..... and he's off...

It has finally come to that time where I depart on a great journey of personal and scientific study. On Sunday my travels begin with 30 hours of goodtimes en route to London, to see my wonderful sister, her super husband, my great great-aunt and many other friends, relations and other happy acquaintances.

I am out of Aotearoa for 7 weeks. London - New York - Grenada - Barbados - New York - Toronto - San Diego - home.

I'm sure I'll have plenty to review. Catch you all on the flipside.

The poster to the left is a summary of what my PhD is on, have a gander if you wish :)

Drinks with the Wizard

Free booze with the wizard of Christchurch, his sociologist professor sister and her husband the neuroscientist. An interesting night on the town.

What the kind of drugs you are addicted to says about who you are....

It could be a segment on Oprah, it really could. Today's talk, which followed a disapointingly undercatered free lunch, was a presentation on the impact on the structure of the "self" in the treatment of patients with addictions. Your self can be over or under-stimulated; fragmented or over-burdened. Alcohol seems to go well with all of these as the universal intoxicant but weed seems to go with fragmentation, stimulents with under-stimulation and benzos with over-burden. I learn all sorts of things everyday.

Fast times in speedos....

Today's free lunch was good as per usual, with my particular favourite, the chicken club sandwitch with avocardo and cream cheese.... mmmmm. The talk was on social psychiatry and I sat reading papers and generally tuning out after starting a PCR run at 7:30am.

Far more interesting than work was the first underwater hockey tournament of the year. The regional champs was hosted my favourite city, wonderful Wellington. I had the pleasure of playing with an all new Canterbury lineup. Who after playing together for the first time three days prior to the competition were magnificent and able to cause an upset win over Wellington B. As per usual, drunkeness ensued, but everyone made it home safely and reasonable unscathed. Big ups to the bouncers at "the establishment" and to all the 38 year olds out there.

Well done to Mark for getting the MVP prize for the tournament. A true champion.

It was sweet catching up with all the Wellington buddies, Andy (loving your moves on the D-floor), Dave (keep gardening), Boyd (hope the pancreas survives), Rich (Yay! no more bagels), Poss (always a pleasure being squeezed into tight spaces) and G-dawg (see you in Grenada)

HOT!

In the words of my monosyllabic flatmate Fi (even her name has one syllable) Christchurch is HOT! Out the window of my office I can see the leaves on the oaks lose their turgor and I can feel the radiation off the Oxford terrace tarmac.

The only place its not hot is the air-conditioned lab where it is a blissful 22 degrees. But there my PCRs fail *sigh*, so back to the office to write and stew.

Today's free lunch was nice... very nice. With a new improved bacon and egg pie, pineapple was included for a summery difference. Coffee could be improved, lovely powdered instant as per usual but hey its free.

Presentation was about the development of a memory clinic at Princes Margret Hospital. They follow up everyone with a diagnosis of "mild cognitive impairment" (that lovely intermediate between Age Associate Cognitive Decline, which is normal, and Alzheimer's disease, which is nasty).

In other news, I now live in a barn with five other farm animals, Mark, Fi, Tris, Jane and for the moment the irascible Doug. I imagine its going to be a year of awesomness and excellence judging by how its been going.

Arun the TV star

Wow.... My first friend to appear on French television.

http://wideo.nouvellestar.fr/video/iLyROoaftVbb.html

Arun you are a wonderful patriot.

Back on top

Well are now into March 2007 and all will wondering (or not) where all the free lunches went. The reviewing feel into dissarray with my motivation which is now back with avengence.

Two free lunches were reviewed this week: both controversial, both intense and both presented by excellent experienced speakers.

Tuesday: What is more controversal or disturbing than the treatment programmes for convicted sexual offenders against children/adolescents. I'm not too sure, perhaps Friday's seminar presented by Prof Arthur B Lafrance (a constitutional lawyer by trade) on the physician assisted death statute in Oregon, USA. Currently the only jurisdiction in the world to have such a law (now before you shout "what about the Netherlands?!?", they have an agreement that Doctors who perform euthanasia (taking an active part in the killing) will not be prosecuted for homicide).

What occurs in Oregon is that if someone has 6 months to live, and has been an Oregon resident for over a year, they can request a prescription for a barbiturate overdose that they adminster orally themselves. I'm not sure what my opinion is on this yet. But that was todays talk. All the details, stats etc are here.

Today I found out where the Canterbury DHB free lunch comes from... Medirest, is a wholly owned subsidiary of compass the compass group, a FTSE100 listed company that brings in 11 billion pounds of revenue per annum.... That's alot of club sandwiches and egg containing tortilla wraps.