Day One

Things you want to know:

- The woman whose desk is next to mine studies kangaroo fertility - or more correctly, she studies kangaroo birth control. I kid you not; her dissertation involves dosing roos with hormones that are identical to the pill.

- My supervisor apologized for my office, which contains brand spanking new desks, a huge window, and my own file cabinet. He started to apologize for the desk chairs - which were not designed for use in the bowels of a dreary office building housing an underfunded government department in the 50's, do not come with wires to poke me in the bum, and do not list dangerously to port - but I cut him off. My office used to be in a trailer, I explained - a trailer that during one particular deluge, started to float. I kid you not.

- I remembered to wear pants.


Things you don't want to know:

- The basement houses a room of aquaria full of venomous marine creatures. Occasionally, the marine tech walks in to find undergrad's from other departments wandering around looking at the tanks. When he asks them what they're doing they usually say something like, "We heard this room was here, man, and we heard it was really cool." He's asked for locks to be installed on the door because there's only one thing worse than finding random students wandering through your lab: finding random students passed out in your lab.

- The same marine tech told me about a student taken by a shark a couple of years ago while at his dive safety stop. There was also a student who lost a leg. (I should not be blogging about this - the family is going to freak.) Both occurred in South Australia, and the leg loss occurred after the divers were spear fishing near a seal colony. I will not be diving in SA, nor will I be spear fishing near a seal colony - or really doing anything in the water near a seal colony. And I have already promised my husband that I will not let myself get taken by a shark.

- I remembered to wear pants.