Westmead

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore: needing your ticket to get OUT of the train station.

A while ago Aaron asked me what was the scariest thing about being in a new country so far away from home. I couldn't come up with an answer. I came up with one yesterday. My Cells and Development course includes four weeks of classes at Westmead Campus, which consists of the Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI), the Children's Hospital, and the regular hospital. Prior to starting classes, I did not know that there was a Sydney suburb called Westmead, let alone that I would have to find my way there for classes. So my official scariest thing about being here is: having to take the train to a place you only know by name and general direction, taking it all by yourself, and having to find your class on time. I skipped my morning lecture Wednesday morning, knowing there was no way I'd be able to get to Westmead in under an hour on my first try, at least not without completely stressing myself out. I got on the bus to the city and realised that I really didn't know what street the bus would take once it got to the city (normally we don't care because it doesn't matter) or what stop I would have to get off at. Fortunately I had left about 40 minutes earlier than the trip planner website said I would have to. So I didn't panic because I knew I could walk to Central as long as I got off a stop I recognised. Then I thought for a minute and noticed that I was in the midst of the end of the morning rush. I spotted the Sydney Central YHA and then got off at the stop when a large number of other commuters did. I followed the crowd towards a building that resembled a train station. Amazingly, I found myself in Central Station. I bought my ticket. I moved out of the way so as not to hold up the queue. I looked at my ticket. There was no platform number. There were lots of signs and TV screens with schedules. Too many of them. I walked up to Information, showed my ticket and asked where to go. Found the platform with zero problem. Stood nervously waiting for the train, staring at the TV that scrolled through the stops, reconfirming again and again that the next train would stop at Westmead. Got on the train. Had no idea how far I had to go. I knew roughly how long it would take thanks the the online trip planner, I knew how many times the train would stop. But that's not the same as being able to sense where you are. And the train passes a lot more stations than it stops at. And it was slowly but surely emptying while I sat waiting for Westmead. But the station did come, I got off the train, followed the "Way Out" signs, had to stop and dig out my ticket to get through the exit turnstile, and easily followed the signs to the CMRI. I arrived quite early (but not first). The funniest thing is, it was on the way home again that I managed to get myself onto the wrong bus.

I'm going to know my Cells and Development classmates very well by the end of this semester. It's a 12 credit course when 24 credits is a full course load. Which means I have basically have class for two days straight, with lunch breaks of course. And with the Westmead portion, we're completely isolated from the rest of the Uni. And, this week at least, we were given quite a few short breaks, where all you can do is just hang around and chat because there's no time to go anywhere else. I had a laugh when one of the girls brought up her trip to Banff to go boarding over Christmas and another girl (I'll remember names eventually) went "ooh, so you guys might see each other?" and I had to explain that would be like me visiting Perth and expecting to run into her. To be fair, she did understand that Canada is very big and was more questioning the relative locations of Banff and Toronto than actually saying we could see each other.

I bought a Starbucks coffee today. Only because I'd had to get up at 6:30am, had almost fallen asleep during the lecture, and couldn't make it anywhere else in the ten minute break. The lecture ended, I looked at the boarding girl, knowing she's addicted to coffee, and asked "anybody want to run out for a coffee?" She was out of her seat before I even finished the question. At least Starbucks has brewed coffee. They also had free caramel flavour shots today. So I ordered the brewed coffee with a caramel shot, being used to the various flavoured blends at Pages and William's and knowing that William's flavours their coffee with the same flavour syrup as their espressos. Didn't seem like a strange thing to me. It did to the girl who got the coffee. Her comment when she handed it to me was "hmm, that should be really interesting with the caramel". The girl from my class held her grande latte and stared astonished at my cup of black coffee with no room for milk. And she calls herself a coffee adict. (Note: the coffee was quite good. Didn't taste at all like Starbucks.)

Mouse embryos are cool. We were given a bunch that had been cultured overnight, both 9.5 and 10.5 dpc (days post coitum). Tore off the decidua, convinced I was going to impale the embryo. Stared through the microscope at the amnion and caught a glimpse of a tiny heartbeat. Very, very carefully tore off the amnion. Stared at a tiny little developing mouse, complete with beating heart. Laughed along with everyone else when someone yelled out "AAH! I just tore off it's tail! Wait, the heart's still beating..." or "AAH! I stabbed it... the heart's not beating anymore." I'd like to point out that embryos generally don't survive in culture more than 24 hrs, these ones had been in culture for about 23 hours, and early embryos have absolutely no ability to feel pain. So we really weren't all as unfeeling and morbid as it might sound.