Bit of an Update

I've spent 10 weeks in Palmy now with two to go thankfully they were broken up by the two weeks of Christmas holidays. A very nice two weeks they were giving me a chance to catch up with many of you. Up to the point where in 14 or so days i was in Chch I think I spent 4 evening's at home. :-)
Any way got back up here on the 9th of January and started work again the next day. That week wasn't so good, with the whole week spent trying to get thing's working again after the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) A rather cool technique) stuffed up after testing the various components which are used we finally found that the Primers had done something silly over the two week break. Since then things have worked all right. I got to spend quite a bit of time designing some more primers for different Phage gene's to extend the testing which as quite interesting and introduced me to some very nice Internet Bioinfomatics resources.
Any way with work going ok again it was back to things as normal. After work spent a fair bit of time playing Rome: Total War (single player) and UT2004 Multiplayer as Chris another chap from chch who was staying at the same place I was had brought his computer up after the holidays. UT2004 Invasion Mode with instagib is a lot of fun.
In the second week back I finally turned 21 not really sure what to think of that getting older but also getting to 21. That week end was a long one as the following Monday was the local anniversary day. So I hoped on a bus to New Plymouth getting there 11pm on the Friday night. The trip was boring and the bus pretty much empty except for what appeared to be a number of Navy and Army Cadet's. After it got dark things improved though as the sky was fairly clear and the stars looked brilliant!
Got to New Plymouth and walked from the bus stop to Nana's with dad who'd flown up for a week's holiday while leaving mum to run the shop. Always special being in New Plymouth in mid to late January as me and Nana have the same birthday and my youngest brothers birthday is 2 days after mine and Nana's. So spent the weekend with Nana and Dad. On the Saturday I managed to get out to Cameron's (see links) family farm for his 21'st and on Sunday the 3 of us went out to my Uncles place for a big semi birthday lunch for me and Nana. Went back to Palmy mid afternoon on Monday after Cameron had dropped around for lunch for a chat.
The next weekend (last weekend) I finally had to move out of the Massey Cottage where I'd been staying so moved to my second cousin's place on the far side of town. It's now a 25min bike to work but the the 10m pool my cousin's have makes up for that, as do the meals. Also that Saturday evening a group of us from work went out to a maize horror maze 30mins out of Palmy. Nice clear night with lots of very well dressed up monsters wandering through the maze scaring the people going through it (undead, ghoul's, Butcher, Crazy clown's, Guy's with working Chainsaws etc, the chainsaw chap was probably the most disturbing I thought he'd walk up to you rubbing his face over your clothes sniffing muttering comments about you smelling nice etc then let rip with the chainsaw.). We split up into groups of 4 with a mix of guys and gals. The gal's screamed quite impressively when the monsters jumped out on them (probably why the actors all targeted them). A lot of fun that. Went clubbing after that finished an interesting experience seeing I've never bothered to go before.

Any way this last week I've been mainly working on the presentation I need to give for my project. Ten minutes to explain what I've been doing and what use it is to Fonterra then five minutes of questions. I've pretty much got mine done and will be speaking second on Monday so hopefully it'll go well.

Well thats what I've been doing for the last couple of weeks hope your all having a good time where ever you are.

Twenty One

Well some time last week I finally turned 21. Seeing nobody (except family pretty much) actually knew the exact date not a lot happened, as planned. Quite happily however the weekend was a long one with the local anniversary day being this Monday so I managed to get away to New Plymouth for two and abit day's to stay with my Nana (Who shares the same birthday as I do, which means she's one of the few people I always know the age of). Dad had also flown up for a week and was staying with Nana as well.

Any way supprisingly enough the weather was actually quite decent for Saturday and Sunday, so I managed to get out to a friends 21st and have lunch at my Aunt & Uncles. Then on the Sunday evening Dad took me out to a Steak House for tea in celebration of my 21st Birthday, So my 21st didn't pass completely unmarked.



Also one thing I should mention is on Saturday the 26th Feb I'll be having a 21st party/thingy at my place at 8pm. I've sent out emails to most of you, but don't have every one's email address and I've not received replies to all the emails I've sent out, possibly some of them have been blocked by Spam filtering etc.
The point of this is to say that if you haven't received such an email and I know you, you are invited it's just the email got swallowed up on the way or something. So if you don't know my address please email or text me. Or Leave a post here and I'll get back to you. If you are coming and haven't replied to the email please reply to this post or email me to let me know. I need some Idea of the numbers to organise the supper! Note no presents is prefered.

Work, in various forms.

Spent the last two days working at my parents shop, running it while they're down south having a holiday. I usually look after the shop while they're away though I'm liking it less each time, not that I ever looked forward to it, though I guess it's not really that bad and working for my parents is alright but I just don't like retail work.

It's especially annoying this time when I've just spent 6 weeks working in a lab at fonterra's research centre in Palmy. The difference between lab work and retail work is very noticeable and further strengthens my desire never to work in retail. You know you aren't suited for retail when you see a car load of customers pull up and all you whish there'd go get lost somewhere that wasn't the shop your in. Dealing with customers and phone calls is the primary annoyance get rid of those two features and I wouldn't mind it so much. Unfortunately getting rid of those two things tends to leave you with out a shop after a while which is a bit of a pitty.

Any way my two weeks of "holidays" are nearly done and on the 9th Jan I fly back up to palmy for another 6ish weeks of work at Fonterra before University starts. I get back about the 18th February to start my MSc (Biochemistry), (Master of Science in Biochem), which hopefully will be interesting.

The New Year!

Well it's 2005, finally. Which will hopefully be an interesting year!
It started off well with around 24 (at the peak) of us gathering at Katherine's place to see the new year in. With 6 or so of us staying the night and most of today (1st Jan) there.

Thanks for the brilliant evening and day Katherine.

On other notes being January it means it's not long till my 21st and I should probably pre-enrol for the Master course for this year before I head back up to Palmy for another 6 weeks at Fonterra's research centre.