Last week, to my great delight, they reappeared surrounded by a fluffy gaggle of five fuzzy silver cignets. So cute!!
When the weather is cooperative, I get off the bus a few stops early and wander through the park. There is almost always some old chinese person doing tai chi on the water's edge. Nice place for it. Then I walk across campus, past the stately old buildings adorned with an amazing array of gargoyles and carved faces of various animals, both real and mythical (I know there is a name for those faces, but I cannot recall it - a little help...mom?). Pictured below is The Great Hall. It has classrooms with names like "Latin 1" surrounding a giant grassy interior courtyard. The classes are still used, and though they have been outfitted with modern lights and computer projectors, the seats seem to be original equipment. It also has a museum with mummies in it.
One of my favorite places on campus is called Grafitti Tunnel. By some reciprocal agreement, the university has donated this walkway to the expressive whims of the modern spray can artiste. In exchange, the rest of the campus remains free from blight. The tunnel is a constantly changing montage of art, political campaigns, and random thoughts. It is absolutely different every single day.
Then I get to the Blackburn Building. I walk past the huge dead cockroach that has been in front of my boss's office for four weeks and enter my cheery lab, gaze across the shadowy courtyard at the cracked walls and peeling paint, and think about those cute little baby swans, and I feel nothing but gratitude...and hunger, always that...
7 comments:
In the picture of your dreary lab space there is a small noteboard on which you have written "Please" in red. Could you share with your fanbase your lab requests?(Like ... no cockroach races over my clean lab bench ... or ... keep your greasy hands off my pipetmen.) The funk is it's own reward.
Great pictures and post! Do you walk through Graffiti Tunnel? Although interesting to look at, graffiti evokes some sort of mild anxiety in me. And I am glad to see they sell Windex in Oz...seriously!
Yes, I do walk through the tunnel frequently, and only experience anxiety when there are people in there creating their art...or maybe I'm just getting a buzz from the fumes.
There isn't enough Windex in Oz to clean my filthy lab windows.
The noteboard in question features the 'rules' of the lab with admonitions such as *fill your tip boxes *remove dirty glassware *report low stocks (to whom, I am not sure...certainly not to me, I still can't make a buffer to save my life!) *autoclave as needed *keep the lab tidy, etc...
I would like to clarify in no uncertain terms, that I am NOT the author of said noteboard, nor of any of the other 10+ notes pasted throughout the lab featuring somewhat passive/agressive whinges about the proper use of various peices of equipment. While I appreciate the need for rules and order in a shared lab space, especially one frequently inhabited by a particularly absent-minded graduate student, I find such notes irritating. I am aware that I have left such notes in the past, and in fact was forced to resort to some creative bin labeling in order to secure the proper sorting of chemical and biological wastes. However, the tenor of most of the notes has caused me to rethink the value of such an exercise and has reinforced my direct approach in confronting ineptitude and unthoughtfulness.
That said, I will take this opportunity to comment that Australians in general are rather passive aggressive. They complain bitterly about various social injustices and breaches of etiquette, but rarely speak out to the involved parties. I daresay that part of the attraction in hiring me was the quality of my disposition, for better or worse, that permits me to say just about anything to anyone without regard for rank or perceived status.
And lastly, I should note that the bench space in question is, at times, shared by no less than 8 people - with only two complete sets of pipetman, and shabby ones at that. However, after a through search of cramped dusty drawers and moldy boxes, I found an old Rainin P-1000 and a P-20 bearing the inscription "MAC". I keep them hidden away for my own secret enjoyment and stroke them while whispering soothing sentiments of gratitude. Yes, the funk IS its own reward...and this morning, I got jam in my knees...
Gargoyles, whatever there shape, are waterspouts.
Grotesques are the fanciful faces on figures that sit atop buildings and are not waterspouts.
Is this what you were thinking?
Mommalinda
Thanks, mom.
Yes, "grotesques" is the word I was looking for, though now I am not sure if that describes these features, as most of them are quite lovely.
The Old Adelaide Gaol had some wonderful grotesques - twisted, tortured faces - very cool.
Can i get you to send me a higher res image of the tunnel?
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