July 2011

Sunday the 10th

The flight over to Australia was long and tiring, since the total time from leaving Philadelphia to arriving in Brisbane was about 36 hours. Along the way, I met a retired teacher from California, two friends from the Cayman Islands, and a couple that graciously let me borrow their cell phone as well as invited me to see their property outside of Brisbane. My Rotary host, Philip Pickersgill, patiently waited for me to arrive and was a pleasure to meet. He is the founder of a scientific supply company and has a great sense of humor, so we get along very well and have had good conversations.

Relative to East Coast Americans, Australians seem to be more laid back. Those that I have met are very knowledgeable about current events, especially events in the United States (likely because Australian news channels and newspapers set aside significant portions of time and space to describe American news). The relaxed attitude may stem from my observations that most Australians seem to have a high quality of life, which is mainly due to the socialized systems in place. Many Australians also support citizens’ right to adequate and affordable health care. Interesting fact: ALL Australian citizens over the age of 18 must vote in both state and federal elections and failure to do so can result in a fine or prosecution. Although not very democratic, this law has some utility in a country that has a population of only 22.7 million people (and even fewer people of voting age) because elections would otherwise be decided on a small number of votes. Australia also provides several different ways to vote to ensure accessibility under any circumstances, a contrast to some American states trying to enact stricter voting laws that require voters to possess a government-issued photo ID. At the polling place, Australian voters are not called out by name and political affiliation like they are in Pennsylvania.

The long trip has already been very worthwhile. First, the winter weather is excellent, as most days are entirely sunny with daytime temperatures in the low or mid 60s and nighttime temperatures in the upper 40s; the humidity has been very low. Philip and the other Rotarians are exceptionally generous and helpful with answering my questions about living in this new area. Here are pictures of the location at which I am staying.

I recently rode on a few of the excellent bike paths that the greater Brisbane area offers along its Moreton Bay Cycleway. Unlike most urban areas in the United States, Brisbane has many roads with designated bike lanes in addition to paved bike trails that connect the city to nearly 100 miles of coastline containing remote, pristine areas as well as other towns. The picture below is of Nudgee Beach, which I visited during my ride, along with the Boondall Wetlands that I rode across along many boardwalks. I plan to ride frequently and will explore the extensive bike trail system. To get my bike over here, I took it apart and packed it in a box. Both Southwest and Qantas Airlines handle packed bicycles as checked baggage, so I only had to pay $50 to transport my bike from Philadelphia to Brisbane!

The public transportation is also convenient and affordable; there are trains, buses, and ferries that interconnect to form a network that covers most parts of the city and surrounding suburbs.

Last night, I met two other Rotary Scholars (Katie Harris and Stephanie Hinojosa) over dinner at Philip’s house along with his partner and fellow Rotarian, Fran, as seen in the picture below.

This week, I am planning to meet my host club, Rotary of Fortitude Valley, as well as several other Rotarians. I will also begin orientation for my research position and have dinner with a local family. I might go whale watching or go to a rugby game soon and recently learned about the upcoming Brisbane Festival, which should have a lot of fun activities. I will keep you posted.

Sunday the 17th

I can’t believe that the week has passed already, but keeping busy surely made it fly by. I took the river ferry system to the University of Queensland and met with Shaughn Forbes over lunch, the Rotary scholarship director for my host district. UQ has a lush campus despite the bad flooding in January and attracts a large assortment of international students.

After that, I met Janet to travel with her back to her family’s house. As a young adult, Janet traveled to the U.S. in 1980 and stayed with a host family in Jeannette, Pennsylvania. She maintained contact with people in Jeannette, and the gentleman who introduced me to the Ambassadorial Scholarship remembered this. I emailed Janet several times while still in the U.S., and we arranged to meet once I arrived in Australia. It was a neat coincidence that Janet and her family live outside of Brisbane, the city where I am spending most of my time while in Australia. Below is a picture of their home along with Janet and her husband Colin. They were excellent hosts and cooks; we had salmon for dinner smoked with the leaves from one of their gum (eucalyptus) trees. They generously offered me a room to stay in that night, and Janet and I took the bus back into the city the next day. Another coincidence occurred when Janet and I met at her Red Cross work location: a Rotarian who donates blood every two weeks was there the same day, so I got to meet him as well.

Like many other houses in the area, their house does not have a basement but, rather, is built using pole construction like beach houses up on stilts. They also have a cistern that collects rain water, which is subsequently used to supply the house after passing through a settling tank and pump; public water or drilling a well is simply not feasible for many areas outside of the city. In a small field near their house, we went out at dusk to see groups (mobs) of kangaroos. The kangaroos are as common as white-tailed deer in Pennsylvania and are very easy to spot. Here is some Aussie slang that adds –ie to shortened words: pokies, postie, tradie, truckie, trackies, scratchie, sunnies, foodie, brekkie, coldie, grundies, and many others. You will have to figure out what these mean on your own. Another interesting word they taught me was “schmozzle,” which means some situation that has been messed up and confused and may have a Yiddish origin.

