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Published: September 21st 2011
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Hello again friends! So I am back on the road/plane again, this time writing to you from Western Australia! For those of you who don't know, I am here on a two-month research trip, this time working in the Face Lab at the University of Western Australia. Unlike my China trip, where I brought along my own projects to work on, here in Australia I am going to be learning some new research techniques and working on a project as part of the research apprenticeship component of my PhD. I'll go into some more detail on my new project in a later update, but I wanted to use this blog post as a chance to tell you about all that has been happening in my first week here!
I arrived into Perth last Thursday after a brutal 34-hour trek from Toronto. I had to fly from Toronto to Vancouver, from Vancouver to Sydney, and then from Sydney to Perth. While here, I am renting out a room in a house in a suburb of Perth called Hamersley. So, my housemates consist of my landlord, a German exchange student, and my landlord's two cats, Zorro and Ginger. We each have our
own bedroom and then we all share the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. (Well, the cats dominate all the rooms, of course.)
Unfortunately, despite Australia's reputation as a warm, sunny place, it has rained every single day here since I arrived! It's actually pretty cold here right now, as it is early Spring and their rainy season. It should start warming up in the next couple weeks, though, and I am anxious to get to the beach! Because of the bad storms, it has been hard to travel around much since I have arrived; however, it cleared up for a few hours on Sunday afternoon, so my landlord took me on a tour of the city and showed me around the area. We went up to King's Park, which is the large nature reserve that overlooks the Swan River and main Perth skyline. After we got back home, a HUGE storm blew in and I felt like the house was going to blow away! Apparently, though, the wind sounds much worse than it actually is here because the gumtrees amplify even the slightest of breezes. That would have been a nice fact to know when I woke up in
the middle of the night, thinking that a tree was going to fall over on the house!
On Monday, I had my first day of work at the university. Let me say, it is quite a commute to get there! I think I am very spoiled at Brock, needing only an 8-minute drive to get from home to the university. Here, I have a 10-minute walk to the train station, a 20-minute train ride to the city, then I have to catch a 10-minute bus to the university, and finally I end with a 10-minute walk across campus to the lab. It is quite a trek! It was rather confusing on the first day, and I am glad I am starting to get more used to the routine now and don't have to be so paranoid about missing my bus/train stops. Life in the lab at UWA is actually quite similar to life in the lab at Brock...lots of faces, programming, and data files! On Friday, a documentary crew is actually going to be visiting the lab and filming a segment for an upcoming Discovery Channel show called Through the Wormhole. And get who is hosting the show- Morgan
Freeman! We haven't been given much information on what they will be filming, so I am very intrigued to see how this will all turn out. In case any of you are interested, here is the website of the lab I am currently working in: http://www.psy.uwa.edu.au/facelab/ And here is the website of my home lab back at Brock: http://www.brocku.ca/psychology/research/infantchildlab.htm
Overall, I'm still getting settled in and adapting to the Aussie way of life, but I'm already learning some of the slang and what things I need to watch out for. For example, I am consistently offering to drive here...in that, whenever someone gives me a ride, I am hopping in the driver's side of the car because I am not used to the cars and roads being opposite here! I am also always on the look-out for huntsman spiders; I have been told they are very common here and have a tendency to hide in people's shoes. These spiders can grow to be the size of your fist, and the idea of putting on one of my shoes and discovering one of those inside is terrifying! I think I would be scarred for life.
Keep in touch mates,
and let me know what is going on north of the equator! I miss you all!
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JASMINE
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G'DAY!
Linds! Loved the post. The pictures are lovely and your room looks a good size!! I thought the lady you were living with was going to drive you to the university?