When it rains it pours…

… but not in a bad way. Just a crazy way.
From December through February, I was mostly unemployed. And frankly, I wasn’t particularly assertive about changing that. I’m happy being a couch potato! When we got back from New Zealand, I one tentative job in the pipeline. But within a week of coming home, I somehow managed to acquire a total of 4 jobs. I could have had five, but I decided I needed to draw the line somewhere. Don’t ask me how – it just happened. And don’t ask how the logistics of that work out – I’m still not sure. Anyway, here’s the run-down:
Job #1) Research assistant working with Gouldian finches – I’m looking at sperm in egg yolk membranes to look at pair-compatibility.
Job #2) Lab coordinator organizing and managing the lab sections for an introductory biology course.
Job #3) Lab instructor – teaching 4 of those lab classes mentioned above.
Job #4) Reproductive biologist – doing the same thing I’ve been doing out in Dubbo.
Yes, Dubbo is still 5 hours away from Sydney. Yes, the first 3 jobs are at Macquarie Uni, which is in Sydney. At least it’s keeping me out of trouble!
But it's also keeping me from blogging, so I apologize for that. I think I'm getting everything under control, so I'll try to be better.

Easter Holiday

Generally, when planning trips, we try to avoid the “peak” times as much as possible. That’s the benefit of being semi-employed and in grad school – our schedule has a lot of flexibility. However, when we decided to buy tickets to the Blues and Roots Festival in Byron Bay, we neglected to notice that 1) it was during the Easter long weekend, 2) Byron Bay is one of the busiest places in Australia during Easter, and 3) our driving route would take us along one of the main holiday arteries at peak time. But despite the crowded campgrounds and traffic jams in the middle of nowhere, we had a fantastic getaway.

Hanging out in traffic in the middle of nowhere, with guys honking to draw attention to their mates peeing on the side of the road because there was absolutely nowhere to go.


It's hard to get a sense of how crazy it was, but this is our crowded campground at the festival. We're waaaaaay at the back


The Blues and Roots Festival was good fun. They had some great artists, and it's just fun to listen to live music.

And the gumboot fashion was just astonishing! Here's just 1 example:


Other highlights of the trip included the Macadamia Castle,

a dip in the orange-coloured Lake Ainsworth,

and several Big things, because all good road trips in Oz MUST include some big things. We saw the Big Banana, the Big Prawn, and a big oyster (but I don’t think it was officially “the” big oyster).

We explored several small towns and their quaint personality. We had Devonshire tea in the beer garden at the post office/cafe/general store in Wollomombi. There were flowers and sculptures on one side of the garden, and shark jaws and beer signs on the other. We missed the goanna pulling championships in Wolli, but we had some great fish 'n' chips. And we drove down Waterfall Way, each enjoying the waterfalls in our own way.



We also spent a lot of time on the beach, 'cause you just gotta.








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Good times

Australia likes Easter. A lot. The local papers are filled with announcements about Easter parades, Easter bonnet workshops (seriously - I think it's a national requirement that all children must make at least 1 Easter bonnet and then be paraded around, generally to their great embarrassment), Easter chocolate raffles (which replace the more typical meat tray raffles), Easter brunches, etc. So I'm scanning through all these wonderful Easter activities, and stumble across this:

A week later, it was followed by this:

It was part of a celebration for the bicentennial anniversary of Governor Macquarie. No place like a cemetery to celebrate an anniversary! Along with crematorium tours and hearse-rides, the open day also featured a colonial costume parade. Oh yeah, and a stations of the cross service. You know – all those normal anniversary celebration activities. Unfortunately, Ben and I were unable to make it.