Vasco era

At my first live gig in australia and it shows my opinion of the headline act that I feel I have time to blog during their set. Papa vs pretty are for all intents and purposes mediocre, they play their songs well but those songs are simply just not interesting. How they can be promoted to headline in comparison to the support of the likes of vasco era - a band who play a composed set and enjoyable set despite difficulties with amps in the very first song. This was duly dealth with by the lead singer giving an accapella version of a tom waits song whilst tuning his guitar, before eventually launching back in to finish that which they had started. A mature and ultimately enjoyable reaction which arguably made the performance all the stronger.
In other news, my syntheses are all going well now I have had a second go at them, although I need to do some further work with some waste to recover products to increase my yields. Still, it works, and aside from some prominent solvent peaks in the nmr of the intermediate all shows up clean and pure.  No mean feat for me at least, especially now i'm trusted to run my own nmrs as well.
Collectively the newer people in my office (me, ramon and max) decided that the office wasn't homely enough and needed some more personalisation. My window out onto the third year undergrad labs is now a giant union jack, back to front for them not that they would probably notice, but still. Has sparked some amusing debates. If only we had a colour printer i'd make the desk truly my own but for now it will do.
The ridiculous policy of prepay phones in australia mean that you have to recharge once a month or lose your credit, which is pretty rubbish, but at the same time gave me an excuse to ring home. As much as I laud the joys of skype and it's video capacity, phones just have the edge. No delays. No jumpy video, no disappointment. Was just nice to speak to jenny for however long ($50 worth...) and my parents the following morning. Sometimes it's nice to catch up with the things and people you miss.
On the subject of people from home it shouldn't be long before Katy gets out here, sometime next week I think. So I shall have to get down and work for that, so much work to do... Quite an inbalance here, there is no prescribed non-lab time. Everything else is off my own back or stolen from a spare moment. Still I would have it no other way. It's good, keeps me on my toes and keep me busy. Happy times, happy times indeed.

Simple pleasures.

I love the way that even when I'm however many thousand miles from home, when I'm not sharing them with anyone so no one will be annoyed they're going missing, I still painstakingly peel the label of tubs of biscuits and the like so as to make it more subtle that the box has been opened and that some might be gone.

A quick update

I feel like I've been waffling on about the chemistry I'm doing without qualifying it with the joys of pictures, which obviously make everything better. So below is the synthesis/transformation work I have done so far towards my ligand.

Hope that makes it a little clearer. Also on a side note I got my replacement headphones today (finally got a pair of proper cans, my ipod struggles with volume a little with the 32 ohm impedance but arguably not having them that loud is probably a benefit for long term aural-health... That and I now have some ridiculous classic mirrored aviators courtesy of the Australia air force recruiting/letting people play on a flight simulator outside our block. Looking forward to a bit of rugby down the pub later, come on Wales!

A different way of doing things

So it comes to that time again where I have now been in the country long enough that I no longer feel particularly like the new guy, despite being the youngest and newest in the lab. I now have my very own NMR license so I can book time on the NMR and run samples as and when I like without supervision. I more or less set up my own reactions and run them, making the right and wrong (quite often the latter...) choices about what to do. I set up, use and shut down Schlenk lines entirely off my own back. Quickly the scary things from undergrad labs are becoming tame. Even the scare stories from demonstrators are not quite as intimidating... HF was being used in the lab the last few days with those using it wearing nitrile gloves. This is one of the few times even nitriles are worn in labs... This is just a whole different ethos to York. In York they hold your hand throughout and enforce lab coats, specs and safety gloves at all times. Specs are an obvious yes, lab coats seem semi optional here although technically it should not but gloves are frowned upon. The attitude in the labs is that if you are spilling things on your hands you are a bad chemist and shouldn't be using things so gloves are only brought out for the nastiest of chemicals. This makes sense in so far as gloves were unwieldy and more often than not contributed to the spillages during undergrad labs, but the whole on your back be it attitude is something that was quite a change.

