Two-headed chemical mayhem!

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Tasmania =)

After a long hiatus from blogging, Beaker has returned to report on his expedition to Tasmania, the Island state, which would be hosting IC07 (a meeting of inorganic chemists in Australia). Here is a map for ppl not familiar with Australia:Beaker conducted this journey with certain other chemists from the University of Sydney - as if seeing these nerds every week at uni wasn't bad enough, spending every waking hour around them was more than sufficient to drive him nuts. What was cool, however, was walking around in world heritage areas (which, along with reserves and National Parks account for 36% of Tassie) all day. In particular, our day in Cradle Mountain during which the weather was awesomely fine (this apparently only happens once every ten days), was pretty sweet. Apart from being overly sunburnt, Beaker enjoyed it - here are some pics:We would then journey to the west coast of Tassie, namely to a small (~1000ppl) ex-shipping and convict town called Strahan. The easy-going and laconic nature of this place went down as brilliantly as the local beer - we felt the best way to see this place was on a relaxing cruise around the harbour. What was less relaxing was being in a car with a certain Irish postdoc who, despite his strong stance on lab safety, felt no need to drive in anything other than a suicidal manner. Of course, he turned out to be an awesome quadbiker!
Our last port of call would be sunny Hobart, the location of the inorganic chemistry conference. Hobart has many features that distinguish it from more civillised cities. It appears that the local children have not heard of the concept of attending school. Either that, or school there only really takes up a small fraction of their time, the rest of which may be spent playing with their pet tasmanian tigers, frequenting Legs 'n' Breasts (the local chicken shop) or having a few Cascade Lagers. The scarcity of public transport was also disappointing, with no trains and very few buses/taxis. Having said that, we could walk from our motel to the convention centre, pictured below.
While I probably didn't learn as much stuff or meet as many new people as I had at previous conferences, I still enjoyed myself. The talks I attended (which may or may not represent a small fraction of those I should have attended) were pretty good. The plenary lectures given by Schrock and van Koten turned out to be pretty interesting, as I had expected. The former presented work on the catalytic reduction of dinitrogen (most ppl would have read of this, it's been out for a few years: Science 2003, 301, 76) which may see him get a second Nobel prize if a practical version of his Molybdenum-containing system is developed...

...Anyway, so I'm back in Sydney, in my 3rd year of a PhD...
my work certainly won't lead to any Nobel prizes, I really just want to get done and move on. It's that feeling I always get after conferences - possessing new ideas and a renewed urgency to develop them.

Keep it real, be yourself and stay positive :)

-Bkr

17 Comments:

Blogger Ψ*Ψ said...

i want to go to tasmania!

5:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe we should "dispose" of the Irish post-doc...?:)

9:53 AM  
Blogger pip said...

Your love of chemistry never ceases to amaze me.

10:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Always remember: Tasmania is the crotch of Australia.

1:46 AM  
Blogger Bunsen and Beaker said...

We could have just left Dr O'Malley in Tasmania. Nobody there would have understood his weird accent, except for maybe the Tassie devils...who he could befriend and live in the wild with...until he finds the elusive Tasmanian tiger, receives his bounty of a millions bucks and goes home to Ireland to tell of his tale.

6:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you and your crotch obsession FOJ - keep it to yourself thanks

4:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

(you may delete this comment after reading)

If interested, send an entry from your blog to Panta Rei a blog carnival to be hosted at my blog on May 14, 2007. This edition is specific to chemical sciences, hence this communication.

Thanks

4:22 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I drank a Tasmania once and it was fantastic! Nice photos, it appears that you had a great time.
Did see any devils? ;)

4:13 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

10:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Amiable post and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you seeking your information.

3:16 AM  
Blogger chenmeinv0 said...

nike free
canada goose
new balance
soccer jerseys
ugg
polo lacoste
pandora charms
flops
timberland boots
mizuno wave
2018.1.11xukaimin

4:36 PM  
Anonymous qq online said...

Aw, this was a really nice post. In concept I wish to put in writing like this additionally ?taking time and precise effort to make a very good article?however what can I say?I procrastinate alot and by no means seem to get one thing done.

8:27 PM  
Anonymous situs judi slot online said...

Perhaps you should think about this from far more than one angle. Or maybe you shouldnt generalise so considerably.

8:46 PM  
Anonymous daftar sbobet88 said...

Odd this publish is totaly unrelated to what I used to be looking google for, nevertheless it was once indexed at the first page. I assume your doing one thing right if Google likes you enough to place you at the first page of a non related search.

6:56 PM  
Anonymous sbobet indonesia said...

The guidelines you provided allow me to share extremely precious. It been found such a pleasurable surprise to possess that looking forward to me once i awoke today. They may be constantly clear easy to understand. Thanks a ton for the valuable ideas you’ve got shared the following.

11:49 PM  
Anonymous situs judi slot online terbaru said...

This is a good common sense article. Very helpful to one who is just finding the resouces about this part. It will certainly help educate me. situs judi slot online terbaru

8:28 PM  
Anonymous 99skincare.com said...

I am definitely bookmarking this website and sharing it with my acquaintances.

12:32 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Counter