Back to SPARCS...

Two years ago, I created this blog after an inspiring weekend in Redmond, Washington at the very first annual conference hosted by the Society for Promotion of Applied Research in Canine Science. I actually was encouraged to attend this conference by Dr. Yin, who offered to cover my conference registration.

It was a life-changing experience. Not so much in the sense that I suddenly decided to go into the field of canine research (that had already happened - ha!), but it was actually the first time I had to pretend to be a real adult all by myself. I was more than likely the only undergraduate student there and felt completely out of my comfort zone. My awkwardness around and preferred avoidance of strangers certainly didn't help. Luckily everyone I met was super supportive and encouraging and all of the researchers were happy to chat with me (after I managed to work up the courage to approach any of them).

I learned so much that weekend at SPARCS 2013. Actually, ever since then, I've compared how nervous I am feeling in any setting to how I felt that weekend. Nothing ever comes even close to comparing, and since I survived SPARCS, I can survive just about anything!

Every year, SPARCS shares the event as a FREE livestream event, making the content accessible to anyone with an internet access. This year, tuning in to SPARCS has required a bit more dedication than usual... Because of the time difference, the very reasonable 9am - 6pm schedule in Phoenix, Arizona turns out to be 2am - 11am here in Bendigo. Yikes? It's currently the "lunch break" on Day 1 as I'm writing this blog post - meaning 6:00am here. I took a nap before the day started so I'm still going strong (with some tea/coffee and snacks) but we'll see how the rest of the weekend goes. Miss Audrey has been fast asleep all "morning"...

Dusting off the camera...

This weekend, I took my baby DSLR out for the first time in a long while. Pauleen and I have been planning to take photos of the dogs for a few weeks now, but we've always either forgotten or run out of time.

This past Sunday, I finally got a chance to shoot some dogs - and I'm pretty happy with how some of the photos turned out! Of course, Miss Audrey is still the cutest one...

It was hard picking just a few favorites, but here we are:

Gabby the Destroyer, looking very innocent.

Baxter just had a haircut and is looking SO handsome and all grown up!

She's obviously the cutest one.

Danny-boy, who we picked up from NSW a few weeks back.

Princess Louie (actually her real name is Lulu)

Candy - and her beloved frisbee

I can't wait!!!

It's official, this August I will be attending and presenting a poster (!!!) at Behaviour2015. We're going to Cairns for a whole week! Of course this trip would not be complete without visiting the Great Barrier Reef, so that's on the schedule too. I am so looking forward to this!

In the mean time, the semester is winding down. Next week is the last week of classes, and then the students have Winter Break for 2 months before the start of the next semester. I'm not doing any tutoring next semester, which means I will be 100% focused on my research project(s).

It's also my 3-month Australia anniversary tomorrow. I feel like I've just gotten here, but at the same time it feels like I've been here forever. I still try to get into the wrong side of my car though - so not quite completely converted yet!

I've also started volunteering at the local RSPCA. It's nice to spend one morning a week supporting a good organization, and the connections I will make there are invaluable. Plus they might let me practice my photography skills on the adoptable animals - woohoo!

Road trip!

Yikes, I've been doing a terrible job of blogging regularly.

It's been busy here, but lots of fun. This past weekend, Pauleen and I took a road trip up to Bathurst, New South Wales. But first, it's probably good to go back a little bit on the updates.

Dog training is now well underway for the honours students' project. The dogs are learning a visual discrimination task and it's fun to see the different techniques each dog uses to try and figure out the rules. So far we have Princess Lulu far out in the lead compared to the other dogs, but we think everyone will figure it out if we give them enough time!

All of a sudden, the semester is nearly over. We've finished marking (aka grading) the student essays, and there is only one more tutorial left, and a video project they have to do before the end of the semester. It's all a bit nuts - time is going by so quickly!

The other day, I got a message from my sister telling me that her company, Alter Eco, now sells their chocolate at Coles, one of the major supermarket chains here in Australia. I was sent on a mission to find the chocolate and take a picture. Of course I forgot my phone when I went shopping, so I *had* to buy one instead - I had no other choice!

I picked the least dark one. Yummy!

 The semester ended last week for my stats courses - which means 2 semesters down, 4 more to go! I'm only taking one class over summer semester though, so hopefully it won't be too stressful. I should figure out when classes start again though...

OK - now I think that basically brings the blog up to speed. This past weekend, Pauleen needed to drive up to Bathurst, NSW to pick up a dog, and asked if I wanted to come along for a little road trip. The trip to Bathurst from Bendigo is about 8 hours if you drive straight through, and about 9-10 hours with breaks for car fuel and people fuel. Bathurst is a fancy little town, about 2.5 hours outside of Sydney. Apparently lots of rich city people own weekend properties there.

