Update

The news of the day is that I found a place to stay. Fairly close to the lab and in a pleasant house with two folks from Tassie (as Tasmanians like to call their island). Next step: cell phone.

In the lab, I started culturing malaria for my upcoming drug trials and went through a long safety induction. They take safety quite seriously here, but there are some interesting contradictions. For example, bovine serum can be carried through the building by only certain people (Australia is anal about any contaminant escaping into the environment, which is great), but then ethidium bromide isn't kept in a hood (they do at least mark the areas very well to avoid contact with it). So it's somewhat strange.

I have my own space in the computer area of the lab where I connect my laptop. I don't really have a bench as my work is done almost entirely in the culture room hood. The lab organization is quite interesting, though. My actual lab consists of Dr. McFadden and six post-docs, PhD students, etc... But the whole School of Botany is connected by various grant funding and shared equipment. The whole building is essentially one extended lab and there are several meetings and seminars weekly to discuss people's research and hear relevant outside work. Then the Malaria group (several labs from Melbourne Uni and a nearby research insitute) has a meeting each week with a similar goal of uniting everyone and encourage communication. It's a very interesting and lively environment. More news to come.

Off to a good start!

I can see many of you are off to a good start. I am waiting to hear from the rest. Do write in some scientific stuff as well so we can see what else you are doing besides pub crawling. Not that there is anything wrong with that - its the balance that is important! Also, your advisors here at Emory will be able to read your blogs as well. So do give them something to chew on. And of course, you can ask them stuff. I have some questions for all of you. How is your computer access? What is it like?
And do you have some lab space of your own? How many in the lab?
Thank you for taking the time to do this.

Photos

I'm posting my photos on an online album. Feel free to take a look periodically. And no I'm not just wandering around Melbourne; I work as well, but that's not very photogenic.

http://s52.photobucket.com/albums/g24/aussiephotos2006/Melbourne/

I'm upside down!

Hey everyone,
I flew in to Melbourne yesterday morning. It's a very charming city, but the fact that it's late fall here has got me a little confused. Already met the people in the lab. I'll start working as soon as I get housing and some university paperwork taken care of.
Enjoy your summer!