Day 2

outfit

lunch: rice, soy eggs, chicken, chilli oil

Today I had a talk with A who I think is one of the bigger people in the tiny company ( he must be, he has his own office!) and he went through the history of stiefel and all that (he's been there 25 years imgainge that)

He told me that it was good that I knew what I wanted to do kinda young because he doesn't even know what he wants to do (or so he tells me) and I thought: if he doesn't know what he wants to do and still can be one of the higher upper people in a company + studying to become a lawyer, he's done pretty well for himself. Hopefully it will be like that for me to HAHA.

Anyways, today P (my supervisor) told me what I had to do over the course of the month in detail (ie the experiment procedure and lab stuff and that) and he left me to do it all on my own!! Okay I know I sound like a big noob (thats 'newbie' in slang pops) but I don't actually think I've ever been in a lab alone before; like doing my own thingggg without supervision like in school. (btw it was pretty much my own personal lab - actually it was P's, but he wasn't using it. so i'm calling it my Secret Lab.)

I admit that whatever I was assigned to do today (no telling! its all meant to be top secret stuff!) was very easy. like. super easy, it was kinda cool cause I had somewhat more control over what I could do. Well, it seemed that way, even though my supervisor practically told me what to do just because he wasn't there.

I was kinda afraid I'd stuff it up like sometimes at uni so I kept going in and out of the lab (if you have to remove and put on your lab coat each time it becomes very tedious!) and bugging P to confirm that what I was doing was right.

Another super cool thing are those labs books that they use! I got one (which was used by the previous placement student... but he's gone now,.. so I'm calling it my Big Book of Shadows because it pretty much is a big black book of secrets and recipies.)

Its somesort of a psuedo leather bound finish, hard cover book with rounded edges, more of a square than an A4 sized paper and each page has sections for you to sign, date, page, etc etc and its grid lined in graph green ink. You're meant to write down pretty much everything, and paste down pieces of paper, and stuff. like a cool scrap book/ journal/diary thing. Its like them cool mad scientists that record random scribbles in their notebooks or on napkins, a-la-einstein. I can't wait for the end of my project to flip through the pages and run my hands over the pasted slips of paper (containing important results!) It will be the child of my scientist scrapbooker! (I should make it all pretty eh. too bad I have crap hand writing.)

Also, the pH meter I used today is as slow as forever. oh well. that was kinda random.

And! today someone brought cake in because it was her birthday last friday. She brought in chilled cheesecake with sliced peaches with a biscuit base that she made two of herself. Embarrassingly but typical of me, I forgot her name. although I suspect she is from South Africa.

At the end of the day, girl R (I think that's her name) offered to drive me to Monash Clayton to save me a 1.5 hour bus trip in the windy cold. (good thing too, the minute I got home, it started raining) I got home an hour eariler. YAY!

Anyways, I think I ramble on too much. I also think I should bring that piece of paper that they gave me with the photos and names of everyone around.

Day 1

outfit

lunch

Day 1 wasn't as scary as I thought. I'm not as tired as I thought I would, waking up early and staying awake till 5 + long trip home. Every one was really nice (particularly the younger ones) My supervisor is also older than I expected. He apparently already has 2 kids!

Most of the day was spent meeting people, going round the TINY premises (not a bad thing), signing all this contracts that bind you to secrecy (very suspicious no? haha) and reading through journals and SOPs. I actually had to spend the whole afternoon reading scientific literature. Don't you all agree, this would be the perfect time to make use of an iPad to read dreary pdfs?

Not complaining though.

My grandma made me friend rice for lunch. Shes so nice. She prepares lunch for me to take to placement everyday.

Also, the 20 min walk from the bus stop to the lab isn't as bad as I expected either. The weather was extremely cooperative and I didn't have to wait long for the bus. I would make things a lot easier if I had a car.

But again, not complaining.

We have a surprisingly large amount of breaks ( i think 2.5 hours in total? even though i didn't use it all) Some of which was spent in the tea room where I was listening to conversations trying to pick up pieces of information that might be considered juicy office gossip. Unfortunately for me, the juiciest piece of information I got was that tofu is actually calcium precipitated soya milk.

I got a desk amongst the managers/head of projects! Which makes me the head of a project. Haha. I wish.

I still have 2 journals to read!

real life is hard work!

Pre placement meeting

WENT TO STIEFEL TODAY!

The people there were very cool and nice

CAN'T WAIT TO START ON MONDAY

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the 1.5 hr public transport trip+20 mins walking from the nearest bus stop :( (its only a 25 min drive but i ain't got no driver's liscene nor a car)I hope it does not rain in the mornings/get too cold!!