2013 (& abit of 2012, because I apparently forgot last year...)

2013

1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?

- (2012) travelled to the USA for a conference (San diego)

- (2012) moved to Belgium to live (Liege)

- (2012) started a PhD in Genomics

- Explored parts of Belgium

- Visited Lake Tekapo

- Spent a week in New York (conference and a couple of days in NYC)

- Spent 3 weeks in Seattle! (Courses)

- Couple of days near Chicago

- Tried to learn French...

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for the next year?

- As always the one from 10 years back to make no new ones

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

- (2012) J&J

- Friends from work (S&J)

4. Did anyone close to you die?

- No

5. What countries did you visit?

- Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, USA

6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?

- A published paper

7. What dates from 2013 will remain etched in your memory, and why?

- None

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

-Lots of Travel & PhD work

9. What was your biggest failure of the year?

- Getting the 1st paper written & learning French

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

- Nothing significant.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

- A very nice Camera :)

12. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

- Politicians as usual

13. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

-  Nothing specific

14. Where did most of your money go?

 - Living costs

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

- My PhD and some associated research

- The new Camera

16. What song will always remind you of 2013?

- None

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?

- Much the same

b) fatter or thinner?

- Much the same

c) richer or poorer?

- Much the same (being a student slows things down) $ wise, Richer in experience

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

- Travelling around Europe

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

- Procrastinating, sitting in Air planes

20. How did you spend Christmas?

- (2012) With new friends in Liege

- With an old friend from High school days

21. Did you fall in love in 2013?

- I wish

22. What was your favourite TV programme?

- Psyco Pass

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

-No one specifically

24. What was the best book you read?

- To many to count

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

- none

26. What did you want and get?

- Camera

- New friends

27. What did you want and not get?

- GF

- A paper published

28. What was your favourite film of this year?

- Probably the second Hobbit

29. What did you do on your birthday and how old did you turn?

- Nothing, turned 29.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

- gf probably hard to know though and life is good as it is

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?

- Merino

32. What kept you sane?

- Animals.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

- Didn't meet any.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

- Stupidity of current ideologically driven government actions

35. Who did you miss?

- The Kiwi (and NZ) crowd

36. Who was the best new person you met?

- Lots of people in the Lab

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.

- Travel!

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

-None

An Update From Liege: AKA the Undead Blog moves again.

Damn just found this post from the begining of 2012 that 
i thought I'd already published ah well better late than never:
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So I thought is was time for an end of year post for 2012, considering all that's happened during the year.
Note: I've absolutely no idea how many people still have this in there RSS feeds, so it will be interesting to see if any one views this.

So as those who know me are probably aware I applied for and was awarded a Scholarship to study for a PhD in Genomics/Sequencing in late 2011 by my employer (LIC). After investigating a few options I decided that the best supervisor for my interests would be Michel Georges head of Animal Genomics at The University of Liege based in Liege, Belgium.

Liege & The Meuse @ Sunset - December 2012

After this was agreed on by all parties it was decided that it would be best to start in the first Semester of the European academic year, October 2012. As a result I spent most of 2012 living in NZ working for LIC on there next generation sequencing project and taking a few papers at the local University (University of Waikato) and attending a couple of conferences.

San Deigo, USA - Jan 2012

University of Waikato - Hamilton, NZ

Knox Chapel - Dunedin, NZ

Then in September 2012 I packed up and moved south from Hamilton (NZ) to Christchurch (NZ) where I spent a few weeks catching up with friends and family before leaving for Liege.

Banks Peninsula - Canterbury NZ

I arrived in Liege on the 1st of October 2012 after 33 hours in transit (Christchurch > Singapore > Frankfurt > Brussels > Liege). Dropped at the door of an apartment I had for 2 months I had time to put away my luggage and then was picked up by a very helpful member of Michels staff. Who showed me around the area, helped setup a Bank account pointed out the Bus routes and then took me to the lab and introduced me to the other members who thankfully all speak English to some degree or another and thus my time in Liege began.

A few Interesting things about Liege:

Liege is one of the major cities of Wallonia, the French speaking region of Belgium and as such French is the primary language. This can make for interesting times for a monolingual English speaker, as many of the older locals (30+), speak very little English or prefer to pretend they don't speak any.
Belgium is slightly obsessed with your address. Unlike New Zealand (at least as far as I'm aware) the location in which your living is of critical importance when ever you try to deal with any official in Belgium. As such you are required to register where you are living with the Local city hall (both Citizens and Visitors) if your planning to stay for more than a short period of time. Once you've registered with the city hall they send a Police officer to visit you at the location you've specified to confirm you do actually live there and the Police register it as your place of Residence. This can cause so irritation if you've just arrived and are looking for an apartment as you need a permanent address for Residency, you need Residency for Health Insurance and so on. Theoretically you need a local address for a Bank account though thankfully I managed to get away with using my NZ address to many peoples surprise for the first couple of months. Though the Bank did managed to send my first bank card to NZ which was slightly troublesome.


Anyway I eventually managed to settle in and start the PhD work.