Although I mentioned that the winter weather here is very mild compared to Pennsylvania winters, most houses do not have central heating or cooling nor insulated walls and floors. Thus, the nights can get quite cold, with in-house temperatures dipping down to the mid-50s without supplemental heat. But without freezing temperatures to worry about cracking pipes and no need for duct work, builders have more freedom in designing houses.

I attended two Rotary meetings in the evening this past week as well. One was with the Rotary Club of Ashgrove the Gap and the other was with my host club, the Rotary Club of Fortitude Valley. It was a pleasure to meet the Rotarians at each club, especially those at my host club with whom I’ve been corresponding for several months. Fortitude Valley presented me with an official name badge at my first meeting and included me in their weekly bulletin. Below, there is also a picture of me and Lisa Bateson, the past president of Fortitude Valley who I communicated with for several months prior to arriving in Australia and who volunteered her Rotary club to host me.

Check out this link for Fortitude Valley's most recent bulletin. I look forward to future meetings and starting work on a volunteering project with my host club.

I spent the rest of my days learning about the research project that I will be working on along with general information about the facility in which I will be located. I will write more about the details of my project once I finish induction and the required safety coursework but, briefly, I am trying to determine how a compound from an Australian rainforest plant affects a protein that can regulate the growth human cancer cells. Here is the view of Brisbane from my work desk:

Sunday the 31st

Since my last post, I moved to a share house in the Herston area and live with three other university students. My host’s accommodation was great except for a lengthy commute, but my new place is only a five minute bike ride away from the QIMR and located closer to other students.

Speaking of students, I recently met the other Rotary students who are currently living and studying in the Brisbane area. They were all sociable and had many great stories and tips from the months that they have already spent in Brisbane, and they were all from the United States: Arkansas, California, Mississippi, and New York.

As a farewell party to a Rotary Youth Exchange Student, I joined the members of Fortitude Valley Rotary at the Brisbane German Club for a commemoration of the student’s year in Brisbane, which included socializing and delicious food and imported beers. The German Club is popular for its imported beers because, unlike the U.S., Australia does not have many microbreweries or a wide selection of full-bodied beers, but there is a variety of wines here.

In general, food seems to be more expensive here because there is not much arable land relative to the size of the country (the same as the continental U.S.), Australia strictly regulates imported foods, and floods earlier this year ruined several crops. However, one type of food that is cheap in grocery stores is kangaroo meat, which seems to have a low demand among Australians but a high supply in this country where they abound. I guess most Australians have a revulsion against eating ‘roo because of playful cartoon characters and a sense of pride in what some may regard as the national animal or even national symbol. But the ‘roo population is exceeding the carrying capacity of certain regions, so the population must be culled to protect the habitats of other animals and plants (and to protect the safety of motorists). To discard the ‘roos would surely be wasteful, so the pelts and meat are inspected and sold. After cooking the meat a few different ways, I can confidently say that I like ‘roo meat and think it tastes similar to bison or any other high-protein, extremely lean, free-range, non-gamey-tasting red meat.

To stay busy during the week, I’ve been working on my project at the QIMR. I learned how to harvest and grow skin cells and how to maintain cancer cells (melanoma so far) in addition to certain techniques and procedures that I will commonly need to use in the future, like western blotting and PCR. I find it both scary and astounding that, if regularly given fresh growth media, certain cancer cells can grow extremely fast and live indefinitely due to mutations in pathways that normally cause healthy cells to age (senesce) and die (undergo apoptosis).

Since I have my bike with me and enjoy riding on the numerous trails that Brisbane maintains, I did a 41 mile (66 km) round trip to Redcliffe, a nearby coastal town along Moreton Bay. The bridge that I crossed to enter Redcliffe is Australia’s longest bridge (1.7 miles or 2.7 km), was completed about one year ago, and has a dedicated bike and walking path with an outlook area in the middle. The weather was a typical winter’s day in Brisbane with sun, mid to upper-60s temperatures, and low humidity.

Here is the view of the Brisbane skyscrapers (pictured in my 17 July post) from Redcliffe looking across Moreton Bay:

And with regard to biking, Australia is the proud home of this year’s Tour de France winner, Cadel Evans; he is the first Australian to win this annual bike race.

Yesterday, I traveled with Janet and her family to the beach town of Caloundra for a birthday party for Janet’s nephew. We met other members of their extended family at a park area adjacent to Moffat beach for a relaxed and enjoyable lunch. I also had fun bodyboarding with Janet’s son.

Afterwards, we went back to Janet’s brother’s house, which is only a short walk away from the oceanside. I met the father of Janet’s sister-in-law and learned that he is a Rotarian and has been for nearly 30 years. After talking for a little while, he encouraged me to speak at his Rotary Club of Caloundra, so I look forward to spending more time in the area and meeting his fellow club members. Small coincidences resulting from the strong network of Rotarians are making my time in Australia maximally rewarding and enjoyable, as each new connection creates new opportunities and allows me to meet many remarkable people.