terrorist style emphasis on killing innocent people. I would find it very hard to believe that statement until two events occurred. Firstly check out the following picture (I don't wanna copy it in case it's copyright) http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2006/07/25/mn_mideast_lebanon.jpg
That pretty much sums up for me the IDF's attitude. A high precision missile right through the centre of the red cross sign of a red cross vehicle evacuating wounded civilians. If you read about it you'll find that while the medics in a second red cross van helped to pull injured children out of the first vehicle, their red cross van was also bombed. A RED CROSS vehicle. I mean, seriously. I actually can't describe how mad that makes me. Two RED CROSS vans taken out by precision guided weapons. How the HELL did they get away with that. As if that isn't enough, they then kill four UN peacekeepers after those peacekeepers contacted them 10 times to tell them that they were PEACEkeepers and that they were in very serious danger of being killed. Each time they were told shelling would stop. Clearly UN peacekeepers don't harbour Hezbollah militants or terrorist rockets. What does that say about Israeli intelligence if being told 10 times by peacekeepers not to bomb here doesn't prevent them from bombing.

I'm sorry if this post has got a bit out of hand, but I figured if I put all my political crap into one post you can at least ignore the whole thing! If you've made it this far that means you either want to write a scathing comment in reply (most gratefully accepted, cos I have maybe been getting a biased view - although I do try to get as balanced sources as I can) or you agree with lots of what I said and are reading this on your way out to the protests against the IDF aggression! If the latter is the case PLEASE make a life size effigy of me and take it with you! It's so frustrating not being able to go to protests here. We need to put pressure on our government to take a stand against Israel and show them that what they are doing is not acceptable. Within days of the invasion into the Lebanon the French prime minister visited Beirut as a show of solidarity with the Lebanese. What has our own prime minister done? Four weeks later and there is still no ceasefire. Stalling only leads to escalation as seen when we did nothing to halt the collective punishment in Gaza. This is not part of the war on terror, this is the reason for the need of a war on terror. Every day that we allow this carnage and aggression we create a hundred new terrorists and a hundred new excuses for terrorism.

I leave you with a quote from the Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon: "We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world... to continue the operation". Please help change his mind.
I hope you're all hunky dorey. Things are good here; cold drizzle. Excellent! Miss y'all.

Rah!

Hi! All is pretty good over here in NZ, my work has slowed to something of a snail's pace recently which is quite frustrating since now is the time when I need to be finishing up the experimental part of my PhD and getting started on writing, but motivation levels are at an all time low and it seems the easiest things take days. I managed to spend most of last week doing one reaction (partly because it turns out it's the sort of reaction that likes to empty itself all over your fumehood, or indeed your face(!), no matter what you do) and I still haven't managed to purify the product. Ahhhh! However I've broken out of ChCh twice in two weekends and it's been awesome to get back out into nature again. Went snowboarding yesterday at a great little ski station and hopefully below (if I figure out how to upload pictures) is a picture of lake tekapo and the MtCook mountain range from the top of the station. Plus there's also a picture of me and some hairy brute I picked up on the chairlift. (I should probably clarify that I am indeed referring to the lovely Sean!)


Also went up to Hanmer with two lovely girls from my group, Jenni and Anna. We did a mini walk before marinading ourselves in the hotpools up there. We more or less boiled ourselves alive and all had stinking headaches after nearly 3 hours sitting in the 38 degree pool, but it was so cold outside we couldn't face getting out! Below is a photo of us.
Other than that not been up to much. Saw Kora, the band that I've been raving about on my previous blog, a couple of weeks ago and once again, they blew my socks off! I really have never seen such a good live band. All those in Aussie, keep your eye out for them supporting Salmonella Dub (the original and still one of the best of the Aotearoa dub scene) in October. It's a concert not to miss and Rich I'm sure will back me up! They have an unbelievable energy on stage, I really hope they'll get big enough to play Britain so you guys back home can see them.

No other exciting news my end. I hope you're all doing well and having fun. Drop me a line sometime.

Hello!

Hello!

Well, since Sean (my bloke) won't go to my other blog on myspace cos he gets scared when pictures of him flash up on screen, I've been instructed to get a sensible blog! That's cool with me, cos the myspace one I've only put newsie stuff up on, but this blog will largely be a more rambling affair, which may prove either very dull or far more interesting, we'll have to wait and see. My apologies in advance if it has no narrative, is political at times, if I make arguments which I then blatantly contradict a week later, or if I get excessively excited about rather uninteresting things. Hopefully you'll bear with me!

Since I have become seriously slack with keeping in touch with my friends recently, including (in fact especially) the people who I miss the most, I hope that you'll pass by from time to time, and get into a heated argument or a bit of banter or some good ol reminiscing with me. When you only see/contact people from time to time, you spend so much time 'catching up' that you don't end up having the sort of chats that you miss most.

So I'll leave my first entry at that for now. Thanks for visiting my blog and 'please come again'!
LuvMe x