Why my boyfriend's great!

That's right; my boyfriend is wicked! He's always great but he excelled himself by packing up a picnic basket and driving us up to the top of the port hills (the crater just south of chch) to an idyllic spot just before sunset on Valentines day! It was such a lovely evening and a complete surprise. Yep, I'm a very lucky girl! It's a really nice view up there and I took a couplie photos:

Conference time

It's been seriously busy since Christmas (when isn't it though!) with visitors, uni work and a conference. The conference was organised by my supervisors, on marine natural products and included some of the biggest names in natural products, including some very cool synthetic types, including the uber-famous Prof Amos B Smith the third! Means nothing to this audience, but suffice to say, I didn't pluck up the courage to talk to him, cos I get star-struck by chemists - what a loser I am!

The conference was down in Queenstown so Paul came along with me to check out the scenery and maybe look out for jobs as Christchurch was surprisingly devoid of jobs for a man of his many talents! We had some good weather both on the way there and the way back and there's a few pictures below. Paul's birthday was on the day before the conference so there was some booze-fuelled madness that night! Unfortunately my supervisors made me work on his birthday and even worse made me go to the airport to meet and greet all the fancy scientists on the day after so I couldn't get too mad drunk, but Paul certainly made up for that and was great fun all night! Queenstown is kinda wierd, cos all the tiki-tour kids are told what time the happy hours are at each pub and schedule their nights so that if you just sit in a pub it'll be dead for a couple of hours then go absolutely mental for an hour, with these really annoying, drunk young tourists and then they all leave and it's pleasant again! It's an odd town, really, with nothing but tourists visiting and travellers working there. I don't think many actual Kiwis live in Queenstown!

I was planning to go tramping for at least a day or two after the conference, but unfortunately, despite it being glorious weather every day that I sat through 8 hours of talks, the weather was pretty dodgy when it ended, so in the end I picked up Paul in Wanaka (he went there half way through the conference) and we drove back to chch. Cool thing is that Paul managed to find some work in Wanaka and Queenstown had jobs around too, so it seems like he should be able to stick around and work for a while - which is sweet.

Since Christmas we've also been looking for two new flatmates which is always kinda stressful but hopefully we're all done now. My project at uni is feeling neglected and since the conference I'm trying to get my ass back into gear, but it's been distracted with housemate hunting and visitors - we have Gerhard who used to be in our group at uni staying with us which is cool cos it's been ages since we saw him and also met up with some other ex-group members who we hardly ever see. My project is getting really interesting though, and whilst I still have loads left to do, it's really enjoyable stuff. Fingers crossed it'll work soon and I'll be able to start writing.

Well, best show ya'll a few photos and stop waffling!

Lake Tekapo (and some wierd tourist)

Lake Pukaki (bloody tourists keep getting in the way of the view)

The beginning of a long and booze-fuelled night of fun!...

...But somehow I still managed to look relatively presentable with a sizeable hangover! It's kinda ironic that they made the English girl who's spent about 2 days total in Queenstown 'meet and greet' at the airport! "Welcome to Queenstown - I've never been here so please don't ask me any questions!"

Lake Wakatipu (Queenstown)

Me n my BigLilBro!

Lindis Pass

Christmas holidays!

Happy new year ya'll! Hope you all had a great Christmas and lots of fun. We're back from a fun road-trip on the north island for 10 days n I've put a cuppla photos below. We did a mad dash from chch to Hamilton via Napier, Gisborne and Whakatane (missed Kora in their hometown by one night - how disappointed was I?!) in 3 and a bit days, which Britte's admirable steed managed despite being laden down with 5 of us, and a monstrous amount of luggage! We picked up my big lil bro in Wellington and it was awesome to see him - it's been a whole year and he's always full of tales of mischief! Then we had 4 days in Hamilton with Sean's family who were lovely and made us feel very welcome. Must have been a bit wierd for Paul to spend his first Christmas away from home with a big family who he'd never met before, but I think he still enjoyed it. After that we had a more sedate drive back down to chch via the desert road (which isn't very deserty!) and a cool little seaside town called Castle Point near Wellington. Great, crazy little lagoon which would be awesome except that all the fancy-pants Wellingtonians drive their bohemoth SUV's up onto the beach and park all over so that it looks more like a car park than a beach. Oh well, can't have everything. It was still great fun; Sean managed to get really sunburnt on his feet and I didn't, so I got to be plenty smug! Me and Charlie (Sean's bro) did a cool short walk up to the whitehouse and of course many Tui's (the local tipple) were adrunken! Then it was down to Wellington for a very boozy and amusing new years eve (Ah, those Tui's!). We managed to find a crazy, cool bar for midnight (just, thanks to Charlie's boozy directions!) which didn't even stop the music to mention new years, which suits me fine. Many more beers later and my hangover was nicely set, ready for the boat home the next day. Despite it being a beautifully calm crossing I was still pretty sick and I've decided that planes will just have to do sometimes! Can't go saving petrol all the time now, can I?! (Sorry Fiona)

Well it was a great holiday, but to be honest being back at uni feels good - almost like a holiday itself! Sometimes holidays are just too tiring and fun and by the time you're back you need another one! Paul is now staying with us and looking out for some gainful employment. He's already found a good pub for watching le cricket so he's happy! Come on England - surely you could manage one little draw for us?! Poor ol Brits over in Aussie - you'll ever hear the end of it!

Well, thank you to everyone who made it such a great fun holiday especially Charlie, Britte and the Devenish clan.

God smiling on wee Picton


Rough seas, oh ah me hearties!


Sean and Paul in Napier


An awesome waterfall for exploring; note size of charlie (bottom right)


Me n my bro at said waterfall


The boys getting ready to go black water rafting in waitomo caves


The bush around waitomo caves


Me and Sean planning our next move of the roadtrip


Mt Raupehu seen from the desert road


Mt Ngarahoe


Me and Sean with pahutakawa


Castle point


Charlie and the lighthouse at Castle point




View over the lagoon at Castle Point


Me and my handsome bro, boozed on New Years Eve!


The boat home

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