Trip from Bendigo to Bathurst, courtesy of Google Maps

On the way up, we were driving at night so there wasn't much to see, but on the way back it was a beautiful drive. New South Wales (or at least where we were driving through) was much greener than home, and we drove past miles and miles of pastures with sheep and cattle. We even saw an emu (which Australians pronounce e-mew) and a camel! I guess some people keep camels as "pets" - although I'm guessing it's sort of like Americans keeping zebras as pets.

On the drive back, we stopped at an iconic road trip stop, the Dog on the Tuckerbox. There wasn't much to see, but we each had a Tucker Box Burger for lunch - with beetroot in the burger. Odd, but I like beets so it was actually quite tasty.

Miss Audrey will be 6 months old at the end of this month. She's growing up so fast - and my time here in Australia is going by so quickly too! Before I know it, three years will be up. Hopefully by then I'll have learned lots, experienced lots, and (most importantly) finished my thesis! :)

Oops...

So...it's been way too long since my last post. Earlier this week I got messages from two different people asking "Is everything OK? You haven't blogged in a while." It's been getting harder to talk to people at home, now that the time difference is only 17 hours instead of 19 hours. Basically I am now one day minus 7 hours ahead, instead of one day minus 5 hours ahead which means that now its midnight at home in California when it's 5 in the evening here.

Life is really starting to pick up and get going. We've just gotten university ethics approval for one of our dog training projects, so I've been really involved in getting that up and running. I'm also grading student assignments for the course I'm tutoring, so that's been a big part of my life the past couple of weeks as well. In Australia, they call it marking - and I was really confused at first, but I think I've figured it out.

Speaking of figuring things out, I have a couple more interesting observations on Australia:

Courtesy of: abramowitzesdownunder.blogspot.com

• There aren't mail trucks. The postman rides around on a motorcycle with neon yellow sacks of mail (see picture).
• "H" is pronounced "hay-ch". Well enunciated. I probably wouldn't even have noticed if it hadn't been that every time I say I'm doing my PhD (pronounced pee-aich-dee), people do a double-take and then go "oh your P-HAYch-D".
• Ketchup is actually tomato paste - and tomato is pronounced to-MAH-to. Like when you say "to-MAY-to, to-MAH-to" but wonder who ever says to-MAH-to? British people, and therefore Australians.

I've also finally made it to the Asian grocery store in Bendigo. I was so happy to find Aloe juice and 沙茶酱 (Chinese satay sauce). I made Ma Po Tofu that evening and it actually turned out surprisingly tasty!

Yummy!

Meet Audrey

It's Easter Holiday, which is also mid-semester break. Students get one week off from classes, and the University is closed for Good Friday, and also the following Monday and Tuesday.

Turns out basically EVERYTHING was closed for Good Friday - including the grocery store...

Luckily, I have a small fuzzy warm monster to keep me busy the next couple days. This is Audrey, Pauleen's 4 month old Lagotto puppy who has come to stay with me and learn about life off of the farm. It's been a lot of fun having a puppy around - I forgot about all the crazy mischief puppies get into! Today, I went downtown to the pet store (which was luckily open for 4 hours this weekend) and picked up some rope toys and rawhide chews for poor Audrey who is teething and needs toys other than her stuffies.

So far, she's been rolling around on the ground chewing on her rawhide for over an hour. She seems happy, and I don't have to be upset at her for wanting to chew on the walls or bed frame!

I survived!

The last two days have been crazy, busy, and tiring -- but I came home to two great things!

Sage! Unfortunately my phone camera is
too slow for good pictures.

Yesterday morning, I left home around 6am for an Animal Ethics training day in Melbourne. The training program ended at 1pm, and Jess, Nick, and I went to Jess's house to discuss our current project and the next steps we need to take to keep on track.

I got to meet Jess's new bird, Sage, and her two foster baby ringtail possums - who were absolutely adorable.

This morning, I had a meeting with someone from the service dog training group to figure out what I need to do in order to get trained up as a puppy raiser. Certain some fun things to come from this!

I had tutes in Bundoora again today. It's always interesting to see how different classes can have such different opinions - maybe just because certain ideas get brought up first. I really enjoy challenging their thoughts, even though they might think I'm a little nuts. One of the hardest things with the tutes is getting my second class (from 3-5pm) to keep participating through the entire class time. It's the end of the day and we're presenting such thought-provoking things and asking them to discuss when people are having a hard time just keeping their brains turned on, let alone critically think. I want to say that's why my first tute is so much more enjoyable - but I had a little chat with my second class today and hopefully next time is better.

It's 3 weeks until I need to be down in Bundoora for tutes again, next time only for a single day so it should be less tiring. My two hour drive home this evening resulted in good things though. Got home and found that my American snacks had arrived, and I've received my first scholarship payment from the university!

Tada!

Things are looking good - and we have a long weekend coming up. It's Easter weekend so we get Friday - Tuesday as university holidays. I'll probably go hang out at Pauleen's for at least a couple days and do some training/play with her dogs... should be fun!