At work...shh!!

I am currently at work. I just finished writing a report, and I have an hour before I am due to leave. Not too keen on starting something new, which would most likely be reading from the "Molecular Microbiology" textbook that Jane plopped on my desk yesterday. Writing on my blog seems like a nice alternative. Just don't tell anyone.

There seems to be some exciting commotion going on down the hall. I think there are people here from the CBC shooting a documentary of some sort.

Not much is going on here in Winnipeg. It has been raining a lot. I am beginning to think that there may be a giant raincloud following me across the country. Well, at least the grass is green and trees are filling in.

Sadly, because of the rain, I haven't been out on my blades much. But, we did have a few days of sunshine between Sunday evening and yesterday night. On Sunday, I went with my housemates to the Bridge Drive-In (aka BDI). Contrary to what you might think from the name, it is not a drive-in movie theatre, but rather an ice cream parlour. They serve ultra creamy, non petroleum based ice cream. I had a pina colada sundae...yummy, but the cream did haunt me for the rest of the night. Probably worth it anyway...Also, have been eating lunch outside, which is a nice change. While we do have a nice, bright cafeteria, it is nice to eat lunch at a picnic table...

On Monday night, Brendan and I went to a public plenary discussion at the University of Winnipeg. First, the University of Winnipeg is soooo ghetto. But, they have Lloyd Axworthy as their president, which is impressive. He was one of the speakers at the plenary, along with Frank Plummer, the head of the National Microbiology Laboratory here at the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health. The discussion was about the global impact of infectious diseases. Frank was representing the science side, while Lloyd was the political and social side. Lloyd is an amazing speaker...There is another plenary tonight, but the weather today is making me want to go home, change into my PJs, and crawl into bed and read/watch tv all night. No more thinking please! Anywho, so my impressions of Monday's discussion. Well, most of it was not all that groundbreaking. They talked about how the ease of travel between countries is making the isolation of infectious diseases next to impossible, and how the transmission can occur so fast (e.g. with SARS) that the disease can spread to 13 countries before you even know you have a problem. As such, we need to have a more global approach to eradicating infectious diseases. The richer countries (this is where Lloyd came in) have to take the reins and protect the less prosperous countries, not only for charitable reasons but also to protect their own from potential spread. It was super interesting. (If anyone would like to give their opinion on this, I would be open to discussion...)

Other exciting news: I got a TAship for September in my department. I am going to TA the first year introductory course in Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. This involves a lot of marking and being available for student questions. I was offered the Acoustics and Vibration TAship en lieu of the introductory course, but declined it. 501 should be more work, and more challenging, but also a little more interesting. I believe the MECH course will only be marking of problem sets and setting up of noise dosimeters....boring.

So, I guess I currently have 3 jobs. CSCHAH, TAship and the noise lit review for SHAPE. But, I'm guessing the SHAPE thing should be finished by the end of the summer, as will CSCHAH, leaving me with one job for September. It is nice to feel busy though. I find that I am a lot more productive this way as I am force to institute some kind of time management. If I'm not busy, I don't get anything done, and just end up playing Hexic for hours and babbling on my blog about inconsequential things.

Yet, YOU keep reading...sucker! Hehe...kidding!

P.S. My suspicions about the CBC crew have been confirmed. They are shooting a documentary here for the next couple of days that will be aired in October. The working title is "Plague hunters" and it will be about the mobile lab that the Public Health Agency sends off to countries like Angola to test for Marburg virus.

P.P.S. As you may have noticed I managed to get my links in working order and have fixed the ones from my previous post.