The Easter Bilby

Happy Easter!

Cadbury chocolate Easter Bilby
(source: Woolworths)

While in Australia, you come across some peculiar animals that exist nowhere else in the world. There is a whole species of marsupials (mammals with a pouch), that are indigenous to the country. One of the lesser known ones is the Greater Bilby, a small rabbit/mouse-like mammal that lives predominantly in central Australia. These poor buggers are on the verge of extinction. The main reasons for the decline in bilby population are habitat loss, competition from feral rabbits and deaths to non-native predators such as cats and foxes, particularily when bilbies range further from their homes during bushfire events.

The Greater Bilby - Macrotis lagotis (photo: Queensland
Department of Environment and Heritage)

Popularized through the story Billy The Aussie Easter Bilby that was written by an Australian woman when she was 9 years old, the Easter Bilby became an icon and sparked several bilby campaigns. For example, in an attempt to raise public awareness to their endangered state chocolate easter bilbies were sold instead of regular easter bunnies (see image). Unfortunately, they are hardly sold anymore. However, there are breeding programs in place and maybe one day the bilby will make a glorious return to the stage of Australian wildlife. In that sense, happy bilby easter everybody!

Catch y'all later!

Jan

A comeback?

Greetings dear reader

Long time no see! It has been nearly 9 months since my last post and the blog (and possibly the people reading it) felt quite a bit abandoned. However, with a week of my field work in Western Australia behind me I feel like this would be a good moment to pick things up again. You can look forward to somewhat of a travel account with a few bits of geology thrown in (yaaay, right?).

Also, I'd like to mention the reboot of my personal web page. I finally got around to uploading a few pictures here and there as well. Feel free to check them out if you don't mind the sight of rocky landscapes too much. ;) That's it for now, this is more of a quick notice rather than an actual blog entry, so (hopefully) see you back here soon!

Jan

P.S. I felt like changing the blog layout as well to match the winterly spirit of the season (although somewhat exaggerated for a city that hasn't seen actual snow in about 20 years).

Meeting the Twelve Apostels - Victorian style

G'day folks!

Once again I'd like to share a few pictures with you, this time around from the Great Ocean Road (GOR). The GOR is an over 200km long coast strip situated west of Melbourne, which has been listed as an Australian National Heritage. Many interesting rock formations adorn this continent border, including a group of limestone stacks known as The Twelve Apostels. These rocks were not always so popular amongst sightseers because they were originally known as Sow and Piglets. Soon after being renamed with a much more myth-enshrouded name involving the disciples of a certain god's son popularity of the sight grew drastically. Nowadays the twelve apostels represent one of the geological highlights of the state.

There is an interesting story about a three tourists who once were walking across a natural bridge which existed between two of these apostels. As luck would have it, just as the group crossed the bridge to the outlying limestone formation the bridge collapsed behind them leaving the tourists trapped. A driver who was passing by the place called for help. The only way to save the isolated married couple and the single man was to evacuate them via helicopter. The nearest available gyroplane belonged to a TV news crew who did not want this opportunity of action news slip by. So when they picked up the three stranded tourists naturally they wanted to interview them. Oddly enough the people behaved very camera shy and reluctant to allow interviews. The reason for this was revealed later. As it turned out, none of them were supposed to be out there that day. The single man was supposed to be at work but had taken the day off being reported as sick. As for the couple, although married, they were not married with each other. Naturally national publicity was the least thing these three people had hoped for that fateful day. Talk about karma!

Catch y'all later!

Jan

Snow in August!

Greetings dear reader,

first off I'd like to apologize for the blatant lack of new entries, but on the bright side I've got a couple of things saved up to share with you guys (this being the first).
As you most assuredly are well aware, it is currently winter in Australia and now and then snow falls in higher altitudes within the state of Victoria. So as a birthday treat I allowed myself a tobogganing trip to Lake Mountain, a small skiing resort close to Melbourne. The resort is situated near Marysvville, a small town which was badly hurt during the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009. Only one building, the bakery (picture) survived the flames.
The trip was university-organized, and there were about 30 fellow international students (and one family with child) indulging in the sledding. Unfortunately there was no fresh snow, so most of the sliding happened on icy remnants of artificial snowmaking, but it was a joyous experience none the less. The sleighs are not your typical wood-made christmas-type childhood sleighs (which were very popular when I was a kid), but instead more like flat plastic slide boards.

Although tobogganing is fun, it does not quite capture the same thrill of actual skiing which is why I might return next winter for some proper downhill activity (provided I saved enough money to afford the ridiculously high lift pass prices). That's it for now folks, catch you later!

Cheers
Jan

Melbourne shaken, not stirred

A few hours ago, just before 9pm an earthquake with a Body-Wave (mb) magnitude of 5.3 occurred ca. 120km ESE of Melbourne. According to the webpage of the Sydney Morning Herald the biggest quake in a century rocks Victoria.
Here the data as being released by the GEOFON Program GFZ Potsdam:

Region:	Near SE Coast of Australia
Time:	2012-06-19 10:53:30.2 UTC
Magnitude:	5.3 (mb)
Epicenter:	146.20°E 38.26°S
Depth:	10 km
Status:	M - manually revised

After the initial uneasiness, we soon realized that all was fine and no real damage had been done, but it was an interesting experience to say the least. Alright, enough action for the night, time to go sleeping.