The whole taking responsibility for yourself thing is a big step, arguably as big a step up as from a level to degree chemistry. Research labs are a different beast to the labs with which we are familiar. I've been given a topic and it is my responsibility to run with it. I have to find my references and sources. I have to decide what experiments I'm going to do. If I do nothing I will look stupid, and really, that is the only real incentive to hard graft. Thankfully I enjoy it so have been working fairly hard and I'm glad as enjoyment is probably the thing keeping that effort as there is no obligation to keep to a structured week. The autonomous nature of my new study is both daunting and liberating, for now I am following moderately standard syntheses to make the ligands for my later complexes, but awkwardly when I come to my project proper, so my catalytic activity assays the catalyst which I have to synthesise is not yet reported in the literature - I have to devise an effective synthesis for it. There are a few potential routes to it but as of yet none have really been successfully tried with any vigour. But I have plenty of literature for how analogous compounds do what I want so hopefully I will get some joy out of it, and in the true style of the department - maybe even a paper. Looking at it from a cynical perspective however the chance for failure with this project is very high. Que sera, sera.

Other things that have been happening involve an improvement in badminton although it is still a less than ideal situation. I've now been watched and am viewed as someone that is not terrible, so I am invited into much better games (the jump in quality being similar to that of the York club to B/A team standard for those whom that might mean something) which is refreshing, you always play better against people of a higher standard and in general the games are more fun. So there is light in the club after all. The big bug bear for me however is that the club is not in the least bit social. Maybe a third of the members at the club if that are actually affiliated with the uni and of those that are quite a few are staff. As a result it's quite an insular community on top of what is already a cliquey and difficult to broach club with the issue that middle aged Chinese men with only broken English tend to avoid playing with people they have to speak English to. In one game there was even issues as someone on court did not understand enough English to comprehend the score. This leaves me rather jealous of this years York badminton club who seem to be having a rave time in my absence, still, I knew what I was leaving behind. Another interesting thing is that the club neglected to tell a significant number of those that go that Wednesdays playing night had been cancelled in lieu of some campus boxing/80s disco event, something for which I would not have expected sartorial elegance was of particular consequence however as I left for home somewhat disappointed, I was amused if only for a second, on overhearing someone in full cocktail dress with tuxedo-ed boyfriend at arm say "are we over-dressed for this, loads of people are wearing thongs [flip flops]." That boxing should be an event that requires dressing up confuses me but apparently this is something acutely Australian - certain events that are not particularly classy are fashionable and thus people dress up for them despite the inherent incongruity....

I have come to the unsurprising, if possibly not objective conclusion, that all Australian beer is rubbish. Some beers are passable but even then you are kicked in the teeth by the silly measures. Drinking more than 3 schooners (just over 2 pints) seems to elicit terrible hangovers the next day despite these quantities being pitiful. The same cannot be said for the wine however, I took the advice of Ant, my supervisor's lab deputy to buy a bottle of red Wynns Coonawarra Estate for the bring your own at the Italian we went to for Jess' 24th birthday last Friday, and was pleasantly surprised, maybe not all screw cap wines are cheap and nasty... I shall report back when I've had more opportunity to drink around further, but for now that bottle of wine if slightly pricey, would appear to be a safe bet.

On a side note that is not at all worthy of being sidelined, one of my worst fears in coming over here was realised last night when I learned of the ill health, and potentially terminal from what I understand, of a family friend Joe Reynolds. This has cast a bit of a shadow over my day as Joe is a wonderful and enlightened person who is the epitome of the adage 'you're only as old as you think you are.' If it is the case that I have in fact seen Joe for the last time, I wish him all the best. I'm not terribly well informed of what is happening and I do hope I'm jumping the gun, but if it is only a short time he has left I wish him all the best and hope that he enjoys whatever he has left. I suppose it has to happen to us all at some point and in Joe's case he certainly has made the most of it, but it is scary that we're all on borrowed time.

Apologies for the melancholy ending but was just something I felt I need to get off my chest, it is the things like that which bring on the homesickness, and I can definitely feel a little bit of it starting. Lets hope the extra vitamin d helps pick me up. And maybe Wales taking Australia in the third place play off tomorrow for a little bit of coffee time bragging rights.


PS something largely insignificant and very Australian that has been winding me up a lot recently, as such things often do, is the use of the word heaps. So for the phrase 'that sounds really fun', a typical Australian would say 'that sounds heaps fun'. Please tell me you would find that grating as well...

