Would you like to upgrade your degree?: More of the strangeness inherent in spending time in an entirely different educational system. Here at Newcastle Uni (the University of Newcastle, Callaghan Campus), all students are admitted to the department only as masters’ students, even if they are sure they want a Ph.D. To get admitted, they get ranked based on your undergraduate work and usually have to apply for a university scholarship to pay for their work. (I’m not sure how hard it is to get in.) Many students are partially paid by industry and the uni, while some are only paid by an industrial sponsor. About 1.5-2 years into their degree, they can apply to “upgrade” their degree, which means that they definitely want to get a Ph.D. The student writes up a paper that is the equivalent of our comprehensive exam (comps) paper at CU (addressing the work they’ve completed, what they plan to do, and an estimated timeline) and gives a seminar to which all members of the department are invited. They’re also truly encouraged to ask questions (unlike our comps, where most students impose a threat of intense torture or painfully protracted death upon anyone not on the committee who dares to ask a question.) After the seminar, the student is trapped in the room with his/her committee for the Q&A process (mainly questions on the project, but anything ChemE related is fair game) and hopefully passes. As with our comps, most students pass on the first try. The upgrade is the last time that the student has to go before the committee in a pass/fail situation. At the end of his/her time, the student writes up the thesis and turns it in. The student then gives a departmental seminar, but it’s more out of politeness than any real requirements. All of this happens in 3-4 years total, as I mentioned before. (Am I harping too strongly on that last point? Sorry, but it’s so hard to be so close to being done and yet so far from it.)

Fire alarm at Uni: Wednesday morning started with a fire alarm about 10 am or so, when one of the undergrads had opened the drying oven right underneath a detector and set the alarm went off. (Good idea if the oven ever really were on fire, bad idea the rest of the time. Anyone from Sullivan at NCSU remember how the steam from a really hot shower could set off the fire alarm if the person showering hadn’t left the bathroom window open? This is the same idea.) Of course, it was raining when it happened. Luckily it wasn’t raining too hard, although if it was, maybe the mozzies wouldn’t have eaten us alive. I was a bit concerned that all the work I’d done in the past week was on my laptop trapped in the ostensibly burning building. Good thing (I guess) that it wasn’t burning.

Ultimate Down Under: For all you players out there, I thought you might interested in the description given on the Uni website:

Welcome to Ultimate Frisbee, one of the most exciting up and coming sports around. Ultimate Frisbee is a team sport, usually played on a rectangular field about two-thirds the size of a rugby field. The sport can be described as a cross between Netball and American Football with a frisbee, and involves team members passing a Frisbee amongst each other until someone scores by catching a pass in what is know as the"endzone" Running with the Frisbee is not allowed, and a turnover occurs when one team stops their opposition from completing a pass.

Ultimate Frisbee is self refereed, even at World Championship level. All players agree to abide to the "Spirit of the Game", ie. everyone abides by the rules, and call their own fouls and violations.

Ultimate Frisbee is usually played co-ed, and we have a special emphasis to welcome female players. It is a healthy, non-contact, fast moving sport that will be sure to keep you on your toes and having fun. So why not give one of the fastest growing new sports a go

Training Times:
Mondays and Wednesdays, 8.00pm - 10.00pm
University No 2 Oval

I’ve heard back from the captain—more fun with Aussie miscommunications: “In any case if you come at 8pm, you will get some action!” (Don’t worry, LJ, I’m pretty sure it’s NOT what it would mean in the US)—and I can’t wait to go to “training time”. (Why can’t they call it practice?) I’m sure my throws are really rusty right now, since I haven’t picked up a disc in a month.

Abbreviations abound: Aussies love their abbreviations. The other day at lunch, I was talking with a few of the grad students, and Glenn started talking about “tutoring” Kinetics. In America, what he meant was that he was a teaching assistant, or T.A. Gabriel said that they use the word tutor because it’s shorter than teaching assistant. When I said that we just called it a TA, he thought that was pretty neat and said he might have to start using it. For once, I had a shorter way to say something than the Aussies.

No matter what your American experience may tell you, there is no contact lens solution at K-mart in Australia: K-mart in Australia does not sell contact lens solution, or any other medical-type products, for that matter. Chemists’ shops (pharmacies) have a lock on medical products, along with grocery stores. Their prices are really expensive—one bottle of lens solution cost AU$14.95, or ~US$12 . Wow. I should have brought more of it with me, since I buy the generic at Target for $5 a pop.

Australian foods: Blue eye fish is a mild white fish that tastes pretty good grilled. So does Hoiki. Of course, both are served with chips. I’ll bet that somewhere in Australia there is a menu that has, “Chips with chips” listed.

Pavlova is a meringue topped with fruit that is either Australian or New Zealandish (what is the adjective form of New Zealand?) in origin. A hot debate rages between the two countries as to whom invented it, but the impression I get from the above link is that the basic recipe was invented by New Zealanders and perfected and named by Australians. (Aside: Australians and New Zealanders have a love/hate relationship much like the US and Canada. New Zealand is the Canada of that relationship, from what I can tell. Of course, I am in Australia, not New Zealand, which could color the perspective I’m given.)

Do they ever work here? (Not that I’m complaining…) Work the last few days few days has been particularly intermittent. On Tuesday there was a going-away lunch for a research associate headed to Sydney Uni. Wednesday afternoon there were two Upgrade seminars (see above). Each day there is morning tea and biscuits (cookies for y’all Americans) at 10 am, only an hour after most people arrive, and Thursday there was a special afternoon tea and cakes for that same research associate who’s leaving. Then people leave about 4 or 5 pm. (Aside: Why doesn’t our country operate on this laid-back schedule? Screw being the best in the world at most things—I’m all for this laid-back lifestyle. I’m sure they HAVE to have a much lower incidence of stress-induced strokes and heart attacks than the US.) The departing research associate then brought lunch in today (Friday). I hope when I leave we have this many parties. This research associate has been here for 2-3 years, so that might be why he’s celebrating so much.

Visiting Research Associate: I’ve been afforded the status of Visiting Research Associate while I’m here. (I guess Visiting Graduate Student doesn’t exist.) But this begs the question: if I’m already being called a Research Associate, albeit a Visiting one, do I even need to finish my degree? (For those of you not entrenched in the academic dungeons, a Research Associate is, without question (at least at CU), a postdoctoral position. A Senior Research Associate is someone who hangs around for a long time (Alexander, the Russian mathematician I work with in the Davis group, is one of these). So if I’m a research associate, do I even need to get my Ph.D.?) This reminds me of the emails I get that say, “Get a degree based on life experience from an actual university.”

Enjoy your weekend. I know I’m going to enjoy mine.