See ya (hopefully)!

God save the ... holidays!

G'day everyone! Although technically the Queen of England's date of birth is on April 26, every second Monday in June each year within Australia (except for Western Australia and Queensland)has celebrated as a holiday in compliment to her majestys' birthday since 1788 (and for 111 years of independence). Furthermore this year Qu. Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee as monarch just one week before June 11th.

Fortunately this year's long June weekend had some really nice weather on Monday, which is a rare sight during winter in Melbourne (generally a very cloudy sky). The result — pictures:

Top left to bottom right: (1) Swanston Street in Melbourne Central with tram (usually loaded with people during rush hour), (2) Yarra river (viewing westward), (3) Part of Melbourne Skyline (looking NE), (4) St. Pauls Cathedral, (5) Flinders Street (train) Station, (6) State library of Victoria.

In other news the first poll is done and seeing as there is a general desire for a'couple more infos, I'll try my best posting some more in the near future. Hope you're all well. Have an awesome weekend!
Cheers
Jan

How would you make Melbourne a better place?

Found this on an internet forum the other day, and just had to share it:

(source:  www.reddit.com/r/funny)

Mozart meets Jazz

Hi Y'all,

Iwaki Auditorium in Melbourne
(source: http://www.whitehat.com.au)

The Melbourne Iwaki Auditorium, named after a former Japanese conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, holds a free concert every other weekend which is broadcasted live on ABC Melbourne on the radio.

Joe and Zoe performing at Iwaki Auditorium
(source: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/)

Last week pianist Joe Chindamo and violinist Zoe Black performed a few Jazzy arrangements of classic pieces such as J.S.Bach's Air on G string. It was a lovely performance, and if you want to check it out just click the link here and it will send you to the episode on ABC's website.

You might have noticed a few changes on the right hand side of the blog - amongst other things I now have added a poll! This seemed to be an applicable way to get some feedback from you (my dear readers), as your imput matters to me. If you have specific requests or want to talk something away you can always leave a comment below every entry.

Have a good Geek Pride Day!
Jan

Come by, say hi

Greetings everyone,

just wanted to give a quick update on my new home in Melbourne. It is a two-floor house fairly close to campus (about 30mins via public transport, which in Melbourne terms is close) in the district of Kensington. I live there with two befriending Chinese people: one of them working, the second one studying as an accountant at RMIT university (the other university in Melbourne).

The Pictures above show (top left to bottom right): (1) Apartment from outside, (2) my room, (3) the living room, (4) the kitchen, (5) the garden behind the house, (6) the owners' chicken. I'll introduce my roommates another time. Have a good Sunday!,

Cheers
Jan

Earth Day 2012!

Hello everyone,

it is Earth Day once again (also known as International Mother Earth Day since 2009), making it the 42nd anniversary of increasing environmental awareness around the world.
I'd like to share this link with you showing an Earth Day entry on The Big Picture, the photo blog of The Boston Globe. Enjoy!

-Jan

And in todays episode of "Fun with Flags" ...

... we have the Melbourne city flag!

Melbourne, nowadays the capital of the state of Victoria, Australia was established in 1835 by John Batman (yes Batman, an identically named suburb still exists today).

Four images representing the main activities of mid19th century Melbourne grouped around the red Saint Goerge cross (a Christian martyr and patron of England). The Cross contains a red-golden crown symbolising the city's monarchal affiliation to the English royal dynasty.
The four images (starting from the top left and proceeding clockwise) are a fleece hanging from a ring (wool shearing), a bull (livestock breeding), a three mast-ship (shipping) and a whale (if you hadn't already guessed, it is whaling). The flag reoccurs within the city's coat of arms. Until next Time!

Cheers
Jan

See you later Aligator!

G'Day to all of you!

So the day of departure finally arrived last Friday, and thus my ~30 hours journey to the Southern Hemisphere began. Almost 12h of flight to the city-state Singapur, a 4h break at Airport, 7 more hours to Sydney, where every outsider (and locals alike) needs to pass thorough quarantine checks until allowed to proceed his or her jouney, 4 more hours of wait before the final flight to Melboune (short hop of 2h). When travelling to Australia its best not to bring anything organic beside yourself, otherwhise fines can be charged up to AUD $1000 and in severe cases you might be put into jail. So it is probably for the best to leave those muddy shoes and the original Rembrandt with the fancy wooden picture frame at home (foreign wood worms are considered a threat to the Australian ecosystem).

Although well into the fall season, to be greeted by 25 degrees Celsius and sunshine in Mid March is not too uncommon in Melbourne. Too bad I literally fell straight into bed as soon as arriving at the hostel, but no need to hurry, as Melbourne can be found on the same latitude as Santa Cruz County (California). Anyhow, as this small blog entry concludes, I'd like to my best wishes to all of you, especially to the ones I hadn't had the chance to see off in person. Take care and hopefully you'll stick around, as there are more entries on their way. Cheers!