Under the old Myrtle tree

Well I have moved now and thankfully what the other landlords lacked in the fixing of major functions they made up for in being very reasonable and friendly in letting me move out without paying the rent I expected to so the whole thing was rather stress free in the end and I'm not properly set up in the new place and making it a bit more homely. I also notice from a brief look back to my last post to check that I don't repeat myself, that I used the turn of phrase from there altogether too much, so I shall endeavour to be more adventurous with my locution henceforth. The stress free nature for my move cannot be compared with the ridiculous amount of health and safety paperwork that I have to compile in order to perform the simplest of reactions with most advice suggesting that a degree of forgery and neglect is the easiest way to have reactions approved for reasonable working hours. Still my first synthesis (that of the tetraphenylcyclopentadienone roughly by this synthetic pathway) was a relative success, despite the best efforts of Leo, the guy showing me what to do to paste the inside of the fume hood with the product. Still, despite this impressive dark purple eruption the reaction proceeded fine and as I'm going to use a fair amount of it with it being a precursor to the ligand I'm investigation I made quite a lot of it so it was a minor loss in the end.

Had my first steak in Australia which was unfortunately overcooked, not quite what I expected from such a nation but I'm sure there will be a fair few to come. I do miss curries though, they don't manage it quite as well as home. Speaking of homely foods, despite not really having them at home I had a full roast on Sunday. I went back into town to join friends from the hostel and we decided to buy chicken and vegetables to make a roast. It was very well stocked and rather tasty, despite the unimpressive kitchen in which we made it. The eating was however one of the least interesting things about this meal however as the buying of the vegetables at the covered market below a shopping centre on the outskirts of Chinatown. Despite the calls of most of the sellers of $1 in a distinctly Asian twang, nothing seemed to be $1 with wide variations in prices of the simplest things. Not that you could tell what things costed until you bagged it up and paid for it - far too many people pushing by being loud, and that was supposed to be it when it was quiet. Also attended a house part at a rather impressive "suite", it would appear this apartment block is too posh for flats... Mind you it did have a pool and garden area on the roof, not that we visited either, so perhaps it can justify such pretension...

Anyway, I have written seven postcards and need to write up tomorrows experiment in my lab book so I shall call this post to an end. Hope you're all enjoying Britain, it's starting to get warm here now. Nice and sunny for my lunches now.

So, I made it... eventually.

I have now been in Australia for a whole week. It has been nearly two weeks since I finally received my visa. And now I am starting to settle down, well of sorts. Recovery from the 22 hours flying has been slow, not felt quite 100%, mind you I haven't had crippling jet lag that others have shown, although I have kept to a fairly regular sleep pattern. It seems the trick for those that survived it was to stay up as long as possible on the plan, arrive as it gets to night time in Australia and go to bed as soon as you check in. From what I can remember on the flight I saw Super 8, Bridesmaids, The Trip which were all very good, another film which I have forgotten (was clearly very good although on a quick google search of film lists for SA I think it was X Men: First Class), some big bang theory and the highlights of the 2007 Rugby world cup final which I had forgotten was really badly refereed... Ah well. Maybe this year (yes that was sarcastic). As far as planes go, the A380 flew the first leg to Singapore in was lovely, spacious, good entertainment system, great service, comfortable enough. The Boeing 777 variation I flew on the second leg however was cramped, had a poorly designed entertainment system not only were the headphone sockets dodgy but the handsets stowed in the arm rest meaning if you shifted your bum you hit random buttons, more often than note stop... The food was worse, although it being airline food it wasn't spectacular on either leg. And the service was poor compared to the first flight. I'll let that fly though (excuse the pun), I got here safely with all baggage and fairly minimal fuss. It could have been worse.

So from there I checked out at the airport avoiding bag searches etc because despite declaring shoes, seeing the boots I wore were clean he couldn't be bothered to search me (probably because they were all allegedly on strike) so I sailed straight through. From there I made it to the lobby only to realise the small print said that the free shuttle bus ran till 7pm, it was 7:20pm by the time I got there. I spoke to a nice meet a greet lady from another hostel I recognised who said it would be easiest to catch a train to Town Hall and walk as it was just round the corner. This in itself wasn't difficult, and I got my first glimpse of Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House from the downstairs of the train at Circular Quay, but was somewhat painful as the ticket was somewhat expensive at $15 or so, I later found out that this is due to an airport surcharge directed at catching out travellers, a normal ticket on a much longer commuter journey being around $5... From there I got to the hostel,  and as much as I liked the party atmosphere and made some good friends there, I wouldn't recommend it (BASE 477 Kent Street for reference) due to uninterested, unhelpful staff, inefficient room allocation systems resulting in multiple people being sent to rooms without spare beds needing to change, a generally tatty building but with the one saving grace of a pretty good club next door with an impressive regular turnout (Scary Canary). In the hostel I met people like Jemma who showed me where to find Medicare and whereabouts to find the bank to set up accounts (although she couldn't see it like finding wood through the trees), as well as finding what appeared to be the Chinese language Vodafone shops much to the staffs chagrin. Also went up the Sydney tower and to the nearby Opera House via Hyde Park and the Botanical gardens with her later in the week. As far as nights out we had been for casual drinks with another guy Mark to a place called Scruffy Murphy's and the night before that ring of fire amongst other games with Fraser and Gai as well as checking out the bar/club next door. All pretty good fun.

