Thoughts

Cliffs of Moher, Ireland

Sometimes, although maybe not as often as I could, I write out my thoughts into a notebook.   Now, what's written in this notebook I very rarely share with people. My writings include songs, poems and general thoughts that I just had to write down after they were just pouring out of my mind and could not be contained anymore. However, some things that I have shared with my closest friends seem to have had a positive impact so I've decided to share a few on here. So here's a little something that I had thought about many times before actually writing it out as a letter to myself, hope you like it :)

Time is continuously flowing, don't segment it into periods, enjoy it in it's wholeness. Live in the moment, don't treat time as an obstacle to be happy now, you never know what time will bring.

A short time spent with a loved one is better used than time spent wondering what might have been. If you have a chance, take it. Temporary happiness will bring you joy for a while, while waiting for long-term contentment can lead to depression or sorrow. 

It is not worth slaving in the present and putting off being happy for happiness in the future, a euphoria that may never come. Make the most out of every stage of life, you never know how the winds will change. Don't use your situation as an excuse not to be happy, as an excuse not to find love, as an excuse not to live. 

Don't give up, make your own destiny, build your life the way you want it. You are the main character of your story and you call all the shots.

Micro lab

This week I did some lab work (Yay!). I did a full DNA extraction of a heather beetle and then amplified it by performing PCR and sequenced it to find whether a microsporidian (a micro-parasite) has infected it. Now this was a pretty long multi-step process and involved me playing around with a number of cool machines and materials (liquid nitrogen ftw :P ). Even though I made one mistake and had to repeat the last step of the process (could have been my ingenious plan to spend more time in the lab...) I completed the whole process and got great results so am pretty proud of that. Active learning through participation is the best!

For those interested in learning how DNA sequencing works, I found this cool site that has videos which give a brief introduction to DNAprocesses: http://www.dnalc.org/view/15924-Making-many-copies-of-DNA.html

My first month in New Zealand has come to an end... time flies by so fast! So, here are some things I've been up to this past week:

Firstly, went on another hiking trip, this time, to south Canterbury to Peel forest and climbed Little Mt Peel. Even though we waited for an hour to be picked up as it was forgotten that the time changed (now 12-hour difference to the UK and 10 to LT!) and it was rainy and cloudy, it turned out to be a good experience none the less. Got to walk through the clouds on the mountain (...mystical...) and because by the end my shoes were already soaked it didn't bother me that we had to walk through the river (which was actually pretty fun) :P Also, I'm gonna go ahead and say that we hiked through a rainforest, felt like it anyway since it was raining and we were walking through... a forest... Oh and can't forget the landmark of the day - The Big Tree (whoever came up with that name is a pure genius...)

Secondly, that same weekend I was invited to this Indonesian fair by some of my new International student friends who have been super welcoming and with whom I meet up every Friday to play games and such :) So, I went and got a chance to try out playing an Angklung - this Indonesian instrument which I got to keep after the fair and is now sitting on my shelf, giving my empty room a bit of life :) It only plays one note (mine is Fa) so to play a song I'd need a few more people who have different notes to join me :p any volunteers?

Finally, I marked my first month in NZ by driving on the left side of the road for the first time ever, and it felt great! I'm not usually a fan of driving so I was really surprised how much I enjoyed it :) And how quickly I picked it up (ok turned on the windscreen wipers instead of showing a turn signal for the first couple of times, but meh) I think as long as I don't have to drive a stick I can manage to do this while I'm in New Zealand, should be handy for travelling around :)