-Jan

Era of the kangaroos

Welcome back everyone!

It's been quite some time since I last blogged here. But the radio silence is about to end, as I will be travelling to the Australian continent in the foreseeable future. More infos will follow soon, so stay tuned! :D

-Jan

Returning home

Greetings everyone,

the time of departure has arrived, and I am very sad to say that on my last day in New York I lost my cellphone including ALL the pictures from my east-coast trip and the goodbye-pictures taken at Chapel Hill. :/
Well, it's not the end of the world, I will treasure the memories but unfortunately can't share them with you.

See you in Jena!

-Jan

Touring along the east coast

Hi guys,
guess what, the internship is DONE! Report is condluded, work is done, so I packed my stuff and on the 30th of June Herbert and I started our epic road trip to Washington D.C. Unfortunately I don't have pictures transferred on my computer yet, (please be lenient with me) so I'll just add some random internet images. We arrived late afternoon to be greeted by one of my old indian friends, Akshay, who was so kind as to let us stay at his place for two nights. Next day we pretty much did the tourist-tour rushing through all the marvellous sights DC has to offer, as we would leave already the next day. So we visited the Obama's residence (White House), the capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial (picture), and several museums of the Smithsonian institution. I strongly recommend checking them out if you get the chance, especially the one for natural history!
On Thursday we headed out to Philadelphia and were greeted by very narrow streets and insanely expensive parking costs ($7.5 for 30 minutes!). The Indipendence Hall and the Independence Bell are the main attractions within the old city, the rest we spared ourselfes.
On Friday it was time to say good bye to my roommate to continue on to Boston, Massachusets, where I am right now. It's independence day and i reckon a lot will be happing today in this city. So I'll end here and might leave a post once I get to New York.

-Jan

Only two weeks remaining ...

... and I will be leaving Chapel Hill. Can't believe I already stayed here for three months already, unbelievable how time flies! I finally handed in my first draft for the scientific report, and will be doing some more lab work while waiting for the editing remarks.
So World Cup started and most people follow the games, although not showing as much enthusiasm as compared to Germany (guess that's to be expected).
Anyway, hope both teams (GER & USA) do well in tomorrow's games. Go German 11!

-Jan

P.S.: What you are seeing on the upper right corner is a cathode luminescence image of a zircon grain from one of the samples I work on. Ain't it nice zonation?

1st glide

Heya!

just a quick supplement to the Outer Banks trip. Enjoy. ;)

-Jan

P.S.: World Cup 2010 finally started, yay!

Of Montreal in town

Hello people,

This week I went to an alternative band concert in a club called Cat's Craddle, which is famous in North Carolina for hosting indipendent rock concerts (only alternative would be in Raleigh, capital city of NC). So that day it was Of Montreal who were performing, and man they did perform! It wasn't just music, they had some stage acts as well while playing music! For those of you who are not afraid of new styles of music this is definately something to look into, although I must admit hearing them life is about 1 thousand times better than on youtube or likewise. ;)
Anyway Of Montreal is kind of an dadaistic Indie-Popband form Athens (Georgia). They've been performing since 1997 and perform in this area almost once every year. After the show we even got the chance to talk to a few band members (and some fans, who like to dress up just like the band does).

Alright, I'll see you guys later!

-Jan

The dream of flying ...

Imagine ...

you are tugged into a triangular shaped piece of nylon and aluminum, you grab two handles attached to the sides of your co-pilot and lift off from the earth's surface, dragged by a small airplane. You shoot up 2000 feet (about 700m) into the blue sky, and then ... the string between you and the airplane is cut and you start to drift gently in the air ... it's an overwhelming feeling of joy. But let me start this story a day before.

Last weekend it was finally time for Herbert and me to go to the Outer Banks, which is a group of small islands in front of North Carolina's Atlantic coast. We got there and were greeted by sunshine. First we went to the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the birthplace of human's flight history. It was this very area in 1902 and 1903 were Wilbur and Orville Wright successfully tested their air vehicle, managing to both lift off and to land a motorized aircraft for the first time.

We stayed at a campground overnight, enjoying the beach, playing some basketball (i got my ass kicked big time!) and watched the stars at night. The next day it was finally time for us to raise inthe the air just like the Wright Brothers 100 years ago, only slighty different: HANG GLIDING! So we went up the coastline to catch the tandem flights (see intro).
It was most enjoyable. Definately someting that you should try out when you get the chance to. Next, we headed south to arrive on time for the beginners lessons at the sand dunes, just like the Wright Brothers did (one of the reasons they chose the Outer Banks was because falling on soft sand does not hurt much ;D). Time flew and before we knew we it we were back on the road towards Chapel Hill.
What an amazing weekend. But now a lot of writing needs to be done as the deadline is drawing frightingly close.

Anyways that's it and I hope to hear form you guys soon! (Enjoy the weekend, seems Jena's finally fortunate to experience some decent days of mild temperatures.)

-Jan