From there I stayed with some friends of my parents train buddies in the suburb of Turramurra, which was good, got to see family life in an Australian house, it's pretty different (they don't really lock stuff up and swap cars at will). They also took me to a Scottish pub in central to meet a relative of theirs and his friends over to celebrate his 29th for the purpose of watching the England vs Scotland match, with them mostly Sottish. It was an interesting experience, and a really close match. From there Robin took us all out to an Italian place which was lovely, and then his sons Jamie and Stewart (or Stuart, I never did ask) took me round some bars in Sydney, spending the majority of the night in the Oxford Art House Club in Kings Cross followed by a night rider bus home at 4am... All pretty good, also almost set fire to their house accidentally the following day as the toaster didn't pop up, burnt the toast to charcoal and filled the house with smoke, although I got the impression this is not an unusual occurrence. Ah well.

My frantic house hunting the previous week wasn't really successful finding me only one house in Ultimo (444 Wattle Street, Ultimo) which is for want of a better word, a bit of a hole. At first sight it seems like a nice enough compact terrace and seemed ok when I went to view it, but since I've moved in I've discovered the fridge is filthy, it's quite noisy from the road front and back, the hob and probably most of the kitchen has cockroaches, the oven is broken, the window in my room doesn't open and the blinds for the same don't shut. Also the Koreans that live downstairs who appear to be head tenants don't seem interested in socialising at all, and unless she stores water in Absolut bottles to keep it cold in the fridge (which is feasible) the lady swigs vodka throughout the day during the weekends. So I want to move, annoyingly the contract is in poor English and it looks like I might have to pay two weeks rent of $440 when I move out this weekend as I misunderstood, but I can't really cope with being here much longer and the only other place to have responded was so good that I couldn't see the other visitors that week not taking it. So I move into that house (16-18 Myrtle Street, Chippendale) at the weekend, and shall be much happier. The room is a spacious double only just refurbished, as is much of the rest of the house. It's in a kind of private student halls with a landlord that is picky about his tenants, but the ones I have met that I will share the kitchen with seem friendly and interested as they are doing much the same as me in a couple of cases. But yeah, for that joy I might just have to bite the bullet on this house as far as rent goes (thanks to the Aussie anal adoption of 14 days notice for everything, even environmental health complaints, rendering such useful as I could just move out in that time anyway). You never know, Lee, the guy who sorted the viewing etc seems sympathetic and it might still happen yet.

So this is fast becoming an essay and I still haven't complained about the cold weather yet (was 16 degrees the last couple of days, rained a couple of days last week with only one really warm day) but I am reliably informed the UK Indian summer has finished and the Australian real summer will start soon so any bragging rights will quickly go. In terms of my project, I finally took my project on proper this morning having finished all the various paperwork to start at the department and my nominal thesis title is The catalytic activity of Pentaphenylcyclopentadienyliron derivatives with respect to the Cyclopentadienyliron derivative equivalents, with possible scope for Pentamethylcyclopentadiene work as well as specific further investigations with aryl group modifications if there is any major improvement in the catalysis reactions to be investigated. A wide scope "just in case it doesn't work" to quote my supervisor, Tony Masters, who is quite the gent. I have an office shared at the moment with 6 (possibly 7, some are more elusive than others) people and have generally met and befriended most of the group. They're all friendly although regardless I'm already dreading giving a presentation in November... They have morning coffee every morning like clockwork (although it was a little late today because Faulk the regular organiser is on holiday), randomly come in to play a card game called 500 (a version of whist with some odd but entertaining rules), go out for group lunch every Friday and group + extras drinks on a Friday evening. A social group, could be hard to get serious graft done, but I'd rather this way round than a group of really boring people.

So yeah, I've settled down in Australia with the more obvious observations of it's really expensive, 3/4 pint measures being frankly ridiculous, goon being as foul as everyone says it will be amongst other things not really needing saying, I have more or less settled in and am enjoying it. Photos for those that have my social accounts are being uploaded first onto G+ and maybe FB when I get bored enough to do that all again, just ask if you think you have good reason to see them.

Till the next post, ciao