Kerry gets a real job

Now that I'm 30, I decided that maybe I'd try this 'real job' thing. But it's only temporary, so if it doesn't work, I'm not committed.

Through a series of fortuitous coincidences, I ended up with a potential job before I even arrived in Australia, and now it's turned into an official thing. I'll be working at the Western Plains Zoo as the Reproductive Technician. The person currently in that position needs to take some time off to focus on her PhD, so I'll be filling in for her for 6 months (Jan-June). Basically, I'll be doing the same thing as I did for my thesis (playing with poo and trying to figure out who's pregnant), but with different species of feces. I might be able to start some stress research projects, as well.

So it'll be nice to feel like I have more of a purpose, here, but the bad part is that the job is 6 hours away from Sydney, in a little town on the edge of the outback called Dubbo (DUH-bo). Ani and I will head out there, and Ben will go back and forth as it works around the fly schedule.

So a side note: there are a lot of things in Aussie lingo that sound like kid-talk (we will discuss this more in a future entry). But when I got the packet of paperwork the other day, we about lost it when we saw the letter about the 'buddy system.' Not a 'mentoring program,' or anything like that - a buddy system. So rest assured, even though Ben won't be with me the whole time, I will have a 'buddy' to help me adjust to life at Western Plains Zoo.

AND I get to work for a company that has a platypus for it's logo!

Happy birthday to Ben!

Yup - today's the special day! And instead of falling leaves and dropping temps, this year, Ben gets to celebrate with longer days, blooming flowers, and baby ducklings. It's kind of weird to have our birthday eco-cues flipped.

Although we didn't originally have any special plans, Ben decided to take the day off. We headed to Macquarie Centre (which is essentially a mall, but it's the place to go for absolutely everything - I know, who'd ever have imagined that Ben would choose to spend his birthday at a mall!). We did a few errands and then ate lunch at this sushi bar that has a conveyor belt full of sushi. You just pull off whatever looks good and pay for the number of plates at the end. Pretty fun! And then we saw the new James Bond movie! Although it's missing a few of the classic Bond features (e.g. Q and his gadgets, sleeping with the enemy), it was still good.

AND, in a few days, we're going to take a birthday/anniversary/thanksgiving trip down to ACT (Australian Capital Territory). We'll fill you in when we get back.

So happy 31st birthday, Ben!!

It's an old pic, but I like it.

Fruit of the day: Mangoes

So our brilliant shopping decision for the week was to buy a crate of mangoes. That equals 14 mangoes that are pretty much the same ripeness. Our logic was this: in the grocery store, mangoes are $4-5 each (even though they come from nearby Queensland and are supposedly in season and, in my mind, should be a lot cheaper right now). But when you buy a whole crate at the fruit market, they’re only ~$1.25 each. So the challenge is on, and we’re willing to accept it. We’ll let you know if we make it through all 14 before they go bad. It’s a rough job, but somebody’s gotta do it!

A day in the life of Fly Boy

In case you're wondering what a normal day is like for a fly biologist, we’ve decided to give you a glimpse into that wonderful world.
So when you boil it down, all biological research questions are about 1 of 2 things: sex or death. Ben’s research is about how food/nutrition affects these 2 things in Queensland fruit flies (which are way different from the fruit flies you’re probably thinking of, but we’ll save that for another day). So here’s an uber-simplified look at what he does.
These days, he devotes a lot of his time to designing the ideal maggot diet – fun, huh?!? So first, he weighs out lots of different chemicals to create different mixtures of protein and sugar.

Then he adds it to agar to create a nice firm gel in little petri dishes. Then he adds eggs to each dish so they’ll be able to start eating as soon as they hatch. In human terms, it’s like living in a swimming pool full of jello. There’s a little larva circled in the bottom left side of the photo.

Each day he checks his little larvae to see who’s alive on what diets, how much they’ve eaten (you can measure their feeding tunnels), how much they’ve grown, and how soon they pupate.

And by the end of the day, he’s a little bug-eyed!

Make way for ducklings

This is my new favourite sign. It’s ~2 blocks away from us, and it makes me smile every time we go by. And the ducklings are pretty cute, too. They’re Pacific black ducks. I’m not sure where mom was when I took this photo, but the kids seemed to be behaving and staying out of the street.

UPDATE: not only do they have 2 signs - they also have a chaperone! When I was biking home yesterday, there was a lady standing out there making sure cars stopped so they could get across the street safely.

Weekend fun

It’s been a little while, so we promised Ani that we’d take her out for an adventure on Saturday. So we decided to head to Olympic Park. Yes, this includes the buildings they used when Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympics. But it also includes a bunch of trails/parks/wetlands, so it’s a great place to go wander around. We saw a whole bunch of new birds. And even though we’ve seen them before, I still got excited when we spotted some superb fairy wrens. They have blue heads – how can you not get excited about that!?! And they’re one of the few birds here that actually has a melodious song.


With Ani along, we didn’t go inside any of the buildings used for the Olympics. BUT, we did manage to get in trouble. Twice. I know – no big surprise coming from trouble-makers like us. So the first time it was for having Ani in an area where dogs weren’t allowed – we just thought dogs had to be on a leash. But the ranger was great – he drove by when we were looking at birds and scolded us, then adds “It’s no big deal – just head toward the exit. But take your time. What good birds have you seen? If you go look here you can see these birds ‘visiting’ from Siberia. And over here there are baby plovers. And be sure you go here.” So he was really nice. The second time, we managed to walk into a restricted area that didn’t have any signs and looked just like the other buildings we had been walking by and there were tons of other people walking around. Again, the guy was pretty nice about it, but I still don’t know how we were supposed to know it was a restricted area.

And that night, we headed over to Julie’s for dinner – she takes good care of us. We got to feed her possums – there’s a mother/baby pair and a big single male that stop by her backyard to see if there’s anything good. Sometimes she feeds them banana, which may not be the best thing to do, but it is kinda fun to get such good views of the local wildlife!


And then Julie and her mom fed us – they made this great fish au gratin. Only disappointment of the night was that the resident frogmouth wasn’t there (that’s another bird, in case you were wondering).

I spy: Jacaranda trees

OK - I'm not sure if the phrase "I spy" is appropriate, because you really can't miss them. The Jacaranda trees are blooming, now - man, are they purple! It's not like they have a few nice purple flowers here and there - the entire tree is purple. They are fairly common, here, and they are like these explosions of lavender in amongst all the boring green trees.